Europeans explored and exploited Africa for a variety of reasons. They did this to spread christianity, to civilize the African people, to gain wealth/power and to fulfil the need for slave labor in the New World colonies. Europeans wanted to spread christianity and they did this through the 4 C’s which are christianity, civilization, commerce, and last but not least conquest. The Europeans converted Africans to christians to get rid of paganism. They set up churches, medical clinics, and urge about the end of slave trading. Europeans believed Africans to be paternalistic and by introducing them to christianity they felt this would better them. They exploited Africa for …show more content…
resources like copper, rubber, a faster sea route to India, ivory, gold, and diamonds. In retrospect, they conquered Africa for more land to use for their own benefits.
Some regions of Africa were easier to conquer than others, for number of reasons, such as the region’s geographic location, potential barriers, access to technology, and the presence of diseases.
The closer the region was to Europe the easier it was for Europeans to conquer it. However, there were barriers which made it much more difficult to conquer other regions. These barriers were deserts due to the fact that the climate was hotter, mountains because it made it more difficult to get over them, and some river systems were rapid which also made it harder due to the fast current. Europeans had unlimited access to technology considering that they were much more advanced than Africa which in fact was another reason why it was easier to conquer. Another hurdler Europeans encountered in their quest was the presence of diseases which they were not immune to causing some of the Europeans to
die.
Africans responded normally to the invasion just like anyone else would feel if someone just randomly came and decided to take over your house. Although there were four groups that stood out in particular that we know of. Which were Kongo’s King Affonso, Asante Kingdom, Ethiopia, and Zulus. King Affonso tried to slow down and or attempt to stop the invasion/transatlantic trade through non violence which as you can tell didn’t do much considering that Africa was still conquered by the Europeans. Asante kingdom also reacted without using violence; however, they were smarter about it because unlike the Affonso’s, the Asantes traded with the Europeans. They exchanged slaves and gold for bare arms to become more powerful since they didn’t have access to technology like the Europeans did. Ethiopians also used a non-violence approach to try and stop the slave trade by forming an alliance with the Europeans.
Emperor Menelik II began to modernize the country he did this by importing weapons and European officers to train his army. While the Europeans were there they built roads, bridges, and they even set up a school system which eventually led them to be the only nation besides Liberia to declare their independence.
In conclusion Europeans and Africans had many different interactions with each other. Whether it was through trade, natural resources, getting conquered, and slave trading. Even though Europeans conquered Africa, thousands of years later Africa split into many different countries and became independent. Still till today Africa has many natural resources, last week they found the world’s biggest diamonds. Africa had many natural resources that Europeans wanted to themselves and the only solution they came up with was to conquer Africa. Which is why the biggest diamond found in AFRICA made it to the Guinness world record book.