European Imperialism In Africa

The concept of European Imperialism became an old idea when economic ventures became of higher importance rather than mere political conquests. European possessions of Africa had been happening since the 16th century—mainly connected with slave trading—but most of these were small areas along the coast near trading ports. When New Imperialism arose however, Europe decided to devise a new course of action. The Berlin Conference was created and it was essentially guidelines for colonization of not just Africa's coast but of the interior as well. This was all characterized by the “glory of conquest”, the need for raw materials, and the need of areas for investments of capital. Europe encouraged rapid competition among their nations to possess as much of the world map as possible. A method was adopted that would divide land “in proportion to ‘capital,’ in proportion to ‘strength,’” (Imperialist Partition of Africa –Walter Rodney). This was used only as a way to gain profit. Many nations competed for bragging rights in the sense that they would soon have the largest country. Great Britain is an obvious testament to this, the second largest being France. Because these nations believed they were stronger than the developing communities in Africa, nothing was to stop them from simply

Africa has an immense supply of raw materials that many countries wanted to take control of. After suffering a long economic depression and trade demonstrating a growing deficit, Great Britain and several other European nations were offered an open market deal with Africa that would result in a surplus of trade, but lead to an unfavorable balance; a market that bought more than it sold. European nations acted on the idea that they needed to manage areas for investing in their capital. A surplus of this was more profitable invested overseas where cheaper labor, abundant raw materials, and little to no competition made it