William Kvebak: The European Conquest Of Africa

Isabella Draack

Hour 2

World History

William Kvebak

The Conquest Of Africa As the world came upon the start of a new century, more and more powers grew desperate and hungry for land and more control. As more and more people wanted more land, Africa became available.

Between 1450 and 1750 the Europeans traded with Africa. By the 19th century, the Europeans began exploring the lands of Africa, looking at all Africa had to offer. Henry Stanley, a journalist, is one of the people that sparked an interest in Africa. He traveled to Africa and found David Livingstone, who explored Africa thoroughly. The Europeans were motivated by three main factors, economic, political, and social. The Europeans wanted to expand.

The Europeans used the military

During and after the Berlin Conference various European countries sent out agents to sign so-called treaties of protection with the leaders of African societies, states, kingdoms, decentralized societies, and empires. The differential interpretation of these treaties by the contending forces often led to conflict between both parties and eventually to military encounters. For Europeans, these treaties meant that Africans had signed away their sovereignties to European powers; but for Africans, the treaties were merely diplomatic and commercial friendship treaties. After discovering that they had in effect been defrauded and that the European powers now wanted to impose and exercise political authority in their lands, African rulers organized militarily to resist the seizure of their lands and the imposition of colonial

This was the case with the resistance actions of the Ethiopians, the Zulu, the Mandinka leadership, and numerous other centralized states. In the case of Ethiopia, the imperialist intruder was Italy. It confronted a determined and sagacious military leader in the Ethiopian emperor Menelik II. As Italy intensified pressure in the 1890s to impose its rule over Ethiopia, the Ethiopians organized to resist. In the famous battle of Adwa in 1896, one hundred thousand Ethiopian troops confronted the Italians and inflicted a decisive defeat. Thereafter, Ethiopia was able to maintain its independence for much of the colonial period, except for a brief interlude of Italian oversight between 1936 and