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Westernization In Africa Essay

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There are no acceptable number of slaves that were brought out of Africa though considering that “within twenty years period, 320,000 Igbos were sold in Bonny, while another 50,000 were sold at Calabar” (Nwabueze, 1984, p.75), a very huge number people must have been sold to the merchant ships the period which transatlantic slave trade lasted. "Scholars in many primary studies have estimated about ten million West Africans crossed the Atlantic that between 1450 and 18502" (Ume, 1980, p.5), that’s almost the population of Sweden today.
Does it mean that slave trade had no positive impact on the part of the “natives” apart from the widely known fact that some local chiefs and slave traders benefited from the sale of human beings? Arowolo (2010) while quoting (Standage, 2005) argued that "It is significant to note the contribution that Diaspora blacks were later to make to the process of Westernization in Africa, notably through their role in Christian evangelization and …show more content…

These social situations are symptoms of westernization which the Christian Missionaries and their cohorts dragged along with them to the colonies. It is arguable to ignore this opinion of Batten (1954) since it was made at the heat of colonialism but Ferreira (1974) while arguing that colonial education was not intended to really 'educate' the 'natives' by stating that
Educational control had a twofold purpose: first, to direct education in such a way that Africans become 'true Portuguese' and so accept Portuguese rule; secondly, to use education to produce good agricultural workers and craftsmen who would usefully serve the colonial economy (67)
Some of the social situation (ills) which Batten (1954) wanted to exonerate ‘mission education’ were according to Ola

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