African Colonization

Colonization Disrupts Africa In the 19th century, Europe’s industrialized nations became interested in Africa’s natural resources Many European nations wanted to colonize and control parts of Africa to obtain these resources

Berlin Conference To prevent European wars over Africa, 14 European nations organized the Berlin Conference in to lay down rules for dividing Africa. No African ruler was invited to attend this conference, even though it concerned Africa’s land and people. At the conference, the nations decided that any European country could claim land in Africa by telling other nations of their claims.

Africa Divided By 1914, only Liberia and Ethiopia remained free of European control. The European nations divided Africa without regard to where ethnic or linguistic groups lived. They set boundaries that separated families and communities, and often brought enemies into close contact with one another. Europe’s division of Africa is often considered one of the beginning causes of the political violence and ethnic conflicts in Africa today.

The Economic Consequences Africa’s economy is still recovering from the effects of colonialism through: loss of resources disruption of its political systems cultural and ethnic oppression of its people European colonizers left very little money to develop roads, railroads, airports, or a productive education system for the people of those countries.

Challenges of Independence European colonial control of Africa began to end in the early 20th century, but most African countries gained their independence in the 1960’s. When the European colonial powers were forced to leave Africa, the newly independent African countries did not have stable governments in place. For the next 40 years, many of the newly established African nations and their people suffered dictatorships and civil wars.

Challenges of Independence (Cont.) Still today, many groups living in the same country because of colonization are historical enemies. For example: The Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups in present-day Rwanda and Burundi. In the early 1990’s, the ethnic violence between these two groups resulted in a war that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people Because of the way these colonial borders were drawn, many African governments had difficulty getting different ethnic groups to cooperate in building stable democracies.