Explain The Motives For European Imperialism In Africa

European contact with sub-Saharan Africa around the 1500’s was not mutually beneficial because they had different needs. The economic exchanges and political relationships were based off of European’s relations with the Upper class of Africa, however not the majority of Africa. Due to the massive expansion of Europe, they wanted to continue to grow, and the only way to do that was to open trading ports all around the world. In the end, Europe benefited from trading with Africa and they are the ones who ended up

The Industrial Revolution gave a reason to need imperialism. Europe was in need of the resources that Africa had. One way to obtain the resources necessary was to colonize and trade with the Africans living in the continent. For example, in order for Germany to obtain rubber and cotton from Tanganyika, they colonized the country and began trading. This led to the creation of fabrics, waterproof clothes, and tires from these materials.

Before the industrial revolution though Africa was hard to capture and conquer fully, this was due to serval reasons the main reasoning being diseases (conquerors would die from diseases before they could explore far into this content). With the industrial revolution though explorations had better ships to explore up that lead into central Africa, they had better guns to kill Africans with; which made exploration into Africa even easier and soon came the discovery of the cinchona tree that contained quinine that prevented malaria. In time Africa became divided and conquered by serval European nations, which meant that African political power would shift to the nation that conquered them and that the society and people would be treated as slaves to produces a much raw resources for Europeans to sell and make

European countries tried to civilize Africa and succeeded in their movement on trying to imperialize them but only lead the Europeans to making a profit and nothing for the African workers. The only independent African states were Ethiopia and Liberia, the rest was ruled over strong European nations, like Britain and France. European nations ruled over Africa from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s, King Leopold was one of the most notorious rulers over the African estates, Leopold ruled over the Congo free state and was considered to be one of the richest near his death. What motivated European nations to imperializing Africa were, money, resources, and nationalism.     

During the 15th century, the world was caught in the age of exploration. After Columbus, everyone realized that there were still undiscovered land masses that held numerous resources and extreme profit. Due to the fact that the Americas were occupied by Spain and Portugal, much of Europe turned its eyes to Africa. Consequently, Africa was a huge land mass that was just waiting to be explored, especially since Portugal hadn’t gone beyond the outer edge. The reasons for European imperialism in Africa were due to the want for more resources to boost the economy, the advantage of better technology, and a need to establish a position of power.

In the 16th century, European continue to arrive in Africa. Castle was built along the coast of West Africa by seven European nations. The Europeans discovered the wealth in Africa such as plantation and mining. To achieve their goals and to maximize their profits, the Europeans used slave labor. They were unable to use slave labor in Europe so therefore they turned to Africa.

Although the driving force behind European Imperialism in Africa was trading slaves, gold, and ivory through the west coast of Africa and was under full assault as European nations competed for control. The Europeans also agreed to certain principles regarding colonization that which included free trade, elimination of slavery, respect for each others territorial claims, and improving the moral and material well-being of

Europe takes advantage of Africa. The main driving forces behind European Imperialism consisted of three fundamental factors which included Political, Technological, and Economic. The way these three components are involved in the driving force because they all helped shape and push everything together to make more efficient. The first component that helped take over land or “European Imperialism” was Technological power.

Europe needed reassurance that their already strengthened empire would maintain. In the year 1876, Benjamin Disraeli (doc 2) spoke up about the meanings of gaining Africa. His expression and tone about the subject helped lead people to acknowleding that the "purchase" was a political transaction. Because Disraeli would want to appeal to his own house of commons he is naturally going to want to show that he still has confidence of his country but believes expanding their empire is always better than being weak. Supporting the idea that handiling Africa was a political purchase used to extend Europes already demanding Empire.

Imperialism is when a stronger country extends its rule by taking over a weaker country. Between 1500 and 1800 European presence was in africa. There were many reasons why Europeans were in Africa such as religious motivations where christians wanted to spread the religion to the west (Doc 12).Moral reasons Europeans believed they were the most advanced and thought it was their duty to civilize the africans. The europeans felt like they had to improve the Africas “develop for them their territory by the construction of roads, canals, railways, and telegraphs, and by the establishment of schools, newspapers; and to give them the benefit of other blessings of civilization which they have not the facilities for creating”(Analyzing Imperialism).There was also

They also wanted to get the country's natural resources. They wanted to invest in natural resources and markets in Africa and Asia to grow their economy. Another thing they wanted from imperializing Africa and Asia was power. By imperializing them, it greatened their reputation and political standing. They wanted to expand capitalist enterprises and their economy by using Asian and African markets and materials, which could in a way help the market in Africa and Asia.

During the 19th century many European explorers began exploring the interior of Africa. As a result many European countries wanted to colonize Africa. There were many reasons for Europeans wanting to imperialize Africa. Some of the driving forces behind European imperialism were economic, nationalism and White Man’s burden.

Imperialism is the ambition of a powerful nation to dominate the political, economical, and cultural affairs of another nation or region. The idea of imperialism occurred after the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The specific years of imperialism are from 1870-1914. The regions that were affected by imperialism include Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These region were wanted by the imperialist powers of this time, which were: Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

In the 19th century imperialism was an important part of building European empires. The four major motives for imperialism are economic, strategic, religious and political. These motives helped great empires expand their territory and brought new cultures and languages to both the colonised countries and the countries colonising them. European countries such as Britain and France would use their colonies in Africa for economic gain. They would be able to exploit the country’s natural resources and bring them back to the “mother country” to sell and use.

The only thing Europeans loved more than political power was increasing their trade. In the 1800’s European nations had a desire to get a lead to widespread imperialism in Africa. With the end of slavery in 1833, European interest in Africa shifted to seizing colonies. King Leopold of Belgium acquired a private country in Africa that was 95 times bigger than Belgium and his purpose was to make money by taking out ivory and rubber.