The European conquest of Africa (Chapter 18) - A History of Sub ...

The European conquest of Africa (Chapter 18) - A History of Sub ...

Summary

After four hundred years during which Europe had displayed little or no interest in Africa beyond its coastline, suddenly – in the twenty years between 1878 and 1898 – the European states partitioned and conquered virtually the entire continent. To observers in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this sudden conquest was a frantic, often unseemly, and largely unexpected scramble for territory in a continent about which the Europeans knew little and for which most cared nothing. Their sentiments were encapsulated in the famous remark by the English historian John H. Seeley that his generation had conquered half of the world “in a fit of absence of mind.” Today, however, with the advantage of hindsight historians have perceived several fundamental causes and events that combined to upset four hundred years of equilibrium between Africa and Europe and precipitate the European conquest of virtually the entire continent. The Industrial Revolution created demands for new raw materials from Africa, and made Africa an attractive potential market for European manufactured goods. Moreover, the new technologies produced by the Industrial Revolution provided the instruments that upset the long-standing balance of power between Africa and Europe. Imperialism was propelled as well by popular nationalism, which pressed European statesmen into pursuing expansionist policies in the name of imperial defense. Changing terms of trade required European merchants to seek political stability in Africa, where for centuries they had profited...