Imperialism means one country establishing an empire by conquering other countries, enslaving the inhabitants, and making them pay tribute to the ruling country. Various nations competed to acquire the best land and control the African people, whom they viewed as inferior. Europe is widely known to have dominated most of the entire world, mainly Africa, and established empires throughout the continent. The Europeans then converted the people they were dominating to Christianity, because they thought that the Africans were uncivilized and weren’t rectangle any religion or values.
The pros and cons of Imperialism affected the Africans’ social, religious, and political lives from the 16th to 18th centuries. As the Africans were vulnerable in such ways that they didn’t know how to fight back, other regions, primarily Europe, dominated them and took complete control over them. Africans unexplored lands offered plenty of raw goods for European factories and prompted expansion Into central Africans coal and gold mines. This was another reason why Imperialism spread throughout Africa.
The Africans had never seen white people like the Europeans before, so they treated them with respect. In return, the Europeans treated them harshly and enslaved them. This affected the Africans negatively because the Europeans thought that they were barbaric when the Africans in fact were very civilized and cultured. They had strong family bonds, which were untied as other regions took control over them and set them apart form their families. When any of the Africans didn’t want to convert to Charlatanry, their masters would punish them to death.
However, numerous Africans did convert to Christianity n terror of death. The pressure of their masters was so great that the Africans had to stop planting their staple crops, causing massive starvation throughout the continent. Hundreds of thousands of these Africans were traded with other countries for the need of labor. Plantations were growing large and they needed people to work on those farms. Before Africa had been conquered by others, Africans had not been Introduced to certain items that the people who conquered them were familiar with.
Thus, as people invaded Africa, they introduced new technological innovations and other modesties to the Africans. This shows how imperialism affected Africa in a positive way because they started trading more often with other regions as they were being acquainted with new technology as time passed. The Europeans also thought that the Africans did not have any type of government that they needed to be ruled under. Thus, they introduced different types of government to the Africans and ruled them as they pleased. Imperialism is the cause of the major changes that were brought to Africa between 16th and 18th centuries.
As the Europeans invaded the vulnerable Africans during vilified, they took complete control over them. They controlled Africans rich natural resources, won various converts to Christianity, and traded them throughout the world. Being traded as slaves, the strong familial bonds that these Africans had were disentangled and thousands of them suffered. At the same time, the Europeans brought new technological innovations to Africa, and also introduced new types of governments to the Africans. Thus, the Africans were affected both negatively and positively by imperialism and the dominance of Europe.