Annexation Of Africa Dbq Essay

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European nations desperately wanted a claim of the copious amounts of raw materials found in Africa, regardless of the native population that called these lands their home. Many European nations had invaded and conquered parts of Africa in the early nineteenth century. Addressing concerns from many countries, the Berlin Conference was held in 1884-1885 to lay down rules for the annexation of Africa. The verdict of this meeting: if you could control the land that you lay claim to, the other European nations would be forced to recognize it as occupied territory(found in the textbook). The problem with controlling this territory, is that it was being ferociously defended by the native population. The race for African resources had commenced, leaving …show more content…
Some of the conditions that were being forced upon them are depicted in the third document. Many natives were being enslaved and being forced to work on plantations or to mine gold. Europeans believed they were superior and used the natives as equipment for gathering raw material. Europeans believed that they were superior to the blacks in Africa. Arrogantly said in document one, Britain believed in was superior to any nation on Earth, and that the Anglo-Saxon race was superior to all. As a result, Britain and many other Europeans brought blacks back to Europe as slaves. They also used the populations of the territories that were annexed to do menial labor. As a result, in modern day Africa there are many ethnic boundaries and cultural divisions that lead to conflicts. In 1994, a massacre broke out in Rwanda from leftover problems caused by colonialism. Colonialism also affects African economies in the present day. Previously, Europeans had all of the resources gathered and loaded onto ships. These ships took all of the raw material back to Europe. As a result, the infrastructure of these newly sovereign countries are almost non-existent. This prevents the further development of the nations because they cannot export their materials to other

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