The Siezure Of Africa

The Seizure of Africa

The Western Industrial Revolution resulted in a vast breach in power and wealth between industrial (Europe) and non-industrial (Africa and Asia) regions. Between 1750 and 1970, average income in Europe grew to 25 times as great as that in the poorest countries in Africa and Asia. This difference is due to technological and military superiority, climbing economic status, and stronger political power. Europe colonized Africa, exploited their people and resources, and assimilated them to European culture.

Between 1880 and 1914, Western political and military power created a new imperialism. By 1900, European powers had taken over much of Africa while asserting direct control over parts of Asia. The root causes of the new imperialism were due to economic competition among European states and their desire to expand their territories, therefore increasing their absolute power. Social Darwinist theories, as well as ideas of exporting civilization, encouraged Western nations to force their culture on others. Conservative leaders used imperialism as a way to divert attention from domestic political struggles. Some Europeans attacked imperialism concerning it with loose capitalism and disapproving it as consumption in resources needed at home. Colonized peoples usually reacted to imperial incursions through either traditionalist attacks on the colonizers or modernist accommodation to Western ways.

European industrialization and imperialism placed severe pressure on the Islamic world. Muslims generally tolerated Christian and Jewish people in their midst, but imperialism provoked fears for their cultural survival. Ottoman power began to decline in the later eighteenth century as the empire lost Serbia, Greece, and parts of North Africa. France conquered Algeria, and internal struggle left the Ottoman government weak. The Central Powers preferred a weak and dependent Ottoman state in order to force European culture more easily into Islamic life.

In Egypt, General Muhammad Ali and his grandson Ismail worked to build a powerful, modern, and independent Egyptian state. Ismail supported the French project to build the Suez Canal (1869), and he rebuilt Cairo with boulevards, apartments, hotels, and an opera house. But some Egyptians opposed modernization and preached Islamic regeneration and defense against Western-Christian aggression. Others taught that Muslims should encourage change and reject Islamic doctrines that limited creativity and openness. Still others argued that equality for Egyptian women was the key to a revitalized Muslim society. Egypt changed rapidly but, as a result, fell deeply into debt. In 1882, Egypt faced bankruptcy. Ostensibly to protect European banks Britain and France took over Egypt. Direct British political control followed and continued until 1956. Egyptians reacted by establishing the Egyptian Nationalist Party. This British model of direct rule set the norm for European imperialism from the 1880s to 1914.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the forced migration of millions of Africans into slavery grew by 1750, but then declined rapidly between 1800 and 1860. The campaign to abolish slavery began in Britain in 1775 with mass political protest. Parliament declared the slave trade illegal in 1807 and pressured other nations to do the same. The United States prohibited the import of slaves in 1808. In West Africa, the end of the slave trade encouraged the commercial cultivation of tropical crops such as palm oil. In East Africa, powerful