Issues raised by imperialism in Africa during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Imperialism in Africa; DBQ

The imperialism in Africa has been interpreted in many different ways depending on the point-of-view that one is looking at it from. The result though is apparent that it led to the curving up of vast colonies for the European world from the Africa and Asian continents. Below are the impacts that imperialism brought and the varying views that were expressed by the binary sides.

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O.P. Austin, "Does Colonization Pay" the Forum, 1900

"Modern progressive nations lying in the temperate zone seek to control garden spots' in the tropics. [mainly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia] Under [the progressive nations] direction, these places can yield tropical produce. In return, the progressive nations bring to the people of those garden spots the foodstuffs and manufactures they need. [Progressive nations] develop the territory by building roads, canals, railways, and telegraphs. They can establish schools and newspapers for the colonies [and] give these people the benefit of other blessings of civilization which they have not the means of creating themselves."

1. According to this excerpt, what were the benefits that the imperialists got from the colonized nations? What did the colonized nations get in return?

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Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, "The Language of African Literature" from Decolonizing the Mind.

"The choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to a people's definition of themselves in relation to the natural and social environment, indeed in relation to the entire universe…writers who should have been mapping paths out of that linguistic encirclement [by colonialism] of their continent also came to be defined and to define themselves in terms of the language of imperialist imposition. Even at their most radical and pro-African position in their sentiments and articulation of problems they still took it as axiomatic that the renaissance of African cultures lay in the languages of Europe" (4-5).

2. What significant tool did the imperialists use to colonize the mind of Africans?

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The resolution of the All-African People's Conference, held in Accra, Ghana in 1958,

"condemns colonialism and imperialism" based on these premises. Whereas all African peoples . . . deplore the economic exploitation of African people by Imperialist Countries, thus reducing Africans to poverty in the midst of plenty . . . Whereas fundamental human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom of worship, freedom to live a full and abundant life . . . are denied to Africans through the activities of Imperialists.

3. What were the reasons forwarded during the conference for condemnation of imperialism in Africa?

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Sekou Toure, West African nationalist, 1962.