Short Essay #3

Zarmina Ismail

HST 498

July 1, 2011

Short Essay 3

Change of Attitude

            European influence had been a part of the African continent for many years. Although Islam dominated most parts of Africa, European culture and presence was starting to spread throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The idea of bringing Europe to Africa rather than bringing Africans to Europe was more attractive to Europeans now. Scientists wanted to observe Africans while Christians wanted to convert them to Christianity. Between 1790 and 1875, the steady expansion of European activities and the growing assurance of Europeans, transformed the nature of the European presence in Africa. One way in which Europeans attitudes towards Africans changed between 1800 and 1960 was by converting the Africans to Christianity and making them more civilized.

            From 1790 to 1945, the number of both African slaves and people of pure African descent were declining in Europe. People of pure African descent were not as much as before because so many Africans were mixing in with the Europeans. These mixed Africans were now being called Negros. The practice of slavery was also becoming less popular as ships carrying slaves were going in the opposite direction and were now carrying Europeans to live in Africa. Africa was a new world and Europeans wanted to be a part of it. These European imperialists wanted to occupy and colonize Africa. As European technology was advancing, they thought of themselves as the lords of mankind and needed to spread their knowledge among the Africans. It was the European people’s duty as Christians to convert the Africans to their religion. By doing so, these Europeans were also civilizing the Africans. Although most Africans were Muslim, many of them were converting. Of course Europeans still thought that Africans were inferior to them because Africans had been the slaves of Europeans for hundreds of years.

            As the gap between the two continents widened, Europeans began to adopt new attitudes towards peoples of alien culture whose way of life seemed increasingly different from their own. Scientists were especially interested in observing the ways of African people and who they really were. These scientific investigators studied the Africans and experimented with their skin colors. Through these experiments the scientists concluded that the lighter skinned the African the more exotic their brains were and the darker the African the less exotic the brain.

            The reason why these Europeans were invading Africa was because Africa had a lot to offer in trade. It was an open market for Europeans and the trading goods would help the economic statuses of their countries; especially Great Britain since it had gone through a long economic depression. Europe had a high demand of raw materials that Africa had. Theses materials were: copper, cotton, rubber, palm oil, cocoa, diamonds, tea and tin. European industries had grown almost dependent on these materials. Britain wanted the Southern and Eastern coasts of Africa to use as stopover ports when going to Asia and India.

            Africans from different parts of Africa were resisting the Europeans. However, the industrial revolution had provided the European armies with advanced weapons such as machine guns, which African armies had difficulty defeating. Also, unlike their European counterparts, African rulers and its people did not at first form a continental united front although within a few years, a Pan-African movement did emerge.

            Before 1790, Africa was viewed as a dark continent by Europeans. By the 1870’s this image had changed because Europeans had more information on Africans than they did before. Their interests in the continent had grown and the tide of their activities which were often abrasive and sometimes invigorating in impact of African societies was steadily rising. European imperialists were taking over Africa and using it in any and every way possible all while converting the Africans to the Christian religion and civilizing them.