Home Useful properties of fruits African countries that were not colonies. Colonization of Africa. How it was. French colonial expansion in the Maghreb countries

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African countries that were not colonies. Colonization of Africa. How it was. French colonial expansion in the Maghreb countries

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The history of Africa is calculated for thousands of years, it is from here, according to the scientific world, that mankind originated. And here, too, many peoples returned, however, already in order to establish their dominance.

The proximity of the north to Europe led to the fact that Europeans in the 15-16th century actively penetrated the continent. Also the African west, it was controlled by the Portuguese at the end of the 15th century, they began to actively sell slaves from the local population.

The Spaniards and the Portuguese were followed by other states from Western Europe: France, Denmark, England, Spain, Holland and Germany to the "dark continent".

As a result of this, East and North Africa came under European oppression, in total more than 10% of African lands were under their rule in the middle of the 19th century. However, by the end of this century, the size of colonization reached more than 90% of the mainland.

What attracted the colonists? First of all, natural resources:

wild trees of valuable species in large quantities;
growing a variety of crops (coffee, cocoa, cotton, sugar cane);
precious stones (diamonds) and metals (gold).

The slave trade also grew.

Egypt has long been drawn into the capitalist economy on a world level. After the Suez Canal was opened, England began to actively compete, who would be the first to establish his dominance in these lands.

The British government took advantage of the difficult situation in the country, prompting the creation of an international committee to manage the Egyptian budget. As a result, an Englishman became Minister of Finance, a Frenchman was in charge of public works. Then difficult times began for the population, which was exhausted from numerous taxes.

The Egyptians tried in various ways to prevent the establishment of a foreign colony in Africa, but over time, England sent troops there to take over the country. The British were able to occupy Egypt by force and cunning, making it their colony.

France began the colonization of Africa from Algeria, in which for twenty years it proved its right to dominate by war. Also, with prolonged bloodshed, the French conquered Tunisia.

Agriculture was developed in these lands, so the conquerors organized their own huge estates with vast lands, on which Arab peasants were forced to work. Local peoples were convened to build facilities for the needs of the occupiers (roads and ports).

And although Morocco was a very important object for many European countries, it remained free for a long time thanks to the rivalry of its enemies. Only after the strengthening of power in Tunisia and Algeria did France begin to subdue Morocco.

In addition to these countries in the north, Europeans began to explore South Africa. There, the British easily pushed back the local tribes (San, Koikoin) to deserted territories. Only the Bantu peoples did not submit for a long time.

As a result, in the 70s of the 19th century, the English colonies occupied the southern coast, without penetrating deep into the mainland.

The influx of people into this region is timed to coincide with the discovery in the valley of the river. Orange diamond. Mines became the centers of settlements, cities were created. The formed joint-stock companies have always used the cheap power of the local population.

The British had to fight for Zululand, which was included in Natal. The Transvaal was not fully conquered, but the London Convention provided for certain restrictions on local government.

Germany also began to occupy these territories - from the mouth of the Orange River to Angola, the Germans declared their protectorate (southwest Africa).

If England sought to extend its power in the south, then France directed its efforts inland in order to colonize the continuous strip between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. As a result, under French rule was the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Guinea.

The British also owned some West African countries - mainly the coastal territories of the Gambia, Niger and Volta rivers, as well as the Sahara.

Germany in the west was able to conquer only Cameroon and Togo.

Belgium sent forces to the center of the African continent, so the Congo became its colony.

Italy got some lands in northeast Africa - huge Somalia and Eritrea. And fot Ethiopia was able to repel the attack of the Italians, as a result, it was this power that was practically the only one that retained its independence from the influence of Europeans.

Only two did not become European colonies:

Ethiopia;
Eastern Sudan.

Former colonies in Africa

Naturally, foreign possession of almost the entire continent could not last long, the local population sought to gain freedom, since their living conditions were usually deplorable. Therefore, since 1960, the colonies quickly began to be liberated.

This year, 17 African countries became independent again, most of them - the former colonies in Africa of France and those that were under the control of the UN. Lost colonies in addition to this and:

UK - Nigeria;
Belgium - Congo.

Somalia, divided between Britain and Italy, united to form the Somali Democratic Republic.

While most Africans became independent as a result of mass desire, strikes and negotiations, wars were still waged in some countries to gain freedom:

Angola;
Zimbabwe;
Kenya;
Namibia;
Mozambique.

The rapid liberation of Africa from the colonists has led to the fact that in many created states, the geographical boundaries do not correspond to the ethnic and cultural composition of the population, and this becomes a reason for disagreements and civil wars.

And the new rulers do not always comply with democratic principles, which leads to massive dissatisfaction and the deterioration of the situation in many African countries.

Even now in Africa there are such territories that are controlled by European states:

Spain - Canary Islands, Melilla and Ceuta (in Morocco);
Great Britain - Chagos Archipelago, Ascension Islands, St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha;
France - Reunion, the islands of Mayotte and Eparse;
Portugal - Madeira.

It has many millennia, and according to some scientific hypotheses, it was in Africa that the first people appeared, who subsequently multiplied and populated all other lands of our planet (well, except for Antarctica). So, according to these hypotheses, Africa is the cradle of mankind. And it is not surprising that many people were drawn to this continent, and they returned, sometimes as explorers, and sometimes as conquerors, such is our human nature.

The first European colonies in Africa began to appear at the beginning of the 15-16th century. The British and French showed genuine interest in North Africa, and especially in one of the cradles of human civilizations - Egypt with its majestic pyramids and the mysterious Sphinx. The Portuguese were the first to penetrate West Africa, creating their colonies there. Subsequently, representatives of other European countries also joined them: Holland, Belgium, Germany.

The greatest peak of colonialism in Africa came in the 19th century, here is an interesting fact: at the beginning of the century before last, only 10% of African territories were European colonies, but at its end, 90% (!) African lands were European colonies. Only two African countries managed to maintain full independence: and Eastern Sudan. All the other countries were under someone's heel, so many countries of North Africa belonged to France: Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, in each of them French domination was established by force. For some other countries, such as, say, the already mentioned Egypt, there was even a desperate military struggle between France and England. The latter was also not opposed to taking possession of this tidbit, but in Egypt the British had to meet a strong and talented enemy, the famous General Napoleon Bonaparte, who would soon become the French emperor, conquer all of Europe and reach right up to Moscow. Although further military defeats by Napoleon reduced the influence of France in North Africa, Egypt did, in the end, go to the British.

The Portuguese, thanks to their brave navigators and cartographers, were the first to reach West Africa, where they entered into numerous contacts with the local population and founded their colonies, Angola, a huge African country, whose area is several times larger than the area of small Portugal, became the largest Portuguese colony in West Africa. .

The British also did not catch crows, and in addition to Egypt, they founded many colonies, both in West and East and South Africa. Subsequently, representatives of other European states also came to Africa: the Germans managed to capture part of the territory of West Africa: Cameroon, Togo and Namibia (the latter country still strongly resembles Germany with its cozy cities built by the Germans themselves).

The Belgians, since by the time they appeared the African coast was already occupied by other Europeans, decided to move deep into the African continent, where they founded their colony in the country of Congo (Central Africa). The Italians received land in eastern Africa: the countries of Somalia and Eritrea became their colonies.

What attracted Europeans to Africa? First of all, numerous natural resources, as well as human resources - that is, slaves, into which the Europeans actively turned the local population. Further, the slaves were taken to the New World for hard work on local sugar plantations. In general, the slave trade is one of the darkest pages of African history, about which there will be a separate article on our website.

Returning to colonialism, in addition to its clearly negative consequences, there were some positive aspects. So the Europeans brought a certain civilization, culture to Africa, built cities, roads, Christian missionaries went along with the soldiers who wanted to convert the local population to Christianity (whether it be Protestantism or Catholicism), they did a lot to educate Africans, built schools taught African natives European languages (primarily English, but also French, Spanish, Portuguese, German) and other sciences.

THE DECLINE OF COLONIALISM

Everything comes to an end sooner or later, and the end came to colonialism in Africa, the decline of which began in the 60s of the last century. It was at this time that active socio-political movements for the declaration of independence began in various African countries. Somewhere it is possible to gain independence peacefully, but somewhere it was not without armed struggle, as, say, in the same Angola, where a real war of independence against Portuguese rule took place, which, however, after that turned into a civil war between Angolans who were carried away by communist ideas (the MPLA party) and those who wanted to build communism in Angola and the Angolans, who did not like it, but that's another story.

Also, the negative impact of colonialism after its collapse was the fact that some newly created African countries contained a heterogeneous cultural and even hostile population. Sometimes this led to real civil wars, as, say, it was in Nigeria, a former English colony, where, after the declaration of independence, the Ibo and Yoruba tribes were hostile to each other in one country. But again, that's another story...

The “economic civilization” of most of Africa (with the exception of the “river civilization” of the Nile Valley) took shape over thousands of years and by the time the region was colonized in the second half of the 19th century. changed very little. The basis of the economy was still slash-and-burn agriculture with hoe tillage.

Recall that this is the earliest type of farming, followed by plow farming (which, by the way, is not very widespread even at the end of the 20th century, which is hindered by the reasonable desire of local peasants to preserve a thin fertile layer of soil; a plow plowing to a fairly large depth will do more harm than good).

Agriculture of a higher level (outside the Nile Valley) was distributed only in Northeast Africa (on the territory of modern Ethiopia), in West Africa and Madagascar.

Animal husbandry (mainly cattle breeding) was auxiliary in the economy of the African peoples, and it became the main thing only in certain areas of the mainland - south of the Zambezi River, among the nomadic peoples of North Africa.

Africa has long been known to Europeans, but it was not of great interest to them.

Reserves of precious metals were not discovered here, and it was difficult to penetrate deep into the mainland. Until the end of the XVIII century. Europeans knew only the outlines of the banks and mouths of the rivers, where trading strongholds were created and from where slaves were taken to America. The role of Africa was reflected in the geographical names that the whites gave to individual sections of the African coast: the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, the Slave Coast.

Until the 80s. 19th century more than 3/4 of the territory of Africa was occupied by various political entities, including

h. there were even large and strong states (Mali, Zimbabwe, etc.). European colonies were only on the coast.

And suddenly, within only two decades, all of Africa was divided among the European powers. This happened at a time when almost all of America had already achieved political independence. Why did Europe suddenly have an interest in the African continent?

The main reasons are the following

1. By this time, the mainland had already been quite well explored by various expeditions and Christian missionaries.

American war correspondent G. Stanley in the mid-70s. 19th century crossed the African continent with the expedition from east to west, leaving behind destroyed settlements. Addressing the British, G. Stanley wrote: “South of the mouth of the Congo River, forty million naked people are waiting to be dressed by the weaving factories of Manchester and equipped with tools by the workshops of Birmingham.”

By the end of the XIX century. quinine was discovered as a remedy for malaria. Europeans were able to penetrate into the depths of malarial territories.

In Europe, by this time, industry began to develop rapidly, the economy was on the rise, European countries stood on their feet. It was a period of relative political calm in Europe - there were no major wars. The colonial powers showed amazing "solidarity", and at the Berlin Conference in the mid-80s. England, France, Portugal, Belgium and Germany divided the territory of Africa among themselves. The borders in Africa were "cut" without taking into account the geographical and ethnic characteristics of the territory.

At present, 2/5 of African state borders run along parallels and meridians, 1/3 - along other straight lines and arcs, and only 1/4 - along natural boundaries, approximately coinciding with ethnic boundaries.

By the beginning of the XX century. all of Africa was divided among the European metropolises.

The struggle of the African peoples against the invaders was complicated by internal tribal conflicts, in addition, it was difficult to resist the Europeans armed with perfect rifled firearms, invented by that time, with spears and arrows.

The period of active colonization of Africa began.

Unlike America or Australia, there was no massive European immigration here. Throughout the African continent in the XVIII century. there was only one compact group of immigrants - the Dutch (Boers), numbering only 16 thousand people.

chel ("Boers" from the Dutch and German word "bauer", which means "peasant"). And even now, at the end of the 20th century, in Africa, the descendants of Europeans and children from mixed marriages make up only 1% of the population (This includes 3 million Boers, the same number of mulattos in South Africa and one and a half million immigrants from Great Britain).

Africa has the lowest level of socio-economic development compared to other regions of the world.

According to all the main indicators of the development of the economy and the social sphere, the region occupies the position of a world outsider.

The most pressing problems of humanity are most relevant for Africa. Not all of Africa scores so low, but a few more fortunate countries are only "islands of relative prosperity" in the midst of poverty and acute problems.

Perhaps the problems of Africa are due to difficult natural conditions, a long period of colonial rule?

Undoubtedly, these factors played a negative role, but others also acted along with them.

Africa belongs to the developing world, which in the 60s and 70s.

showed high rates of economic, and in some areas and social development. In the 80s and 90s. problems sharply escalated, the rate of economic growth decreased (production began to fall), which gave reason to conclude: "The developing world has stopped developing."

However, there is a point of view that involves the allocation of two close, but at the same time heterogeneous concepts: "development" and "modernization".

Development in this case refers to changes in the socio-economic sphere caused by internal causes that lead to the strengthening of the traditional system without destroying it. Did the process of development proceed in Africa, its traditional economy?

Of course yes.

In contrast to development, modernization is a set of changes in the socio-economic (and political) sphere caused by the modern requirements of the outside world. With regard to Africa, this means expanding external contacts and its inclusion in the world system; t.

e. Africa must learn to "play by the rules of the world." Will not Africa be destroyed by this inclusion in the modern world civilization?

One-sided, traditional development leads to autarky (isolation) and lagging behind the world leaders.

Rapid modernization is accompanied by a painful breaking of the existing socio-economic structure. The optimal combination is a reasonable combination of development and modernization, and most importantly - a gradual, phased transformation, without catastrophic consequences and taking into account local specifics.

Modernization has an objective character, and one cannot do without it.

Colonies in Africa

The history of Africa has many millennia, and according to some scientific hypotheses, it was in Africa that the first people appeared, who subsequently multiplied and populated all other lands of our planet (well, except for Antarctica). So, according to these hypotheses, Africa is the cradle of mankind.

And it is not surprising that many people were drawn to this continent and returned, sometimes as explorers, missionaries, and sometimes as conquerors, such is our human nature.

The first European colonies in Africa began to appear at the beginning of the 15-16th century.

The British and French showed genuine interest in North Africa, and especially in one of the cradles of human civilizations - Egypt with its majestic pyramids and the mysterious Sphinx.

The Portuguese were the first to penetrate West Africa, creating their colonies there. Subsequently, representatives of other European countries also joined them: Holland, Belgium, Germany.

All the other countries were under someone's heel, so many countries of North Africa belonged to France: Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, in each of them French domination was established by force. For some other countries, such as, say, the already mentioned Egypt, there was even a desperate military struggle between France and England. The latter was also not opposed to taking possession of this tidbit, but in Egypt the British had to meet a strong and talented enemy, the famous General Napoleon Bonaparte, who would soon become the French emperor, conquer all of Europe and reach right up to Moscow.

Although further military defeats by Napoleon reduced the influence of France in North Africa, Egypt did, in the end, go to the British.

The British also did not catch crows, and in addition to Egypt, they founded many colonies, both in West and East and South Africa.

Subsequently, representatives of other European states also came to Africa: the Germans managed to capture part of the territory of West Africa: Cameroon, Togo and Namibia (the latter country still strongly resembles Germany with its cozy cities built by the Germans themselves).

Windhoek, Namibia

The Italians received land in eastern Africa: the countries of Somalia and Eritrea became their colonies.

In general, the slave trade is one of the darkest pages of African history, about which there will be a separate article on our website.

Returning to colonialism, in addition to its clearly negative consequences, there were some positive aspects.

European colonization of Africa and its consequences

So the Europeans brought a certain civilization, culture to Africa, built cities, roads, Christian missionaries went along with the soldiers who wanted to convert the local population to Christianity (whether it be Protestantism or Catholicism), they did a lot to educate Africans, built schools taught African natives European languages (primarily English, but also French, Spanish, Portuguese, German) and other sciences.

THE DECLINE OF COLONIALISM

Everything comes to an end sooner or later, and the end came to colonialism in Africa, the decline of which began in the 60s of the last century.

It was at this time that active socio-political movements for the declaration of independence began in various African countries. Somewhere it is possible to gain independence peacefully, but somewhere it was not without armed struggle, as, say, in the same Angola, where a real war of independence against Portuguese rule took place, which, however, after that turned into a civil war between Angolans who were carried away by communist ideas (the MPLA party) and those who wanted to build communism in Angola and the Angolans, who did not like it, but that's another story.

Also, the negative impact of colonialism after its collapse was the fact that some newly created African countries contained a heterogeneous cultural and even hostile population.

Sometimes this led to real civil wars, as, say, it was in Nigeria, a former English colony, where, after the declaration of independence, the Ibo and Yoruba tribes were hostile to each other in one country. But again, that's another story...

Posted in History of Africa by Admin with no comments yet.

Colonization of Africa

On the eve of European colonization, the peoples of Tropical and Southern Africa were at various stages of development. Some had a primitive system, others had a class society. It can also be said that in Tropical Africa, a sufficiently developed, specifically Negro statehood did not take shape, even comparable to the states of the Incas and Maya. How can this be explained? There are several reasons, namely: an unfavorable climate, poor soils, primitive agricultural technology, a low level of labor culture, the fragmentation of a small population, as well as the dominance of primitive tribal traditions and early religious cults. In the end, highly developed civilizations: Christian and Muslim differed from African in more developed cultural and religious traditions, that is, a more advanced level of consciousness than Africans. At the same time, remnants of pre-class relations persisted even among the most developed peoples. The decomposition of tribal relations was most often manifested in the exploitation by the heads of large patriarchal families of ordinary community members, as well as in the concentration of land and livestock in the hands of the tribal elite.

In different centuries, both in the Middle Ages and in the New Age, various state formations arose on the territory of Africa: Ethiopia (Aksum), in which the Christian Monophysite Church dominated; a kind of confederation called Oyo arose on the Guinean coast; then Dahomey; in the lower reaches of the Congo at the end of the 15th century. such state formations as the Congo, Loango and Makoko appeared; in Angola between 1400 and 1500. there was a short-lived and semi-legendary political association - Monomotapa. However, all these proto-states were fragile. Europeans who appeared on the coast of Africa in the XVII-XVIII centuries. launched a large-scale slave trade. Then they tried to create their own settlements, outposts and colonies here.

In southern Africa, at the Cape of Good Hope, the site of the Dutch East India Company-Kapstadt (Cape Colony) was established. Over time, more and more settlers from Holland began to settle in Kapstadt, who waged a stubborn struggle with local tribes, Bushmen and Hottentots. At the beginning of the XIX century. The Cape colony was captured by Great Britain, after which the Dutch-Boers moved to the north, subsequently founding the republics of Transvaal and Orange. European Boer colonists increasingly developed southern Africa, engaging in the slave trade and forcing the black population to work in gold and diamond mines. In the English zone of colonization, the Zulu tribal community led by Chuck in the first third of the 19th century. managed to consolidate and subjugate a number of Bantu tribes. But the clash of the Zulus, first with the Boers, and then with the British, led to the defeat of the Zulu state.

Africa in the 19th century became the main springboard for European colonization. By the end of this century, almost the entire African continent (with the exception of Ethiopia) was divided between Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium. Moreover, the first place in terms of the number of colonies and the native population belonged to Great Britain, the second to France (mainly to the north and south of the Sahara), the third to Germany, the fourth to Portugal and the fifth to Belgium. But small Belgium got a huge territory (about 30 times larger than the territory of Belgium itself), the richest in its natural reserves - the Congo.

The European colonialists, having done away with the primary proto-state formations of African leaders and kings, brought here the forms of a developed bourgeois economy with advanced technology and transport infrastructure. The local population, experiencing a cultural "shock" from meeting with a civilization that was fabulously developed at that time, gradually joined modern life. In Africa, as well as in other colonies, the fact of belonging to one or another metropolis immediately manifested itself. So, if the British colonies (Zambia, Gold Coast, South Africa, Uganda, Southern Rhodesia, etc.) were under the control of an economically developed, bourgeois and democratic England and began to develop more rapidly, then the population of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea (Bissau) belonging to the more backward Portugal, more slowly.

Far from always, colonial conquests were economically justified, sometimes the struggle for colonies in Africa looked like a kind of political sport - by all means bypass the opponent and not let yourself be bypassed. Secularized European thought during this period abandoned the idea of spreading the “true religion” -Christianity, but she saw the civilizing role of Europe in the backward colonies in the spread of modern science and education. In addition, in Europe it became even indecent not to have colonies. This can explain the emergence of the Belgian Congo, German and Italian colonies, from which there was little use.

Germany was the last to rush to Africa, nevertheless managed to take possession of Namibia, Cameroon, Togo and East Africa. In 1885, at the initiative of German Chancellor Bismarck, the Berlin Conference was convened, in which 13 European countries took part. The conference established the rules for the acquisition of still independent lands in Africa, in other words, the remaining lands still unoccupied were divided. By the end of the 19th century, only Liberia and Ethiopia retained political independence in Africa. Moreover, Christian Ethiopia successfully repelled the attack of Italy in 1896 and even defeated Italian troops in the Battle of Adua.

The division of Africa also gave rise to such a variety of monopolistic associations as privileged companies. The largest of these companies was the British South Africa Company, established in 1889 by S. Rhodes and having its own army. The Royal Niger Company operated in West Africa, and the British East Africa Company operated in East Africa. Similar companies were created in Germany, France, Belgium. These monopoly companies were a kind of state within a state and turned the African colonies with their population and resources into a sphere of complete subjugation to themselves. The richest African colony was South Africa, which belonged to Britain and the Boer colonists from the Transvaal and Orange republics, since gold and diamonds were found there. This led the British and European-born Boers to start the bloody Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, in which the British won. The diamond-rich republics of Transvaal and Orange became British colonies. Subsequently, in 1910, the richest British colony, South Africa, formed the British dominion, the Union of South Africa.