Africa were forced to adopt some of the European cultures in 1870s and 1900
It was during the period of 1870s and 1900 that Africa was forced by the European nations to follow what they thought was a kind of harassment to them. They were forced to adopt some of the European cultures, yet they had theirs. European nations, on their part, the thought of Africa is a primitive continent with primitive people who could not make decisions for themselves. They scrambled for nearly all the African countries where they could impose their western cultures. Africans were forced to follow them and leave theirs a thing that never worked very well with them. Despite Africans trying to resist these western cultures like religion, they were overwhelmed by the tactics that the Europeans used. Africa was meant to follow it through military invasions, diplomatic pressures aggregation by the European imperialists, which at the end resulted in Africa being colonized and conquered by the Europeans. They imposed foreign dominations, and those who tried to oppose faced the worst as the military brutalized them. The funny thing is that most of the armies who supervised most of the imposed punishment to those who opposed who Africans being used to harass their fellow Africans. It all ended in the twentieth century, with much of African countries being colonized except for Ethiopia and Liberia. They came claiming to be bringing commerce, Christianity, and civilization to the African countries.
Three factors mainly influenced the reasons why the European imperialists were more concerned about colonizing the African countries. The three factors included: economic factors, political and social factors. The development of Africa was favored by the collapse of the slave trade, which had many profits to the European countries as they were served with active labor to work for them. The African countries were much rich with raw materials that the western countries figured to be of many benefits to them because the raw materials had a ready market. They perceived that they would use natural materials as investments. Going by this, the imperialists were more motivated to scramble for the black continent. Africans did not see all this to be doing well with them because, in the beginning, the imperialists had claimed to be having other good agendas like spreading Christianity. Still, now the mission seemed to have been diverted. They felt the European countries are using them as leeway for their way to be economically stable. They thought that the European countries were taking advantage of them being hospitable at first. They tried to reject it, but the imperialists were much more reliable than them.
The whole process for the scramble of Africa reached a point where the imperialists’ countries were struggling with each other to have more political powers, and they had a fierce competition among them. Each felt superior that the other. There was a big competition politically between; France, Britain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. One of the ways that were used by these superpower European countries was to make sure that they acquire and concur with the Africans territories and around the world. There was also a problem In Europe because of industrialization. This created a lot of cases associated with unemployment, homelessness, and social displacements from rural areas, poverty, and many other calamities. One of the ways that they needed to solve all these social problems was to export the extra population they could not accommodate to the African countries. These were the reason for the establishment of colonies settlers in Algeria, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Tunisia, Mozambique, and other counties in central Africa like Zambia and Zimbabwe. As time went by, other African countries were colonized because of the economic factors that were overriding the intended reasons the Europeans came with to Africa.
The scramble reached a point where it became so intense that it almost lead to inter imperialist’s conflict and wars. To make sure these never happened, there was held a conference which was commonly referred to as the Berlin Conference that was held in November 1884 up to February 1885. They came out with a treaty called the Berlin Act, in which the main idea was to guide them on how they will take the whole process of colonization in Africa without the inter- imperialists competition. The Act proposed the following:
- There be freedom of trade in the Congo Basin.
- There be freedom of navigation on the Niger and Congo Rivers.
- There be freedom of trade to all nations.
- There be the principle of notification where nations will notify others of territorial annexation.
- There be suppression of the slave trade by both land and sea.
All these treaties were decided with the absence of Africans participation, thus providing a basis for the partition, colonization, and invasion of Africa by various European powers.
Among the African counties that were colonized by the European nations was Ghana. It was a British colony located on the Gulf of Guinea in the West African. It was colonized between the periods from 1867 up to the time it gained its independence in 1957. It was known as the Gold Coast up to a time it gained independence where it became to be called Ghana. Military confrontations between the Fante and the Ashanti make the British influence to be more productive on the Gold Coast as a result of ever-expanding judicial powers located on the coast as well as trying to ensure that people on the beach were firmly under control. The coastal people did not reject the proposed projects, which were seen as developments by the British people because they were just but developments, and their land where the projects were initiated was to remain to them. They still had rights over their land. The expansion of the Asante kingdom toward the coast was a primary reason as to why the British were fearful that the kingdom may soon become a monopoly in the coastal trade and that it needed to be stopped. They placed a governor from Sierra Leon to be in charge of the British settlements and forts on the coast. They used all ways possible to bring the Asante Kingdom under the rule of the colonizers. There was war between the Asante and the British over this, where the Asante was able to kill the Governor and seven of his men. Eventually, a Ghanaian governor was placed to head the process of trade in the coastal, and that is how the Gold Coast came to be.
When the Europeans arrived in the Gold Coast in the 15th century, they came with the idea of Christianity. Before they arrived, there were traditional practices that used to be the religion of the people of the then Gold coast together with other countries in West Africa. These countries were known to be practicing some spiritual deeds. Christianity began to root in Ghana at the time of colonization, and eventually, it overshadowed all other forms of traditional religious practices. Today in Ghana, various dominations like Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, and Charismatics have rooted their religion to the people of Ghana where Christianity is the main religion in the country. It currently has the highest number of believers compared to other religions. Since it was introduced in Ghana, Christianity has continued to have the most significant influence even in political fields. It has also played a vital role in the emergence of formal education where schools were built spreading Christianity by the missionaries to help educate the Africans. Those who went to those mission schools were the ones who ended trying to evangelize the gospel to the people of Ghana. They were taught how to read and interpreted the message of the bible. This was a right way of spreading Christianity because those who were in a position to understand it explained to those who could not read in their natives’ languages. These mission schools also made to the establishment of mission hospitals where Africans could get medication since they had aborted even the use of traditional drugs. To the present day, most hospitals; in Ghana are run by Christian organizations, and they also provide better facilities than government and other private hospitals. So we can say that, with the introduction of Christianity in Ghana, it has helped shape a lot in the country. The mission by the British colonizers in Ghana was successful because its fruits continue to be felt from then up to today. Christianity has helped many not only spiritually but also in terms of health and education, and it continues to open many doors to the success of the people of Ghana. I can firmly say that the citizens are grateful to all these, and they continue to hope for the best. All services of education and health facilities have been made easier even to those in rural places, all thanks to the mission schools and churches for the significant effort they have played. In fact, the ministry of health in Ghana has been ranked as the second-best in providing health care services in the country.
The imposition of the colonial rule in Africa impacted a lot of economic issues during and after the colonial government. The colonial laws altered the patterns used by the African countries in their economics. The Atlantic slave trade changed the economics of Africa through the process of imperialism and the set economic policies that went hand in hand with colonization. Before and after the scramble for Africa, which was also the process of the official partition of Africa by the European nation, the economies of nearly all African countries were doing well in almost all sectors, especially on the side of the trade. The main aim of these European nations was to benefit themselves economically by exploiting the human, physical and economic resources. They made sure that they attained their objective by encouraging the development of a good or a commodity-based on the trading system, a cash crop, or even building trade markets by linking an economic good to where there is a ready market of it. The economy of most African countries was hijacked by the Europeans nations trading systems, and there were no natural or any meaningful economic project was recorded as all just benefited the colonizing nations.
Ghana, prior to colonialism, was not left behind economically from the rest of the countries in Africa. It had already engaged herself in international trade from the past and had put more measures to ensure that it has developed extensively in global trading systems. It relied mostly on the taxing from the foreign trade finances in the government expenditures. Ghana mainly depended on its wealth from the trading of gold, levying of customs, taxes collected by the government, donations, and sponsorships from foreign expenditures together with the fees collected from administrative offices. The Atlantic slave trade gave more significance to the era of colonialism. The Atlantic slave trade lasted for a very long period. It increased trading activities in Ghana as it was brought about by the Europeans as they demanded slaves to go and work for them to strengthen their development strategies. The interest of them having the slaves by their side made the economy of Ghana subordinate to their benefit. They did this by exchanging their manufactured products with what they could have made locally. They did this with an exchange for slaves. The slaves were to give human labor in their development plans, which significantly improved their economic growth. Africa was the source of these raw materials that they used to develop their nations. These were not fair to the people of Ghana and the whole of Africa because they were being used in the wrong way. They suffered in hard work, yet the European nations were the ones who benefited a lot. The result of all these was unequal trade development in Ghana and other African countries. There was a vast gap recorded between how Ghana and their colonizers in terms of development because they imported even what they could have manufactured locally.
The same pattern of uneven economic development has continued to be witnessed in Ghana even to the present days. Foreign companies continue to control most parts of the economy of Ghana. Local industries continue to find themselves being overwhelmed by the pressure from these international manufacturing industries, which export goods to the county. Yet, they have the raw materials they can manufacture the same locally. The government has also failed in its part because it mostly gives the contract of providing essential goods and services to the international industries. This has been a problem not only to the people of Ghana but nearly too all African countries. The ironic part of this statement is that the products that these African countries, including Ghana, are importing, the raw materials used to manufacture them are the same raw materials that they export to the European nations. The cost they incur to process the raw materials as exports and then importing the end products of the same stuff is higher compared to if they could have been having their local industries manufacturing the same.
The goals of the colonists in Ghana were just straightforward, to provide the highest possible economic benefit and development to their nations at the lowest price reasonable. Their desire was not that important to the people of Ghana and Africa at large. Their aim was not fair at all. They ruined the economic significance of African countries, including Ghana. The motives that they had of helping the Africans changed to be to fulfilling their interests first. Their desire to make the people of Ghana educated lost its meaning, and all they could think of as to how they could use the same Africans they thought of helping to make them their tool of development in their countries. These whole process not only affected trade in Africa, but it also leads to poor infrastructure development even in Ghana itself. The government could not even try to focus on the development of these sectors. It was only concerned with how they could enrich the Europeans and later seek help from them. The colonial governments mainly focused on export components of the economy. Their significant interest was to only improve the transportation of raw materials to the markets and not to improve the state or the primary source of the raw materials benefiting their economic development.
Positively at a time that the colonialism lasted in Ghana, the colonial governments were at a point able to put measures to improve some of the infrastructures as well as come up with a new crop system of agriculture. These all, at an end, changed the traditional levels of status and wealth. There were introduced educational reforms by the colonial governments with the implementations of modern state systems. This never left any room for the negative part that the colonial government imposed on Ghana. Areas like technology development was an imposition by them, and they forcefully demised the industrial improvement in Ghana. Local industries faded away as they lacked vital support from the government to be able to manufacture their local products as they produce the raw materials.
On an honest summary, it will be fair enough to say that with the imposition of colonialism in the African countries, the intended reason for spreading Christianity and improving the economic standard to the people of the African continent changed on the way. There are some areas that they helped the Africans like the introduction of mission schools and mission hospitals that helped the African people. But to me, this was like a trap that they only used to make the Africans believe that they had good intentions with them. Instead, from the look of things, it is like the European nations wanted just to use the continent of Africa as a way of benefiting themselves economically. The issue has gone to present days as most of the African countries are still under modern-day colonialism. They depend on the European countries to solve most of their problems which otherwise they have what it takes to solve all by themselves. I can say they succeeded in what they wanted to impose on the continent of Africa. Had colonialism never been brought to the African continent, the level of development that African countries could have reached is significantly high, and most of the problems it is experiencing today would not exist.