The Scramble for African Colonies

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, imperialist European nations gained

control over much of Africa. Imperialism brought wealth and prestige to

Europeans, but native people were often oppressed and abused.

This segment looks at the horrors of imperialism as revealed in Joseph Conrad’s novel, HEART OF DARKNESS, set in the Belgian Congo during the Age of Imperialism.

1. In the late 1800s, European countries looked to Africa to fill their economic need for? What 2 things?

2. Why did Joseph Conrad write the novel Heart of Darkness?

3. Why were European countries able to dominate so much of Africa in the late 1800s?

1. Natural resources and laborers

2. To expose the evils of imperialism in the Congo

3. European power was fueled by the technology of the Industrial Revolution. New weapons and steam-powered locomotives and ships gave Europeans the ability to move quickly, and fight wars with brutal efficiency.

NATIONALISM IN AFRICA1920s-1930s

• Over 1 million Africans fought in WWI. They were angry when for instance German colonies were not granted independence, but rather given to other European powers.

• Look at map and identify the wealthiest segment and the most populous segment.

• What would be the long-term effects of this inequality?

Colonial Africa

• Make 2 lists one of the conditions in colonial Africa in the early 1900s, and one of the ways Africans responded.

• Then answer … 1. How did these two strands----colonial abuses and African resistance—play out in South Africa?

2. In what ways did colonial powers try to control African life?

Answer to question ---

Whites instituted a repressive system of segregation called

APARTHEID.

Blacks resisted by forming a political party to protest by forming a political party to protest by legal means.

Answer: The colonizers set up economic and political systems that benefited mainly themselves!

South Africa: The Rise of Apartheid

For most of the 20th century, a system known as apartheid kept white South Africans separate from and more powerful than non-white South Africans.

1. The South African political system known as apartheid was based on ________

2. What method did the African National Congress favor in its struggle against apartheid?

3. How did apartheid change the lives of both black and white South Africans?

1. Separation of the races and restriction of rights.

2. Civil disobedience

3. Apartheid segregated racial groups. Apartheid laws provided white South Africans with higher wages. These laws also evicted black South Africans from their land and made it illegal for them to travel without passes. Other laws prevented black SA from voting and forced them to live on reserves located in arid, infertile areas.

Pan-Africanism• Nationalistic approach to end colonial control

• Pan-Africanism unified Africans and people of African descent.

• 1920s Leader – Marcus Garvey (Jamaican-born) message was “Africa for Africans”

• W.E.B. Dubois organized the first

PA Congress he was an A-A

Negritude Movement• A Nationalistic approach to end colonial rule• Developed from the 1930s to the 1950s• It was set up to protest mistreatment of Africa and

its people by colonial powers.• Leopold Senghor of French West Africa (now

Senegal), became the leading figure in this movement

• He worked to unify Africans politically• He appealed to French president Charles de Gaulle

and Senegal became a republic in 1960• Senghor was elected its first president.• He fostered African pride by rejecting the negative

views of Africa spread by colonial rulers