Title: Imperialism And The Conquest And Colonization Of Africa By Europeans - About History
Headings: Imperialism and the Conquest and Colonization of Africa by Europeans
Imperialism and the Conquest and Colonization of Africa by Europeans
The Face of Africa Changed Forever
What motivated the Imperialism?
Cultural Imperialism
French and British Rule

Content: Cultural Imperialism
Cultural imperialism was another important aspect of 19th-century imperialism. Most Westerners believed they lived in the best possible world and that they had a monopoly on technological advances. In their imperial holdings, European powers often built ports, transportation, communication systems, and schools, as well as improving health care, thereby bringing the benefits of modern science to less developed areas. Social Darwinists argued that Western civilization was the strongest and best and that it was the duty of the West to bring the benefits of its civilization to “lesser” peoples and cultures. Western ethnocentrism contributed to the idea of the “white man’s burden,” a term popularized by the poet Rudyard Kipling. Racism also played a role in Western justifications for imperial conquests. European nations devised several different approaches to avoid armed conflict with one another in the scramble for African territory. Sometimes nations declared a protectorate over a given African territory and exercised full political and military control over it. At other times they negotiated through diplomatic channels or held international conferences. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, 14 nations decided on the borders of the Congo that was under Belgian rule, and Portugal got Angola.