Title: Impacts of European Imperialism in Africa - History Crunch - History Articles, Summaries, Biographies, Resources and More
Headings: IMPACTS OF EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA
IMPACTS OF EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA
EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA OVERVIEW
POSITIVE IMPACTS OF EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA
NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA
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Content: As such, this put immense pressure on African societies as they struggled to conform to European standards. An example of this can be seen in the spread of Christianity during the Age of Imperialism. European Christian missionaries were a common feature of the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century. For instance, famous British missionary David Livingstone carried out early missions to Africa in the hopes of converting African leaders. The spread of Christianity in Africa undermined African religions at the time, and caused many African people to begin to look to the European colonial governments as the authority instead of their own traditional leaders.​
As stated above, African societies also faced economic impacts from European imperialism in the 19th century. For instance, the main European powers were primarily focused on finding and extracting resources from Africa, such as: gold, diamonds, cotton and rubber. This focus on taking valuable resources out of Africa benefitted the European home countries greatly, but stalled or harmed the economies of the African societies. As such, this robbed the African people of developing the resources for themselves.​
Finally, European imperialism in Africa negatively affected the African societies in terrible and devastating ways. For instance, Leopold II of Belgium famously brutalized the people of the Congo throughout his command over the Congo Free State.