Imperialism Motives

Summary - Though colonial empires dated back hundreds of years, the rapid drive for colonies at the end of the nineteenth century led Europe to gain political control of most of Asia and Africa. From 1880-1914 European nations scrambled to divide among themselves the entire continent of Africa, except Liberia and Ethiopia. Once European nations carved up empires, they quickly set up colonial governments to rule them and systems to make them profitable. European imperialism brought modern inventions and techniques of the Industrial Revolution to the non-European world, but to peoples in Africa and Asia Western expansion represented a profoundly disruptive attack on their society.

Imperialism was originally made to extend a mother country's power and control to another smaller, less educated territory. A few nations that adopted imperialism are Egypt, Union of South Africa, Mozambique, and Nigeria.First, the Scramble for Africa started, which was basically where Europeans would go and conquer any nation they want, and this greatly changed African's cultures and way of living. Because of the results of the Scramble for Africa, the Berlin Conference was set up, and at the conference Europeans divided Africa into separate colonies. Although there were written rules for claiming a country, many of the different languages and culture were destroyed during the divide. Next, the Zulu nation had been shaken with wars throughout the years of imperialism, and a chief named Shaka tried to stop these wars. Shaka used a group of disciplined warriors and created his own, centralized state. This state stayed strong while Shaka was ruling, however his succesors were unable to keep it together. The troops marched in with shields and spears and tried to defeat an attacking Britain, but the Zulus lost to the might of Britain. This battle was called the Battle of Ulundi. Britain, like many other European states, used motives such as religion, economy, and. First, missionaries were trying to spread christianity and other religions into the African's culture. For example, Methodist preachers went around Africa teaching about morals, values, and educating people of their cultures. Secondly, people performed back breaking labor for a low price of money. These Africans would bring huge boxes of tea and huge bags of grain, stacking them in pyramids sometimes, and they would do all this labor for a price people received during the Industrial Revolution.

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