COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA

This was why Europe's relationship to Africa shifted from slave trading to colonialism. Kwame Nkrumah put it correctly: "Colonialism is, therefore, the policy by which the 'mother country,' the colonial power, binds her colonies to herself by political ties with the primary object of promoting her own economic advantages." He went on to point out:
Such a system depends on the opportunities offered by the natural resources of the colonies and the uses for them suggested by the dominant economic objectives of the colonial power. Under the influence of national aggressive self-consciousness and the belief that in trade and commerce one nation should gain at the expense of the other, and the further belief that exports must exceed imports in value, each colonial power pursues a policy of strict monopoly of colonial trade, and the building up of national power.

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The French Premier Jules Ferry, in a speech to the Chamber of Deputies in 1885, clearly articulated the main reasons Europe acquired its colonies: "The nations of Europe desire colonies for the following three purposes: (i) in order that they may have access to the raw materials of the colonies; (ii) in order to have markets for sale of the manufactured goods of the home country; and (iii) as a field for the investment of surplus capital." Many years later, Nkrumah, whose country underwent colonialism, spelled out the colonial policies the Europeans used to ensure their success in achieving these goals: "(i) to make the colonies non-manufacturing dependencies; (ii) to prevent the colonial subjects from acquiring the knowledge of modern means and- techniques for developing their own industries; (iii) to make colonial 'subjects' simple producers of raw materials through cheap labor; (iv) to prohibit the colonies from trading with other nations except through the 'mother country."'

Colonialism was but a form of imperialism. "Imperialism," as Ralph Bunche succinctly puts it, "is an international expression of capitalism:' Briefly, imperialism. is a stage of capitalism in which a few capitalists own or monopolize the wealth (factories, banks, land, and the like) in a country, and because they have exhausted all of the most profitable investments at home, these monopolists can only expand their profits by turning to, the rich raw materials, land, and people of other parts of the world. The main reason for this is that advanced capitalist countries, because of the constant struggle for profits, cannot continue to develop based on their own resources. Hence, these countries are forced into a new kind of struggle with each other in which they annex overseas territory as part of their "empire."


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The impact of imperialism and colonialism on colonized people was very destructive. Economically, the people were forced, often at gunpoint, to work in imperialist-owned mines, plantations, and factories for starvation wages. Politically, imperialist nations arbitrarily drew political boundaries and instituted a system of political rule using their own administrators or indigenous puppets to guarantee that power remained in the hands of the "mother country." Socially, the cultural and social life of the indigenous people was suppressed. Missionaries and educators played key roles in consolidating imperialist colonial domination. As Nkrumah has written:

The stage opens with the appearance of missionaries and anthropologists, traders and concessionaires, and administrators,. While "missionaries" with "Christianity" perverted implore the colonial subject to lay up his "treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt," the traders and concessionaires and administrators acquire his mineral and land resources, destroy his arts, crafts, and home industries.



One of the most significant tools of colonialism was racism. Colonialism usually involved Europeans as the colonizers and people of color as the colonized. As a rationalization for exploitation and oppression, the ideology of racism was developed which branded the colonized people as racially inferior and subhuman, having no rights that the colonizers had to respect. Their only right, in the eyes of the imperialists, was the right to be exploited.

It is against this long history of exploitation and oppression by colonialism, imperialism, and racism that we must understand the daily discussion in the U.S. mass media regarding Africa. While it is not often presented to us as it really is, Amilcar Cabral, an assassinated leader of the African revolution, points to the real story behind the headlines we read about and hear: "The destruction of colonialism and the struggle against imperialism constitutes one of the outstanding characteristics of our times." It is. this struggle against an international system of imperialism and such evils as colonialism and racism that are caused by it that, says Cabral, links the struggle of African peoples to the struggle of freedom-loving and justice-loving people all over the world. It is partly because of their rich heritage of culture and struggle that Afro-American people are profoundly -interested in, influenced by, and indeed, form an integral part of this same struggle now being valiantly fought in Africa.

KEY CONCEPTS
African Heritage Liberation struggles
Colonialism Population/Depopulation
Cultures Slave Trade
Geography Slavery
Imperialism Wealth

David,

Recent history is relatively easy to understand, though not so easy to reverse. But where did these cave-dwelling, savage Europeans come from in the first place, and from those origins develop such a power and predilection for exploitation and oppression? Perhaps the subject of another blog, a much more difficult study I believe.

DJProfessor------below your beautiful rendering of yourself above on a christmas card;

you Postulate

"The slave trade was abandoned because it no longer suited the capitalists' needs."

your posts, in my opinion, are always shallow and barren so lets look at definitions.

Wikipedia says:

Capitalism-----"There is no consensus on the precise definition of capitalism, nor how the term should be used as an analytical category. There is, however, little controversy that private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit in a market, and prices and wages are elements of capitalism."

Colonialism------ is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Colonialism is a process whereby sovereignty over the colony is claimed by the metropole and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by colonists - people from the metropole. Colonialism is a set of unequal relationships: between the metropole and the colony; between the colonists and the indigenous population.

Imperialism-------as defined by The Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination."

DJProfessor-----

-All people on the planet since time began and in all orally or written down societies the Family of Adaam WERE CAPITALISTS--grain, livestock, dates, camels, whatever----

colonialism/imperialismEuropa are common words--and their definitions the same

BUT capitalism is a Universal, Historical, Original; that can be used Since Adaam(as)

europe did give us after 1492---the human being as Taxable Livestock that could produce female despoilation;

---but in my opinion; it was only paganChristianity that justified the DeHumanization. taxability and despoilation of the nonEuropean;

so that the nonEuropean body, mind and humanity belonged to the paganChristian, and their 'gods'---a father, a son and a holy ghost.

so I find this subject apeing paganChristian, imperialisticThought..........

So Robert, the most potent weapon we have against Imperialism is Thought. Change we can believe in?

ABSOLUTELY Professor Emeritus Steve Williams

---Quoter of President Baraka Hussein Obama-1/9/2011---not billyPaul from Philly.

ok let me address Steve the i will address you Robert ,,btw Steve the question you asked was very good and some people dont have a answer ! however in this case i have studied the whole thing to the fullest so I will exposit to you what I have to come to believe, after a lifetime of thought, research and travel to be factual, hidden by propaganda from those who felt their best interests lie in hiding what even they knew to be the truth: That the Original Man and Woman were of African descent; that they were black/brown skinned; that they were intelligently evolved; and that they explored the unknown the world over, making it known to them.

There were some attention-grabbing headlines in the last decade when what was termed "The Eve Hypothesis" showed that the entire human race was descended from an African woman hundreds of thousands of years ago. (This is not to be confused with the African find of "Lucy," a nearly complete skeleton of a truly ancient species of Australopithecus Afarensis).

Mitochondrial DNA is genetic material that comes only from women, and passed down from mother to daughter. Scientists are able to roughly tell the ages by the condition of the cellular material as it gets passed down. African-descended women have the oldest DNA, Asian women have the second-oldest, Indian women have the third oldest mitochondrial DNA, with Caucasian women being the youngest genetically distinct females on Earth.

This gives us a rough indication of when races emerged, where they came from, and which one was first.

steve hang in there im going the extra mile on this because it has never really been talked about in this website and all members need to know How do you get White Europeans from Black Africans, since it has been established that humanity began in Africa and that because of the intensity of the sun, they had to have been dark-skinned? In his initial chapter "Race and Human origins," Dr. Finch asks and answers the question, because of the absolutely essential Vitamin D in the human diet. Vitamin D is made in the human skin from sunlight.

"We have already seen that melanin protects skin from the cancerous effects of ultraviolet light in the tropics; the difference is that it screens out ultraviolet light necessary for Vitamin D production," Dr. Finch begins.

"The situation changes radically, however, in a frigid northern clime with many sunless days, shorter hours of daylight through much of the year, and a more oblique angle of sun irradiation which weakens its effect...

"Under these conditions... black skin becomes a liability... What is more, white skin is has been shown to be more cold-resistant than black skin. this was observed in two World Wars and the Korean war, wherein Black soldiers were five times more likely than White soldiers to develop frostbite...

"White skin therefore, has two adaptive advantages in an ice-age Northern clime: more efficient vitamin, D production, and greater cold resistance," Dr. Finch put forth.

John G. Jackson, one of the foremost scholars of alternative ancient African and near-Eastern history, had an interview that was included in Finch's book. Jackson flatly and succinctly stated:

"In other words, the original Africans moved into Asia and they bleached out and became brown and yellow. And then they moved into Europe. John Henrik Clarke calls Europe 'the world's ice box.' They bleached out white there."

THE COLD CONNECTION: ICE, SUN PEOPLE

Dr. Finch is more clinical in his assertion:

"The narrow nostrils would also aid in warming inspired air. Caucasian straight hair, falling down on back of the neck, would help preserve heat in the head and neck region. The tendency in the male Caucasian to more profuse body hair may have also been an aid to heat preservation on the hunt and away from his campfires.... The new Caucasoid race was, in effect, cold-adapted," Dr. Finch states.

There are some White people who for a variety of reasons want to believe they independently evolved in the chilly, cloudy peninsula of Asia called Europe. Others just can't see how the process happened that would lead from blue-black skinned, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, kinky-haired, brown eyed Africans; to blonde and straight-haired, blue-eyed, straight-nosed, pale-skinned Whites.

Dr. Finch and others have laid out the case quite clearly, and those who differ with their evidence would have to posit a scenario that makes more sense and holds more water than theirs. They would have to produce artifacts, fossils, linguistic links, DNA, and living settlement traces that would predate the clear evidence of southern African incursions. This they have been unable to do.

Dr. Leonard Jeffries of New York was one of those professors I mentioned who got into trouble by daring to study the origins of the White race. Even his tenured position wasn't enough to insulate him, because they have ways around that!

Prof. Jeffries, who has issued a series of tapes of his lectures, talks of the "Sun People" of the South and the "Ice People" of the North, and how their respective cultures were formed by their vastly differing environments.

African explorers became White people through lack of sunlight and a different diet, says Jeffries. Through constantly fighting the Ice Age environment of 50,000 years ago, fighting the animals and each other, they evolved cultural mores that rewarded male virtues of combativeness, the hoarding of scarce resources in order to survive against the elements, and a philosophy that "might makes right," or "the end result justifies the means," Prof. Jeffries stated.

People are all over the globe, and have been in the farthest reaches of the planet for tens of thousands of years. If the origin of humankind is in Africa, then the fossils, DNA, pottery, jewelry and what have you should show a clear trail that marks the migration patterns of these peripatetic Africans as they burst forth to explore the ancient world, and made it their own as they were fruitful and multiplied.

The evidence exists in abundance that Africans marched out, keeping to the shorelines for the most part, where they could fish and not get eaten by big cats or unknown monsters of the interior.

There have been other confirming lines of research in different disciplines of astronomy, linguistics, and metallurgy that all continue to point not just to an African origin of humanity, but the first working of metal, evolvement of spirituality and religion, mathematics, and exploration of far-off lands. Evidence shows the establishment of trading routes connecting Ethiopia and Asia, and intriguing evidence --on both sides of the Atlantic-- of trade contacts between Western Africa and the Indians of Central America

They left their traces all the way into the Arabian peninsula, the Indian subcontinent from its lush, broad plains up into the Himalayan mountains; the lands of Russia and China; they hop-scotched from island to island along the South Pacific, Indonesia, and on down to the land masses and islands of the Malay peninsula, then down to Australia and New Zealand. End of the line. Or was it?

now robert it is good for you that you post the meaning of colonialism , capitalism and imperialismnow let me round the whole off for you so you can see how it all apply s to the topic ! Colonialism was but a form of imperialism. "Imperialism," as Ralph Bunche succinctly puts it, "is an international expression of capitalism:' Briefly, imperialism. is a stage of capitalism in which a few capitalists own or monopolize the wealth (factories, banks, land, and the like) in a country, and because they have exhausted all of the most profitable investments at home, these monopolists can only expand their profits by turning to, the rich raw materials, land, and people of other parts of the world. The main reason for this is that advanced capitalist countries, because of the constant struggle for profits, cannot continue to develop based on their own resources. Hence, these countries are forced into a new kind of struggle with each other in which they annex overseas territory as part of their "empire."This was why Europe's relationship to Africa shifted from slave trading to colonialism. Kwame Nkrumah put it correctly: "Colonialism is, therefore, the policy by which the 'mother country,' the colonial power, binds her colonies to herself by political ties with the primary object of promoting her own economic advantages." He went on to point out:
Such a system depends on the opportunities offered by the natural resources of the colonies and the uses for them suggested by the dominant economic objectives of the colonial power. Under the influence of national aggressive self-consciousness and the belief that in trade and commerce one nation should gain at the expense of the other, and the further belief that exports must exceed imports in value, each colonial power pursues a policy of strict monopoly of colonial trade, and the building up of national power. now Robert im sure you got some input on this matter other them giving definition of words ,,,RIGHT ???