The Negative Influence of Imperialism on Africa and India
Imperialism was a great race to the European nations, so they could claim as much land as they could before others. They then used the local people on the land as cheap labor, and the unused natural resources to set up factories and produce even more goods. Unfortunately, European nations took all the profits for themselves, devastating the colony’s economy, culture, and social systems that had originally been in place. Africa was a bountiful source of labor and natural resources, causing almost all of the continent to be claimed for various European nations. The nations took control by confusing locals and pitting them against each other. When they stopped the fighting, the peace treaties the locals would sign, were actually agreements to be under the rule of a foreign nation. The Europeans forced the natives to work at factories and mass-produce cheap goods, which they would later resell to the natives. As expressed in Document #1, their practices clearly violated human rights and destroyed the locals’ economy for the benefit of the controlling nation. The colonizing nation flooded the economies with cheap, mass-produced goods, which were originally made in the colony. This left many locals who hand made goods to become jobless. The unemployment rates surged in the colonies, and the economy was often stunted, leaving the people in deep poverty. Imperialism also drastically changed the local customs and cultures of the lands colonized. Europeans brought Christianity into the new lands, and thousands of years worth of traditional religious activities disappeared. Document #3 describes the irony of how the Europeans took so much from the natives in Africa, yet the only thing they left behind was a destroyed culture and a Bible. As more lands were claimed in the name of various nations, Christian missionaries arrived to “guide” what they thought were “savages” to better their lives. This meant that they preached against all of the diverse and unique customs and traditions in Africa and replaced it with their own European ways. The imperialistic nation negatively influenced its colonies in more than one way. Not only were its colonies suffering from economic instability, but their traditional ways were also taken away from them, destroying diversity, and truly leaving the locals with nothing to fall back on. The British were an especially aggressive imperialistic nation and owned colonies all over the world. The saying “The sun never sets on the British Empire” was often used to describe the amount of expansion the British had done. They even owned India, which was a very useful colony for Britain. It provided a huge market for British goods, as well as cheap labor, and natural resources. In Document #5, Naoroji calls British rule “the knife of sugar”. This describes the way the Indian people accepted the British as their rulers, yet they were still stabbed by England’s greed for more power and wealth. Although India was initially grateful to be united and part of a powerful empire, the British only abused their power by setting up a colonial economy in India and taking all of the profits from the factories. The British brought new scientific ideas into India, which had not made much modern development at all. It also taught the locals to stop cruel practices like pushing a woman into her husband’s funeral pyre. They modernized a place that was under too much turmoil to make any progress for centuries. However, while giving the natives a few things, they took much more than that. The British filled all of the government positions with their own people, leaving the Indians with no representation at all. The people suffered greatly from a government who did not understand them at all, and thought that they deserved to be under a white government. This lack of representation and the apathetic views of the British, caused them to leave little money to run India, and like every other Imperialistic colony, fell into poverty. While there was some good from Imperialism, the controlling nation’s change in the social structure constricted the Indian people and kept them in a state of poverty. Imperialistic nations claimed land larger than their own nations and simply used it to support their industries. This caused a boom in most European nations but left the colonies with a barren economy, destroyed culture, and under an unfair and constricting government. The colonies always suffered under the rule of a greedy controlling nation, and the ones in Africa and India were no different.