Industrialization and new technologies gave Western European nations enormous power.

Industrialization and new technologies gave Western European nations enormous power.

Increasingly, Western European nations began to use their power to extend control over foreign lands.

European nations wanted raw materials for their factories and markets for their manufactured products.

It was the Age of Imperialism. Imperialism is the policy of extending a nation’s political and economic control over a territory.

By the late 1800s and early 1900s, European expansion had reached its peak.

Representatives of European nations would actually meet to decide how Africa should be divided.

The Berlin Conference occurred between 1884 and 1885. It set the rules for dividing Africa.

In order to claim land in Africa, a country had to first make a formal announcement of its intentions.

Then the country had to send troops and officials to occupy the land.

Of course, these kinds of rules led to a “Scramble for Africa” as European nations raced to conquer and colonize land in Africa.

And of course, we must remember that no Africans were present at the Berlin Conference when Europeans decided the fate of the African continent.

The new colonial boundaries did not respect tribal locations or rivalries.

The grouping of diverse and sometimes rival ethnic groups together would lead to one of the causes of civil wars in Africa today.

While Europeans built railroads and telegraphs to unite their territories and extract their resources, they also brutally exploited Africans and disregarded African traditions.

European imperialism benefitted Europeans but harmed Africans.

Industrialization and new technologies gave Western European nations enormous power.