BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO BÀI THI KẾT THÚC HỌC PHẦN

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÀ NỘI HỌC KỲ I, NĂM HỌC 2021 – 2022

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1. SỐ BÁO DANH:

2. Mã sinh viên: 2006080093

3. Họ và tên: Tran Thi Yen Nhi

4. Ngày sinh: 14/05/2002

5. Môn thi: World History

6. Ngày thi: 05/01/2021

7. Thời gian thi:

8. Mã đề thi: 06

9. Tổng số trang bài thi: 10

KHÔNG LÀM BÀI VÀO TRANG NÀY
SỐ PHÁCH:

Điểm kết luận: ………………… Mã đề thi: …06…

GV chấm thi 1: ……………………………

GV chấm thi 2: ……………………….…….

QUESTION:

6. What were the reasons for the ‘Scramble for Africa’ that characterized
European imperialism in the late 19th century?

ANSWER:

1. Introduction:

The Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa, or also known as the Race for Africa, was the
incrementation of rival European allegations to African territory, during the New
Imperialism period, in the years the 1880s, and the launch of the First World War.
In other words, it was the period that the European Imperial Nations competitively
colonized the Africa territory. This also was the primary root of World War I. It
was also a part of Europeans’ globalization scheme to reach all areas in the world.
As a result, the globe changed tremendously because of European colonization and
dominance.

Main features about Africa

Africa is a continent located adjacent to Europe and Asia, forming the former early
civilizations of humanity. Although Africa is the world’s second-largest and
borders both Europe and Asia, not until the mid-fifteenth century did Europeans
and Arab Asians just discover the Mediterranean Coasts of Africa, merely
considering this continent as the “bridge” or the trade routes between Europe and
Asia. This was due to unfavorable climatic and other conditions; the human
settlement of Africa was sparse and sparse. The greater part has long been
inhabited by Black people. However, Africa has a vast mineral endowment,
including some of the world's largest reserves of fossil fuels, metallic ores,
gemstones, and precious metals.

The opening of Africa

In the “Age of Discovery” era in the 15th century, European used to invade Africa
with the aims of ivory exploitation and the slave trade. Until the end of the
eighteenth century, Western exploration and exploitation in Africa actually had
begun in earnest. By the year 1835, Europeans had completed most of
northwestern Africa’s map via expeditions. It is noteworthy to mention the event
that a European explorer David Livingstone charted and mapped the vast interior
of the continent and Serpa Pinto after his voyage crossing both Southern Africa
and Central Africa.

Prior to the Race for Africa in the late 19 th century, approximately ten percent of
this continent was under the control of Western nations. By 1875, France
conquered completely Algeria after roughly fifty years, the most crucial holdings
regardless of despite Abd al-Qadir's strong resistance and the Kabyles' rebellion in
the 1870s. The United Kingdom held the Cape Colony, and Portugal hold Angola.
Any areas that were controlled by European countries were on the coast. However,
by the early 1900s, European countries had rapidly taken control of almost all of
Africa.

This paper will highlight and detail the predominant justifications for the Scramble
for Africa that identified European imperialism in the late 19th century.

2. Causes of Scramble

There was a myriad of compelling rationales that created the impetus for the
Scramble for Africa. Nevertheless, the majority of these were derived from events
in Europe rather than in own Africa. Typically, it can be mentioned to three
dominant reasons for a widespread European effort to imperial domination in
Africa, including:

 The searching of territories with abundant raw materials

 The flaunting power to the other European countries because it was the
‘theme’ of several developing nations
 The overwhelming rivalries in Europe between countries.

Of all, the first two reasons are regarded as the driving forces for the entire
European Imperialism’s History, in which economic, political, and social
repercussions of the Industrial Revolution strengthened the main motivation for
the European imperialism push into Africa.

After the collapse of the slave trade's profitability, its abolition, and prohibition, as
well as the rise of the European capitalist Industrial Revolution, it arose in the
nineteenth century. The European race, as well as the partition and subsequent
conquest of Africa, was sparked by the imperatives of capitalist industrialization,
which included the demand for assured sources of raw materials, the hunt for
guaranteed markets, and successful investment outlets. As a result, the primary
reason for the European invasion was the economic motive.

Reasons rooted from the Industrial Revolution and the global markets

 Economic factor:

Turning over the 19th century, social history had had a far-reaching leap and
influential transformation because of the Europeans’ discovery of extra energy
sources and innovations with an incredible capacity for work. An influx of
European countries competitively engaged in the Industrial Revolution. Great
Britain was the first nation to conduct industrialization in Europe, early becoming
a leading country in various sectors, such as industry, trade, banking, maritime,
etc. Following this, France and some of the other Western countries also achieved
fantastic breakthroughs in the Manufacturing Industry, Commerce, etc.
However, it was the high rivalry of the Western Capitalist countries in the
Industrial Revolution that lead to the incrementally dramatic growth of
productivity in most European countries, triggering a bulk of detrimental
consequences. In particular, Britain, like most other industrial countries, witnessed
a period of losing trade balance, also called “European under-consumption”, in
which they produced more goods than they could distribute and sell, facing a
growing deficit. This phenomenon of anarchic production deepened the
fundamental contradiction of the economy, capitalist economy, leading to
successive crises. Additionally, while Britain lost its monopoly on the industry,
“young imperialist” empires such as the United States and Germany rose to the
first and second rank respectively. This disparity between each country's
capabilities and status in industry and trade has become the source of international
disputes over the markets and colonies of bitter imperial conflicts. The last two
decades of the nineteenth century experienced four major economic crises which
occurred in the years 1873-1879, 1882-1886, 1890, and 1900-1903. In each crisis,
small enterprises go bankrupt, large enterprises increase their influence, speeding
up the process of concentration, leading to corruption. The crisis of 1900-1903 had
a profound impact on establishing the dominance of corrupt organizations in
capitalist countries, marking a turning point to imperialism.

Depicting the development process of capitalism in the last 30-40 years of the
nineteenth century, Lenin pointed out that:

- “In the 1960s and 1970s, free competition was at its peak. Monopolies are just
a germ that is not very clear.

- After the crisis of 1873 was a period of the widespread growth of carts, but
carts remained the exception. They are still not stable. They are still a transient
phenomenon.
- The prosperity of the late nineteenth century and the crisis of the years 1900-
1903: the cartel became one of the bases of all economic life. Capitalism has
turned into imperialism.”

Consequently, urgent objectives of the Western imperialist countries at that time in

order to get out of crisis prevalence and continue the rivalry for the world’s
dominant rank, was that find out low-cost energy sources and cheap labors
sources, along with a new market to consume their industrial products. Whilst their
own nations could not provide enough these sources, at the same time, Sub-Sahara
Africa, one of the last areas in the world largely untouched by imperialism and
civilization, attracted the attention of Europe’s ruling elites for both economic and
racial reasons. Based on natural resource maps in Africa of explorers at that time,
European states saw this Africa continent as ripe for the taking, thereby defining,
and promoting African colonization policies and exploitation, i.e., Britain and
France were at the forefront of imperialism in Africa.

Similar to other regions of the world, African colonial exploitation was formalized
in the name of “civilization enlightenment” by exporting civilization to a continent
which they regarded as evolutionary backward and undeveloped. The imperialists’
thesis was that Europeans had a duty as trustees of Africa until the moment that
Africans approach maturity for self-govern. However, colonization was actually
driven to bring in commercial interests for these imperialist countries. Europe
would gain colossal interest from sources exploited in Africa. The decolonization
process would expose colonial rule's one-sidedness. The economies of the leaving
colonial nations were intended to benefit themselves.

For the imperialist countries, the continent – Africa – needed an open-door policy
in trading. An inducement to imperialism, of course, arose from the demand for
raw materials unavailable in Europe, especially copper, cotton, rubber, tea, and tin,
to which European consumers had grown accustomed and upon which European
industry had grown dependent. In the trading scheme of imperialism, in exchange
for highly- demanded products in Europe, Africans would receive their
manufactured goods. Not only did this fulfill desires in raw materials and
resources, but also it addressed the problems about the consuming market. For
example, the British requested palm oil, cotton, and rubber from the Gold Coast, as
well as groundnuts from Gambia. Palm oil was used to make industrial lubricants,
cotton was used to make clothing, rubber was used to make tires, and groundnuts
were used to make soap and wax. As a result, African goods were at the heart of
the Industrial Revolution.

Therefore, it is clearly obvious that powerful capitalistic interests were one of the
primary reasons why the Westerners sent expeditions along the rivers in Africa in
the latter half of the nineteenth century. This was also the reason why the African
colonization was driven by charted companies, particularly, European private
investors trading in outside-Europe regions would receive privileges from their
government. The European nations called industrialization and former slave
trading with a name “legitimate commerce”. The Western countries found all
schemes to reach this, however, the implicit nature was only to change Africa into
an open market that garnered trade surplus. The markets where labor wage was
cheap, the competitiveness was limited, and raw materials were abundant, often
made more profitable overseas investments.

It can be affirmed that certain reasons for the European expansionism had been
initially exploited other regions to benefit themselves, regardless of humane; even
Africa was exploited to the full by imperialism to seize resources and materials as
much as possible, serving the economic, political, and social purposes of the
European imperialist countries.

 Political factors

The impact of inter-European power rivalries and competition for supremacy

fueled political impetus. Within European power politics, Britain, France,
Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Spain were vying for supremacy. The
acquisition of territory around the world, especially Africa, was one means to
display national preeminence.

In addition, these imperialist states alleged a bulk of theory as legitimate and

plausible excuses to approach Africa; some Europeans justified that for all the
infractions of colonialism, Africans have become members of a single
global civilization characterized by "institutions and principles such as
representative democracy, judiciary, banking" and "factories" and "Africans and
other non-westerners have to master the new civilization to strengthen themselves
and benefit from the advantages".

The scramble was so intense that a variety of conferences and diplomatic summits
of European powers convened to deter inter-imperialist conflicts and wars, such as
Berlin Conference (1884 – 1885)

 Social factors

The third significant factor was the social one. Major social problems arose as a
result of industrialization in Europe: unemployment, poverty, homelessness, social
displacement from rural areas, and so on. These societal issues arose partly
because of the new capitalist industries' inability to absorb all people. Buying
colonies and exporting the "surplus population" was one solution to this
challenge. As a result, settler colonies were established in Algeria, Tunisia, South
Africa, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, and central African countries such as
Zimbabwe and Zambia. Overarching economic forces eventually led to the
colonization of other portions of Africa.

3. Conclusion

It is the technological advancement that smooth the path of overseas

expansionism, thereby contributing to rapid breakthroughs in communication as
well as the transportation sector, notably, in the form of steam navigation,
railroads, and telegraphs. Moreover, medical achievements were also remarkably
notable, such as medicines for tropical diseases, or the discovery of quinine for
malaria, etc.

Moreover, it was the interplay of these economic, political, and social motives and
forces that fueled the scramble for Africa and the frenzied endeavors by European
commercial, military, and political agents to claim and establish a stake in
different parts of the continent through inter-imperialist commercial competition,
the declaration of exclusive claims to particular territories for trade, the imposition
of tariffs against other European traders, and claims to the exclusive control of
waterways and commercial routes in different parts of Africa.

In conclusion, through economic dominance and military influence, the capitalist

nations transformed from “informal” imperialism of control to that of direct rule in
the “Scramble for Africa” in intense competition. And then, endeavors such as the
Berlin Conference of 1884-85 among the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, the French Third Republic, and the German Empire failed to mediate the
imperial competition because of failure in defining the competing powers’ claims.
These disputes over Africa were among the central factors precipitating the First
World War.

According to the classic thesis of John A. Hobson, exposed in Imperialism (1902),

the shrinking of continental markets was a main factor of the global New
Imperialism period. Later historians have noted that such statistics only obscured
the fact that formal control of tropical Africa had great strategic value in an era of
imperial rivalry, while the Suez Canal has remained a strategic location. The 1886
Witwatersrand Gold Rush, which lead to the foundation of Johannesburg and was
a major factor of the Second Boer War in 1899, accounted for the "conjunction of
the superfluous money and of the superfluous manpower, which gave themselves
their hand to quit together with the country," which is in itself, according to
Hannah Arendt, the new element of the imperialist era.
VI Lenin (2008) scientifically analyzed the new development stage of capitalism,
stating its nature and historical status. He outlined five basic features of
imperialism as:

- The concentration of production and capital has reached a very high level of
development, forming corrupt organizations that play a decisive role in
economic activities.

- The fusion of banking capital with industrial capital into financial capital.

- The export of capital becomes especially important.

- The formation of monopolistic capitalist unions dividing the world.

- The fact that the largest capitalist powers have divided the land in the world.

With the above five basic characteristics, each country, due to its historical and
economic conditions, has turned to imperialism with its own distinctive features.
Lenin pointed to the feature in America that is the formation of “trusts”. giant with
rich financial groups; in Britain is a "colonial empire" with a large and densely
populated colonial system; In France, it was a "usury empire" with loans for export
to other countries, especially to Russia, in Germany it was "the bourgeois empire"
with the collusion of interests of the two classes; bourgeois and aristocratic; in
Russia and Japan was the "feudal military empire" with remnants of feudalism and
militarism.
References

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