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I need some assistance with these assignment. political science Thank you in advance for the help! Historical Background to The Situation – European Colonialism

As discussed by Sharma (1973), in the beginning European interest was confined to the Atlantic coast and the Mediterranean – the rest was “Dark Continent” fraught with savage cannibals, wild animals and dreadful diseases stalking an inhospitable terrain. By the end of the fifteenth century Portuguese started trading in ivory, pepper, dyestuff and gold dust. This was also the time when Europeans commenced colonisation of the American continent and a very profitable slave trade flourished from Africa to meet the enormous demand of manual labour of the colonisers. By 1870s explorers and missionaries started adventuring into the deep jungles of Africa. With the advent of industrial revolution the demand for raw materials and markets to sell finished products grew in leaps and bounds. This led to rivalry amongst European colonialists to spread their territory, which reached its zenith in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The sharing of the ‘African Pie’ was amicably settled through the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 whereby Africa was apportioned by the European powers without any regard to the lie of the land or the psyche of the natives. It is to be noted that in posterity such lacerations presented serious problems of integration at the time of independence of most states.

A primitive culture prevailed amongst the tribes in Africa and wars between clans and tribes to settle disputes were very common. Whenever there were disputes amongst the tribes the weaker ones sought outside help. The European traders who had modern weapons and better fighting skills to offer were their first choice.