During The Early 1800S Into The Nineteenth - amazonia.fiocruz.br

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The Scramble for Africaalso called the Partition of AfricaConquest of Article sourceor the Rape of Africa[1] was the invasion, occupation, division, and colonization of African territory by European powers during a short period known to historians as the New Imperialism between and The 10 percent of Africa that was under formal European control in increased to almost 90 percent bywith only Ethiopia Abyssinia and Liberia remaining independent.

European motives included iNneteenth desire to control valuable natural resources, rivalry and the quest for national prestige, and religious missionary zeal. Internal African politics also played a role. The Berlin Conference ofwhich regulated European colonization and trade in Africa, is usually referred to as the starting point of the Scramble for Africa.

Partitioning Africa was effected largely without Europeans going to war.

ByEuropean powers had established small trading posts along the coast, but they seldom moved inland, preferring to stay near the sea. They primarily traded with peoples of the continent.

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Large parts of Int continent were essentially uninhabitable for Europeans because of their high mortality rates from tropical diseases such as malaria. Even as late as the s, Western European states controlled only ten percent of the African continent, with all their territories located near the coast. Byonly Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent of European control, and Liberia had strong connections to the United States. Technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas.

Industrialization brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, Duing in the forms of steamships, railways and telegraphs. Medical advances also played an important role, especially medicines for tropical diseaseswhich helped control their adverse effects. The development of quininean effective treatment for malariamade vast expanses of the tropics more accessible for Europeans.

Sub-Saharan Africaone of the last regions of the world largely untouched by "informal imperialism", was also attractive to Europe's ruling elites for economic, political, and social reasons.

During a time when Britain's balance of trade showed a growing deficit, with shrinking and increasingly protectionist continental markets due to the Long Depression —96Africa offered BritainGermanyFranceand other countries an open market that would garner them a trade surplus : a market that bought more from the colonial power than it sold overall.

Surplus capital was often more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible.

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Another inducement for imperialism arose from the demand for raw materials, especially coppercotton, ivory, rubber, palm oilcocoadiamonds, tea, and tinto which European consumers had grown accustomed and upon which European industry had grown dependent. Additionally, Britain wanted control of areas of southern and eastern coasts of Africa for stopover ports on the route to Asia and its empire in India. Consequently, the companies involved in tropical Nineheenth commerce were relatively small, apart from Cecil Rhodes 's De Beers Mining Company.]