Why did the Europeans want colonies in Africa?

Answer 1

== == Black Africans had been engaging in the slave trade, both between various black African peoples and with the Arabs, for centuries, though in a somewhat less permanent form. Thus they were set up and ready to sell slaves to anyone who had the money to buy them. The Europeans needed laborers who were used to tropical conditions to do manual labor in their colonies in the Americas. Thus, since the Africans were already in the slave business anyway, it was easy for the Europeans to become their next customers. Also the Europeans wanted slaves to work on their sugar plantations. They already had bondservants whom they had to pay but the African slaves provided a much cheaper way to get labour.

Answer 2

Europeans enslaved Africans because they were much more stronger and less immune to disease like smallpox than the Native Americans. Africans also lived on a land full of great resources and treasures -- which would be taken, used, and sold by the Europeans for more gold and whatnot.

Answer 3

The nineteenth century saw immense changes in Africa. Some were driven by famine and disease. Some changes were the result of the territorial ambitions of African rulers. As the century progressed alliances with merchants and missionaries from Europe began increasingly to have a bearing on how African leaders achieved their goals.

At the beginning of the century, Europeans were still hugely ignorant of the continent. The systematic colonisation of Africa, which gathered momentum in the 1880's, was not even on the horizon in the first half of the 19th century. Europeans had confined themselves to trading mainly along the coast. Inland the trade in slaves and commodities was handled by African and Arab merchants.

With the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807, the British navy took to patrolling the coasts, intercepting other nations's slave ships.

In the last two decades of the 19th century conflicts and rivalries in Europe began to affect people in Africa directly. In the 1880's European powers divided Africa up amongst themselves without the consent of people living there, and with limited knowledge of the land they had taken.

In 1914 conflict in Europe came to a head and the First World War broke out. The contribution of African people to the war effort was crucial.

Answer 4

I don't know if this answer is correct, but The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was the most abominable and cruel from of slavery, but it was neither the first nor the only slave trade. Slavery was a recognized institution around the world long before the Egyptians enslaved the Jews. Arabs raided European countries and captured white slaves which they sold in Africa. By the 18th century, a large part of the European population were descendants of serfs and slaves. In other words, slavery was not just about the black people who endured the Middle Passage.

Answer 5

Many reasons:

• Vast areas for farming
• Spices
• Ivory/Natural Resources (gems, metals, etc.)
• Spreading Christianity/Western culture
• International competition with other Empires

Answer 6

The Native Americans died in record numbers (especially in the Caribbean) within decades of the Spanish arrival, primarily from foreign diseases, but also from overwork. The Spaniards (and Europeans generally) needed a labor force to fill the lower rungs of the social ladder in order for the colonial expedition to be profitable. Since the enslavement of Africans was quite accepted in Spain due to the former Islamic rulers having African slaves and participating in the African Slave Trade, it was only natural for the Spaniards to expand this trade and begin to use Africans to replace the dying Natives. Once African slavery was proven successful by the Spaniards, other European colonizers copied the enterprise.

The Africans also had much better resistance to both European and tropical diseases since many of these diseases had become prevalent in Africa and, like Europeans, the populations that could not handle these plagues had already been wiped out. The Native Americans had no prior exposure and the immediate genetic winnowing easily removed over fifty percent of the endemic population.

It is important to note that in places like the Andes, where the Native American population did not die off rapidly, African American slaves were not brought in. This is why Peru and Bolivia have a very small percentage of African descendants today.

Answer 7

they thought they were spice farmers

-billy biggins (again)