In the beginning, as
previously noted, the Europeans were not powerful enough to seize
slaves at will or to invade the African kingdoms. But the
industrial revolution had immeasurably widened the power gap
between Europe and Africa. By the time the slave trade ended, and
European adventurers had found new ways to achieve gigantic
capital gains, Europe had achieved a power advantage sufficient
to invade Africa at will.
As European interests in colonizing Africa increased, the
European powers, at the middle of the nineteenth century, were
also tearing one another apart in the process of this
competitive expansion, In order to avoid further misfortune, the
great powers of Europe met at the conference of Berlin in 1885.
Without troubling to consult with any Africans, they drew lines
on a map of Africa dividing it among themselves. It took only a
very few years for a map drawing to become a physical reality.
When the Europeans had finished exploiting Africa through the
slave trade and had greatly weakened its societies, they invaded
Africa in order to exploit its nonhuman material resources.
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