. Explain how the Berlin Conference and the imperialism of Africa that ensued effected the both the colonized Africans and the Europeans colonizers?

The Berlin Conference is a set of laws for 14 Europeans country who each wanted to obtain a piece of land from Africa. It started as that any country was able to control a part of the African country as long as they let each other know they would be getting that land. African leaders didn’t have any say in this conference. This had many negative effects such as:
Hundreds of thousands of Africans died out of war fare/
African tradition cultures broke down because of assimilation and colonization.
Europeans created African boundaries by dividing the nation.

Although the Berlin Conference had negative effects it also had positive effects because Europeans technology improved sanitation conditions and education in Africa, but it also benefited Europeans because they got to industrialize more since they got more natural resources from Africa.



Kairy Garcia

3. What role do you think the imperialism of the 19th and 20th century played in the sparking the Civil War in Sierra Leone?

Imperialism is when another country comes and colonizes country. Imperialism in Africa started when European countries went to Africa and decided they were going to take over Africa because they thought that people there were dumb and they needed help to modernize their style of living. That was when social Darwinism came about, a theory were some were more successful than other because of genetic and cultural superiority. Europeans thought that they had the right to spread their religion and government to a less privileged country. White mans burden felt that it was their duty to help civilize and westernize less modern people. Although the Europeans made people think that they would help them out their real intensions where to get natural resources from the land they were colonizing because this would help them industrialize more. How ever this was not beneficial for the Africans because they were force to another culture. Also many of them died of war fare. Europeans politically divided African countries creating African boundaries which created many conflicts among the Africans. This is when tribalism happened because Africans started to have civil wars over land ownership.

In Sierra Leone there was a civil war because of the diamonds. Rebel groups wanted to obtain diamond to be able to trade them for weapons. The RUF (Revolutionary United Front) wanted to obtain the diamond field, therefore they made people work and they terrorize the villages. Also the Liberia’s president wanted to make people weaker to be able to accomplish this goal. That is why people in Africa had their hands cut off. The rebels cut their hand off so that they wouldn’t be able to do anything, which it was the best way for them to take over the diamond filed. They also encourage kids to fight for them by providing them with alcohol and drugs, so that they can become rebels.

As we can see the imperialism of the 19th and 20th century sparked the civil war of Sierra Leone when civil wars started in Africa for land ownership.