Struggle of women in africa and how they were affected during the Essay

Struggle of women in africa and how they were affected during the coloization of africa - Essay Example For hundreds of centuries, the continent that had been the cradle of civilization was crisscrossed by Arab and Jewish traders who carried out an active commercial activity with the Africans along the coast. Diamond even argued that the languages spoken by Arabs and Jews originated from West Africa, which explains why Jewish, Islamic and Christian communities easily took root.1 However, it was not until the 15th century after Europe experienced severe labor shortages from the disastrous waves of wars, diseases and foreign colonization did Africa turn into a prime source of slave labor. By the middle of that century, Portugal began importing slaves from African trading posts along the western coast. African tribal society of conquest and slavery was a natural supply source as victorious tribes sold their captives to whoever was willing to buy them. The slave trade was born as Arab and African traders saw demand for slave labor rise in Europe. Aside from Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, and Germany found use for cheap labor. Arab traders, too, shipped Africans sold by their conquerors to slave markets in Arabia, Iran, and India, using sea trade routes from Africa to Indonesia that had been used since 5,000 years ago.2 Africa became Slave Central as European nations were joined in the 17th century by the British colonies in America and rising nations like the Netherlands and Denmark, whose powerful navies allowed trading in slaves to continue for the next two centuries. By the middle of the 19th century, slavery was abolished, first in Britain and then in America and soon, other European nations followed. Thus, after centuries of being brutalized by Arab, and then European, slave traders who bought and sold captured prisoners from other native tribes to sell along the coast all the way to Southeast Asia, Africa was free once again, but not for long.3 About that time, the discovery of great mineral wealth in Africa began a wave of colonization after the so-called West African Conference in Berlin in 1884-1885, which became known as "The Scramble." Seven European nations agreed to divide and conquer African territory. Of these, it was Belgium, France, and Britain that carried out the most brutal work of colonization, one that practically made the Africans slaves in their own land.4 Despite their claims of wanting to civilize the people of the continent and turning them away from their destructive tribal tendencies, converting them from pagans into Christians, and preparing the native people for ultimate independence, the colonizers took advantage of the social, cultural, and geographical traits of Africa to squeeze as much as they could from the land and its people. This took place until the middle of the 20th century when these European nations gave their African colonies the independence that they thought they deserved, but by then, the centuries of slavery and the decades of corruption and abuse left deep wounds that, until now, are still in the healing process. Colonization and the Wounds of Culture Colonization weakened African society as cruelty decimated a people wracked by insect-borne diseases like malaria; greed led colonizers (except for the Britain) to withhold the education of the population; and the arbitrary nature by which geographical boundaries of the colonies were established during "the