How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

There has been a lot of talk about Africa especially her third worldliness and her underdevelopment but little to no talk of why Africa is underdeveloped in the first place. It is in light of this that we delve into this matter.

We look at Africa not in isolation but with regard to the rest of the world. It is without doubt that Africa has suffered a great deal of injustice especially from slave trade and colonialism. The goal here is not to provide a comprehensive African history but rather to try and answer the question “why is Africa underdeveloped and how Europe were instrumental to this end?”.

The beginning…

In the 17th century Europe during the so called European renaissance were becoming expansionists, most of them had never been past the northern coast of Africa but with this new expansionist ideology taking root, nations began sending explorers and missionaries to Africa to spy and gather information for mapping and surveying the land.

How they did it….

The likes of Livingstone, Morton Stanley’s etc paved the way by collecting information and relaying it to Europe that in turn made way for slave trade to acquire slaves to work in tobacco plantations in the Americas, also conquered colonies of Europe.

If we accept that the slave trade in Africa provided labour for plantations that in turn provided raw materials for European Industry, It is clear that this trade also led to African colonization as Europe required more input for their industrial revolution mainly in raw materials and markets for finished products.

Not losing sight of the matter

What is important to note is that African wealth was stolen by military action, deceit by treaties and conquest, from the oil in Angola, the rubber in Congo, the Cocoa in Ghana, to the Diamonds in Zimbabwe, all these resources were extracted for free by unpaid forced labour and no compensation whatsoever to the African people. The slaves worked without pay in their own lands.

Conclusion

With that in mind it is clear where the inequality in development arose, and that is theft,treachery, unfair trade and deceit of Africa by Europe. Thus it is no surprise Europe developed as it did, with almost zero cost of production in their industrial revolution which fueled their growth.

And that is how Europe underdeveloped Africa, dear readers.