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Colonial period
Intense Portuguese sailing along the coast of Africa began in the 15th century, and the Portuguese were soon followed by other European powers. In the mouths of rivers and in harbors, trading outposts appeared whose main interest, in the beginning, was gold and ivory. But very soon, another tradable merchandise was found: slaves, for whose labor there was a demand in the New World. According to estimations, during three and a half centuries of slave-trading Africa lost up to 100 million people.
In the beginning of the 19th century slave-trading was prohibited, and by the end of the century slavery was abolished in the USA. As a result, not only white slave traders suffered, but also numerous kingdoms of the African coast that provided them with “live merchandise”. By that time European countries were ready for active exploitation of inland Africa. The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 legitimized mass colonization of Africa, and by the beginning of the 20 century the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa (except for Ethiopia and Liberia) was divided between Great Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Germany (after the World War I, German colonies passed to the trusteeship of the winner countries).
It is not easy to give an unambiguous evaluation of the colonial period. On the one hand, the independent African statehood was eliminated. The colonizers were mostly racist and did not view African people as full-fledged people. They exercised forced labor and in many colonies forced the locals away from their territories. On the other hand, slavery was abolished, and the African people received access to modern knowledge and technologies. Foundation of modern spheres of economy was laid, and a society that could face the challenges of the modern world began to take shape.
The colonizers could not do without local assistants, so they made special effort to grow African intelligentsia. But, eventually, it was the intelligentsia that adopted the democratic ideas of “freedom, equality and brotherhood” and buried the colonial system.
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