What factors contributed to the rise and fall of powerful kingdom in Africa?

Answer 1

The colonial period in Africa lasted no more than 70 years, from around 1880/90 to around 1950/60. Only North Africa had - from the Middle Ages on - been part of the Ottoman Empire, so under Muslim rule.

Before 1880, Europeans only had a number of trading posts along the coast, one small colony in the extreme south covering the area of today's Cape Town and only recently, the King of Belgium (as a personal enterprise) had started to explore and exploit the region around the Congo river.

The rise of colonialism strangely enough was dictated by the effort by the British to abolish slavery. Since they had outlawed slavery in 1806 themselves they had become very active in fighting slavery wherever they found it. And they found it in huge quantity within Africa itself where it was ubiquitous and where in some regions a third of the population was held as slaves by their fellow-Africans. From there, a massive quantity of slaves was also still exported to the Arabian peninsula.

Putting pressure on local rulers did not help; these saw slavery as the backbone of their society and economy. As a result, pressure was put on the London Government to simply take over and then forcibly abolish slavery.

This first met with much reluctance in London because of the cost and effort connected. Then the British realized that there was an upside: gaining control of east African territories might at the same time give them control over the sea route to India, the only colonial posession they really treasured.

So London proceeded to take control and indeed started out by abolishing slavery everywhere. Then France, Britains political rival at the time, decided it could not remain behind or risk to lose prestige in the world of politics.

This started 'the race to Africa" which began and finished largely between 1880 and 1890. France also abolished slavery where it encountered it. Not to stay behind, Belgium, Italy and Germany grabbed the few areas that were left.

The end of the colonization period came 70 years later, after the end of WW 2. The Europeans had been shown vulnerable and their dependency on African auxiliary troops had usually been met by demands of much greater autonomy in local rule in return. Moreover, the USA had made it clear that it would in no way support the ravaged and much impoverished European countries tohang on to their colonial posessions.

Regardless of what often has been suggested later, most African colonies were mostly a cost factor for their mother countries - more a status symbol than a fantastic source of revenue - although it was for some commercial enterprises that were active at the time. The combined result of promises made, pressure from the USA and a post-War focus on rebuilding the mother countries themselves made them decide to end colonialism. Britain and France retained for a while however much political influence through the British Commonwealth and its French counterpart, La Francophonie, in western Africa.

Answer 2

The Europeans tachnology was supperior, also the Europeans used steam engins to travel faster throughout Africa.

Answer 3

many taxes were imposed on Africans

Answer 4

Trade