African Slaves example essay topic

Africa's Development The EuropeanAfrica's Development Essay, Research Paper The European powers had created a situation of economic dependency, political fragmentation, and technological stagnation from the first days they set foot upon African soil. According to Walter Rodney, a black activist from Guyana, slavery and colonialism were the very movements Europeans implemented to divide and conquer the Africans, and exploit African resources for their own purposes. Walter Rodney is not alone in his beliefs, since many writers, movie producers, and activists have followed the same trend Rodney so intricately wrote about in his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. These other writers, producers, and activists strongly support Rodney's thesis in their own works. However, although it can be seen that the colonialists are to blame for the underdevelopment of African, one fault on the part of the current African population is that they have become strong admirers of European culture.

Therefore, the undermining of African culture continues even today. This fault can be attributed to the Europeans for pushing their culture into the minds of the Africans, and against the Africans for not remembering their roots. Although slavery and colonialism implemented by the Europeans thoroughly underdeveloped Africa, the Africans of today must not only realize this, but also rid themselves of European admiration yet continue to struggle against the challenges they will face in the future. The first step in the architecture of aggression against the Africans was the triangular slave trade pattern between the Americas, Europe, and Africa. The slave trade began as early as the 1500's, not long after Columbus had discovered the New World.

Essentially, the triangle followed a sequence, in which the first step involved the African slaves being shipped from all regions of Africa to the Americas. The slaves worked on farms and grew raw materials that were then shipped to Europe, where the raw materials were then used in the manufacturing of goods. The goods were then exported to slave traders living in Africa. The effects of the slave trade were magnanimous. Not only did the slave trade separate countless loved ones from their families and kill several million Africans en route to the Americas, but it also created a new kind of individual, the African-American. The forces and implications of slavery can be seen from primarily two perspectives, looking within Africa to find to what extent Africans themselves are responsible for being enslaved, and looking at forces outside of Africa that caused its people to become enslaved.

In Marys e Conde's S egu, the author shows European haughtiness through characters such as Anne Pepin, a French woman, and Manuel de Cunha, a Brazilian, who participated frequently in the selling and trading of human beings. However, Conde also emphasized in her novel that the blacks as well kept slaves, and therefore Africans are partly to blame for the encouragement of slavery. Conde implies that, concerning the slave trade, the Africans had underdeveloped themselves in addition to being exploited by the Europeans. An alternative point of view concerning slavery and the slave trade is raised by Haile Gerima's film entitled Sankofa.

From Gerima's standpoint, underdevelopment due to slavery came solely form the European colonialists. He directly holds the Europeans responsible for initiating and implementing the triangular slave trade. The European characters in Sankofa portrayed roles that imply total domination over the black Africans. For example, Master James can be seen to dominate the Africans physically, shown by his ruthless actions, such as raping S hola, the lead female character, on a whim, whipping slaves for fun, and not showing any remorse for killing a pregnant slave.

Another character, Father Rafael, dominated the African slaves mentally by Christianizing them, and imposing his religion and way of life upon them. The second step in Europe's conquest for power was to colonize the African land by dividing it up amongst the European nations. The need to colonize grew with the fact that resources and precious metals were discovered to be in abundance in African soil. With this realization, the European powers exploited the land of the black Africans by establishing private industries that benefited only the colonialists, and left the Africans with nothing. This was a major factor in the underdevelopment of Africa in economic terms.

For example, in the 1870's, large diamond deposits were uncovered in South Africa. The amount of diamonds was so substantial that a monopoly on the world's supply of diamonds could be established. Without further ado, De Beers Consolidated Mines had amalgamated and concentrated the diamond industry and possessed a virtual monopoly in diamond sales through a London syndicate by 1899 (Curtin, 448). Additionally, Witwatersrand gold had also been discovered in South Africa. This industry was also under command of the Dutch in South Africa. In the context of literature, China Achebe's Things Fall Apart gives a classical depiction of a traditional Igbo society being taken over by English colonialists.

The source of the future political fragmentation and underdevelopment was the English interference in the African traditional way of life. The main point Achebe desires to convey is that the English were able to gain a foothold in the African land because they had divided the Igbo society by offering strength and recluse to the Igbo efulefu, or those perceived as empty, worthless men. One of the great leaders of the Igbo tribe was Okonkwo, a man whose famous wrestling skills and fearlessness in wars had earned him a high place in this society. However, his attributes were counter-effective, since his son Nw oye becomes fed up trying to please Okonkwo, and enlists himself in an English missionary.

England's post-slave trade involvement in the African land was highly divisive, separating families and tribes from each other, with some Africans rejecting the English presence, and others embracing it. Not only were traditional groups such as families and tribes separated, but the future of African politics also were affected. In Buch i Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, colonialism is already instituted, and power remains in the hands of the British due to their control over money, land, and armed forces. It can be seen that the European presence has underdeveloped the personal lives of many Africans, making them unable to live the relatively full, comfortable, traditional lifestyles they were used to. Nnu Ego, the main character, is seen to be living a relatively tumultuous life as a mother, a title normally deemed worthy and of great value in her society. However, with the advent of the colonialists, the times have brought great change, and, at least for Nnu Ego, living a simple life as a mother is not so simple any more.

With her number of children rapidly increasing and her husband incessantly absent, Nnu Ego must learn to rear them in an absolutely untraditional manner. She was forced to trade like a petty merchant in the streets, ration between food for her children for months at a time, and constantly worry about her husband's survival from one day to the next. She realized quickly this was not the life she expected to live, knowing that the English taking her husband from her for an unbearably long time had something to do with her unhappiness. In fact, the only time she finds solace is when she returns to her village, for a short while, where the English have not stepped foot in. A similar tale is evident in Tsi tsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions. In this novel, the emergence of Africa is truncated since the British have taken control of the minds of the Africans.

Nervous Conditions highlights particularly the fact that Africans are going through a mental underdevelopment, following the English in speech, dress, activity, and education. The best example of this is Nhamo, the son of a peasant, who has left his home to live with his uncle Babamukuru and pursue a decent education after having proven his ability to learn and therefore revealed his potential to improve his family's social standing. However, in his attempt to educate himself, he forgets his roots. The members of Nhamo's household immediately recognize this when he comes back to visit home, since he had forgotten his mother tongue, Shona. The key example of changes in behaviors and attitudes linked with colonial education in Nervous Conditions is Nyasha, Babamukuru's daughter.

Nyasha is shown to undergo a startling inner recognition of the fact that her father, the supposed savior of the family and head patriarch, is simply a pawn in the hands of the British. Her recognition disrupts her learning because she becomes extremely skeptical about the goings-on in the family: the symbolism of the position her father has reached, the so-called favors he imposes on the less fortunate in the family, and the meaning of T ambu's, Nhamo's sister, admission to Sacred Heart, a previously all-white Catholic girls school. Nyasha views all these things as attempts to whitewash the family and embrace the European ways. By letting go of tradition, they have been mentally underdeveloped, since they grow up believing anything that is British is automatically superior to anything that is African.

Jacobo, a character in Nguoi Thiongo's Weep Not Child, is quite similar to that of Babamukuru in Nervous Conditions. Jacobo is a Kenyan who has openly sided with the colonialist powers. He has no qualms about where his loyalties lie. On the other hand, a young boy by the name of Njoroge is just about to begin his schooling, and for him, choosing a side is not so easy.

The rest of his family are either practical workers or freedom fighters, and for them, the choice is also simple. Njoroge, torn between loyalties to his country and family and his self-actualizing need for education, struggles to balance these two worlds which lie in extreme and constant opposition to each other. In the end, he cried for having almost made the wrong decision, of joining the forces of those who were attempting to kill his family. At the same time, he is also sad that he never had the chance to complete his education.

Flanked by depression from both sides, the only advice his family and his lover have to give him is not to weep. This is another example of the underdevelopment of the happiness and education of the African people by the colonialists. Women have played a crucial role in African society. In Alfa Rif aat's Distant View of a Minaret and Mariam a Ba's So Long A Letter, women are depicted as close to reality as possible. Their struggles and desires are described as they ponder why women do what they do, why can t they leave and live without men, and why men behave they way they do.

These questions all suggest that Africa's women have truly maintained Africa after all that it has been through, and without its women, the continent might have even been more underdeveloped than what it is now. Fortunately, most men realize this, as Ali Marui contemplated in his documentary entitled The Africans: A Triple Heritage. Finally, Sem bene Ousmane's The Last of the Empire depicts the current situation amongst many African countries. Although they have become formally independent, they have not become completely independent. As the protagonist Check Ti diane's keen political eye suggests, today's political fragmentation is due to the national government's mere imitation of the previous colonialist powers. Additionally, leaders who are simply puppets at the hands of European countries which desire to fulfill European interests are not leaders at all, but the exact opposite.

In conclusion, it is not difficult to see how slavery humiliated the African people, and how colonialism seduced them to embrace the west. Walter Rodney illustrates that these two devices are the reasons behind Africa's current economic, political, technological, and educational condition. However, the next generation of Africans have the chance to catch up to the Western powers, by learning from them, but not adapting their values. They must preserve their culture, as old as mankind itself. Although Africa was underdeveloped, they must try to not dwell in the past's sorrows, but work towards the possibility of the future's happiness. 330.