How Did Africa Underdeveloped

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Pages: 4

The African continent is more underdeveloped that any other continent because of geographic luck, slave trade, and imperialism. The combination of these three aspects of African history made it hard to succeed in the world of western expansion. With more geographic luck and racial equality, Africa could have been a thriving continent creating a very different story for europeans. Unfortunately with insufficient crops, animals, and technology it was not possible to be a superior power to these countries. This led to the slippery slope of Africa's problems is the reason Africa is underdeveloped to this day. The first and most important reason why Africa is underdeveloped is because of geographic luck. Geographic luck is how much your surroundings …show more content…
When Europeans started to explore Africa they wanted to take it for themselves. The problem was France, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, and Spain were all competing for land. To settle this dispute they all gathered at the Berlin conference to divvy out the land to match each country's needs. Powerless against the Europeans forces, the Africans could only sit and watch as the land they had inhabited since the dawn of man was wrongfully taken from them. Imperialism was bad for Africa in many ways. First Europeans created conflict between African nations so that they would focus on their rivalry and not the Europeans. This created damaged relations in Africa making it harder to coexist. Secondly Europeans controlled and changed many aspects of African countries. This meant new laws, new authority, and no say. Europeans thought they were coming in to help the Africans but often they were just hurting them. Until recently Africa didn’t even have control over itself, returning the control has lead to weak and often corrupt governments forming in Africa which is not what a country needing stability is looking for. This change in their political, economic, and social order disrupted African countries making it harder to develop which was a huge disadvantage for