Jude Efe Egharevba

From the colonization OF AMERICA to the partition OF AFRICA Jude Efe Egharevba

This book entitled "From the Colonization of America to the Partition of Africa" is a book that covers the Modern and Contemporary history of Europe, America and Africa. It's about the conquest and subsequent colonization of America and Africa from the Era of Discovery to the emergence of decolonization after the end of the Second World War. The colonization of Africa by European powers began with the manor conquest of the Canary archipelago that began in 1402 by the Castilian nobility, and the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 by the Portuguese Crown. However, after the discovery of America in 1492, these first European colonizers (Spain and Portugal) lost interest in the African continent, although the Portuguese established trading posts along all the Atlantic coasts of Africa to the Indian Ocean. After the decline and fall of the empires of the Modern Age between 1763 and 1825 as a result of territorial losses of European powers in America, these powers then turned their attention to Africa in search of new territories for their expansion and new markets for their economic growth. The five powers involved were Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands, although this last country left the colonial race at the end of the nineteenth century after it ceded its last African territory (the Netherlands' Gold Coast) to the Great Britain under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1871. In 1763, France ceded its vast territory in America to England after its defeat in the Seven Years' War; In 1783 England recognized the independence of the USA losing that territory; Between 1810 and 1825 Spain lost all its American colonies except Cuba and Puerto Rico; and in 1822 Portugal lost Brazil after the latter declared its independence from the former. Each of these four powers will constitute its second empire marking the beginning of new imperialism, and will fight to acquire territories in Africa so as to be able to constitute new empires. This would lead to the convening of the Berlin Conference between 1884 and 1885 where the powers (including new powers like the German Empire) would decide on how to share up Africa. However, this Contemporary colonialism will come to an end after the end of Second World War when the United Nations General Assembly institutionalized the Committee of Decolonization to end colonialism. Jude Efe Egharevba