Colonialism in Africa: Theories and Practices

Abstract

Direct political domination of people by other people is what is known as colonialism. These dominations also extend to socio-cultural cum religious domination. These dominations are achieved by direct application of military force in other to impose political control which ultimately leads to the establishment of colonies on foreign lands other than the lands of the colonizers. It is the domination of the minority over the majority of people not minding their ethnic, cultural, political, religious and economic affiliations of the colonized. The colonizers claim cultural, racial and religious superiorities over the colonized and refer to them as barbarians, savages and primitive. As a result, the colonized are brutalized dehumanized and psychological enslaved. A lot of theories had been advanced by scholars as to the reason for advent of colonialism in the continent of Africa and these theories and its follies is what this article is set to look into. The paper tries to explain what theory is and various theories that was advanced to justify colonialism such as balance of power theory, economic theory, humanitarian theory, religious theory to mention but a few. The study adopted the thematic approach, combined with descriptive, historical and analytical method in arriving at its findings and conclusions