Question

How did Africans respond to European colonization?

Answer 1

• The terms ‘resistance’ and ‘collaboration’ have been used to classify African responses towards colonialism; those who resisted (in various forms) the occupying forces, and those who submitted to or worked with those powers.
• Once occupied especially in Sub Saharan Africa they have either withdrawn their labour from the colonialists.Refused to pay colonial head/hut tax, this was a tax system designed to force Africans who lived off the land into the cash economy controlled by the colonialists.These actions have generally lead to uprisings as a result of brutal colonial repression as a result. In the 1900s Africans began colonial wars of liberation seeking national self determination
• Some Africans collabrated because of military weaknesses. They realized that the Europeans had better weapons and methods of fighting. They feared that fighting them would put their independence at risk.They responded with friendship to protect their social,political and economic organization.