Modern African history is a study which deals with African historical developments which took place around 16th and 17th century . For better understanding of this study, different schools of thought were developed and these include; Merrie Africa which suggests that Africa before Europeans was more organized and modernized, politically and economically. Modernization is another school of thought also which suggests that Africa before Europeans was primitive. The third school which is African resistance suggests that Africans were not passive victims for the exploitation by the Europeans hence developed a culture of resistance to what they felt was unreasonable and a threat to their local economies. On the other hand, dependency and underdevelopment theory suggests that presence of Europeans contributed to the underdevelopment of the continent . It is clear that Europeans sought colonies to gain resources which they were then exporting hence underdevelopment. Though this ascension may be debatable, this essay in the subsequent paragraphs will be working towards justifying that dependency and underdevelopment is the theory which provides a better understanding on how Europeans contributed to the African current status.
Africa was a hub of agricultural raw materials and also home of unprocessed mineral products. If the coming of the Europeans was for a common good, they could have only supported Africans to properly make use of their resources. But Europeans then took advantage of the Africans through an exchange process of expensive machinery and consumer goods from the west so that they got cheap raw materials from Africa to their countries. They also used Africans as a means of diversifying their market base as they were processing the raw materials and then sold them back on exorbitant prices. Resources from Africa were taken away as raw materials and this left Africa poor up to date. On the other hand, it has increased the African dependency on aid from the...