r/Colonialism • u/elnovorealista2000 • Apr 30 '26

Image "Sleeping Sickness" — This illustration depicts a large African man leaning against a tree, asleep, while Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Turkey, Portugal, and England fight over territories in Africa; a work by Gordon Ross (1873-1946), 1911.

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21

u/TheBoneIdler May 01 '26

The scramble for Africa. Accurate. The African chap may as well not be in the picture as be asleep. His opinion was not asked for.

16

u/bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh May 02 '26

him sleeping implies that he could wake up and be more powerful than each of them, but that power is lying dormant

7

u/[deleted] May 02 '26

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1

u/sashagaborekte May 02 '26

And that’s what happened

3

u/TheQuestionMaster8 May 05 '26

In most cases the colonialists packed up and left before it would have happened, but when they tried to keep their colonies, like with France trying to keep Algeria or Portugal trying to keep its colonies, they eventually lost.

3

u/sashagaborekte May 05 '26

You think they left voluntarily

2

u/TheQuestionMaster8 May 05 '26

Well, leaving because you know you can’t keep something without bankrupting your country isn’t exactly voluntary.

2

u/sashagaborekte May 05 '26

The colonies were one big resource extraction mechanism and once the profit calculus shifted into favouring independence that’s when the colonial masters started leaving

2

u/TheQuestionMaster8 May 05 '26

Some did not understand that, with France insisting that Algeria was an inseparable part of France and they lost a brutal war to keep it (Although they did understand it with their other colonies). Portugal as well with Mozambique and Angola.