The European countries that colonized Africa did so for a few simple reasons. 1. These countries were becoming increasingly industrialized, and began to require more natural resources (think oil, coal, iron) in order to keep improving infrastructure. 2. These countries had reached the point where they were producing many more goods than their people actually needed, leading to a need for increased exports. Therefore, to keep the profit coming in, they needed to open new avenues for their markets to keep selling. 3. Power. European countries began to see colonies as a symbol of political, economic, and military power. The colonization of Africa turned into a race to claim as much land as possible in order to keep up with competition from other Europeans. 4. Many Europeans justified the colonization of Africa as a quest to westernize/civilize the people living there. Seeing their cultures as less than civilized, Europeans wanted to "Improve" the lives of those in Africa. Unfortunately, this involved destroying much of the culture and history of those people, the same as was done to the Native Americans.
