Imperialism

Through imperialism, European powers conquered S.E. Asia, Africa, and the Middle east for a variety of different reasons and by different means. The main motives were resources such as cotton, valuable metals and diamonds, slaves, and exotic spices and foods. Other motives include trying to convert the natives to the Europeans religions, mostly Roman Catholic, and the need for power and glory. The two main ways of conquering the lesser powers were buy buying them out and violence. Buying them out meant making trade agreements that gave the Europeans power and wealth in the area or buying the country away from the local people. The other method, violence meant taking the less powerful regions by sheer military force. In the Middle East, land and resource were generally accumulate through trade agreement and buying countries out of debt in return for power and resources.However the same is not true for most of Africa and S.E. Asia. In these regions, force was generally used to conquer the countries and acquire their land and resources. Finally, there were results and changes due to the control of the weaker countries. Many countries that were conquered suffered from lack of food,lack of tradeable goods, and slavery due to the European powers sucking them dry of these necessities.