Speaking about colonization and missionary movement of Europeans across Africa, it started at the end of the 15 century but its strongest influence occurred at the beginning of 19 century. For centuries Britain was taking slaves out of Africa and was selling them. Later Britain had outlawed the slave trade and started colonization by the means that they are saving Africans.
For the first time, Africans were pleased with the colonists and missionaries because they were friendly and gave the tribesmen education and trade opportunities. The tribesmen didn’t want to give up the new trading society to fight for their independence, that I why they had accepted the confines of the white man’s rule. Soon they started to convert people into Christianity. Some of them have joined the movement and some haven’t. First conflicts were noticed as the mission expanded, hey led to a division of a clan. But besides making a positive impact on a tribe, Colonization brought violence to the tribe. The tribesmen started to do things that their ancestors deplore, some of them started to think that they can kill their own brothers. Pitting brother against brother and father against son became a regular thing.
As the result of European’s colonization, Africa became divided at least into fifty nation-states. The Africans lived according to European political restrictions, so there was no chance to remain a unique society with a common language and traditions. Many ethnic groups were divided and spitted which led to stress, misunderstanding, and sometimes violence. The cohesiveness of the historical society was gone.
Speaking about colonization, we can’t but mention its influence and cultural impact on an object of colonization. The story of Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart is a vivid example of such influence. Achebe’s story takes place at the end of the nineteenth century, this is the first time when Europeans began colonizing this region in Nigeria. The main purpose of Achebe was to establish a parallel between the heartrending destruction of native African cultures and Okonkwo’s personal tragedy.
One of the worst aspects of colonization is a cruel cycle of mutual confrontation as the two cultures conflict. Referring to the story, this cycle began when Okonkwo was exiled from Umuofia and was seeking protection from his mother’s kinsmen in the nearby village called Umuofia. The most significant misunderstanding occurred when the British men destroyed the village Abame. The reason for this was the murder of a white man who came to Abame. The inhabitants of Abame were just scared of him and couldn’t communicate with him. This is a vivid example of how one incident can be interpreted from two points of view. Christian missionaries had also played an important role. They were holding debates with the native inhabitants to gain converts. They had converted several people including Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son. Okonkwo’s reaction was simple, he becomes enraged and disowns Nwoye. But the tensions between the village inhabitants and the missionaries were growing as none of the cultures tried to accommodate another one. The converts had killed a sacred python and the tribe retaliates by ostracizing the Christians.
There was a moment when Umuofia seemed to be ready to lash out against the colonists, the court messengers step in to break them up. Okonkwo didn’t want to follow the orders, that is why he had killed the head messenger. He was surprised to see that the people let the other messengers, the henchmen of the white government escape. It was understandable that his people are not ready to raise up against the colonists. Okonkwo was a witness to changes; his home tribe has changed a lot. The warlike Ibo became more peaceful and start praying to a God that they couldn’t see. This was absolutely incomprehensible for Okonkwo.
The end of the story is completely unpredictable, the colonists’ influence became so great that Okonkwo was not able to oppress it or to stand it anymore. He just can’t live under foreign rule anymore, hear a foreign language and see foreign traditions.
So, rather than bear the yoke of colonization, he hangs himself.
So, reading this story we can observe how much people can change. Trying to reach a higher social status they join a foreign religion rejecting their own customs and traditions, so easy refusing what they believed for centuries. We can also observe that there were people, like Okonkwo who did not want to accept foreign traditions, he wanted to honor the traditions of his tribe. He understood that race equality promised is just a myth. All his soul and all his inside were strongly protesting against colonization. But he could change nothing, it was too late. That is why he preferred suicide rather than seeing his tribe’s degradation.