The major European powers laid claim to the areas of Africa where they could exhibit a sphere of influence over the area. These claims did not have to have any substantial land holdings or treaties to be legitimate. The European power that demonstrated its control over a territory accepted the mandate to rule that region as a national colony. The European nation that held the claim developed and benefited from their colony’s commercial interests without having to fear rival European competition. With the colonial claim came the underlying assumption that the European power that exerted control would use its mandate to offer protection and provide welfare for its colonial peoples, however, this principle remained more theory than practice. There were many documented instances of material and moral conditions deteriorating for native Africans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under European colonial rule, to the point where the colonial experience for them has been described as "hell on earth." COUNT 5
QSN1 Why did European powers lay claim to areas Africa? ANS1 exhibit a sphere of influence over the area QSN2 What did the European powers need to make their claim over these areas legitimate? ANS2 These claims did not have to have any substantial land holdings or treaties to be legitimate. QSN3 What do European powers that exibit their control ovet an area accept? ANS3 mandate to rule that region as a national colony. QSN4 What was the colonial experience for Africans described as? ANS4 hell on earth. QSN5 How did the claims on the areas in Africa benefit the European powers? ANS5 colony’s commercial interests without having to fear rival European competition.