Central Africa's History and Culture

Central Africa's culture has changes over the years. many thousands of years ago, the native Africans lived in Central Africa and practiced their own culture and religion. The, natives, though, had less impact on Central Africa's new culture than the European colonists. They say that about 1,000 years ago people started moving to Africa because of its valuable natural resources. Central Africa had animal skins, shells, slaves and ivory, all of the Europeans favorite resources. The Europeans took millions of slaves from Africa over a span of about 300 years. The European countries, mostly France, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal trades with African countries and made some of them richer in the beginning, but in the end, all of them were poorer. They took whatever they wanted and however they wanted and ignored the natives cultures and practices. They changed the cultures and religions of the natives and caused conflicts between the many ethnic groups. They only became independent after Word War II and Angola only became independent of Portugal in 1975. Even after they gained independence, the ethnic groups fought with each other and some still do. The Europeans changed their religion, language, and customs/ practices. The ethnic groups speak different dialects, or even different languages. There are hundreds of different languages. Most of the Natives are Roman Catholic, but there is also Protestant Catholic, Islam and Hinduism. As you can see, the Europeans had a huge impact on Central Africa's culture.