Before imperialism, the industrial revolution took place and caused countries to feel the need to gain more land and resources in order to have more markets. Nationalism played a big role in imperialism because colonies were very proud and confident and wanted to expand their territories to become the biggest and baddest. The search for new markets in European manufactured good were really high. The colonized often lost their cultural identity and language. Most of the time they were mistreated and discriminated against because they were not as socially advanced as the colonizers were. A main part of imperialism was the Scramble for Africa. This was when all the big nations came together to fight over what parts of Africa they wanted. Their main priority was to expand their territories.