I hope I don't come off as rude, and I hope that I asked an answerable question, but does anyone here have any idea why Africa was so ravaged by Europeans during the Scramble For Africa? I'm not asking why Africans weren't able to mount many successful resistances until later (I know the answer), I'm asking why Europeans would act in such a manner that they did.

I should probably mention that this question could be alternatively titled "Why Was Colonization Brutal Everywhere?", but I'm wondering about Africa's situation first and foremost. It just doesn't make sense to me why Europeans would enter a continent, and then attempt to destroy populations of people as they did. I definately understand why they were there in the first place (first exploration, then money), but I just don't understand why it had to happen the way it did. King Leopold II's Congo seems especially unecessary; there were better ways to increase production other than cutting people's limbs off. In Namibia, entire populations were targeted and killed, but for what? To prevent uprising? But there are less brutal and savage ways of doing so, and even in the 1800s I'm sure they knew this. So why? Why did so many people have to die due to their methods? Why did they have to kill so many people over such material things?

I'm probably asking a question about human nature, and I definately don't think Europeans are the only people who could act like this, but I'm just confused all the while. Nothing I've researched adds up.