From the late 1800s through the early 1900s, Western Europe nations pursued to expand their empires by taking over industrially undeveloped countries which were rich in natural resources. This policy of imperialism became known as New Imperialism. European industrialized nations needed to expand their markets in order to sell their manufactured products. Businessmen, bankers and foreign investments, who had great capital to invest, decided to maintain firm control over those unexplored areas where they could obtain a steady supply of raw materials (e.g. rubber, oil, etc.). So imperialists started to set up new colonies under their direct control in order to get the colonies natural resources and use them as raw material for their industries.