There have been steam engines for at least 4000 years - including in Africa. The 19th century british engines you are thinking off was the culmination of 4000 years of developememt on 3 continents. If it had not happened in England then, it would have happened somewhere else at the same time. It had become inevitable and it was dumb luck who did it first. Besides which colonialism began 200 years earlier. Steam power was more a consequence of colonialism than a cause. Indeed the entire industrial revolution, and all the wealth it made for europe, was a consequence of colonialism. Without colonialism the same outxome likely occurs: except it happens *everywhere*. Only what existed in Europe prior to colonialism starting in the 16th century could be deemed exports from europe. Every advancement sincs then is a european import from Africa.