The Berlin Conference WHEN
1885, 3 months long
The Berlin Conference WHO
- started by German leader Otto von Bismarck
The Berlin Conference agenda
mapping and agrement of who owned what area of Africa
The Berlin Conference countries present
- 14 countries present
- no African country (Sultan of Zanzibar request denied)
- US didnt sign treaty (domestic politics took an anti-imperialistic turn)
Specifics of Berlin Conference
- many borders we know today were finalised at bilateral events after conference
- internationalised free trade on the Congo and Niger River Basins
- King Leopold II of Belgium got Congo Free State, which was his private corporate empire
“legal” aspects of Berlin Conference
- bound all parties to protect the “native tribes… their moral and material well-being”
-> + further supress slave trade (illegal but still happening)
-> “civilise” Africans through Christianisation - countries had to undergo “effective occupation” to establish administrative colonies in the regions under its sphere of influence
what were the implications of “effective occupation”
- forced powers to build ports, railways and administrative posts quickly
- turned informal influence into formal territorial control
Scramble for Africa what and how were african kingdoms treated
- imperial competition of African nations by European powers between 1880s and the onset of WW1 (1914)
- introduction of schools, hospitals, modern forms of gov.
- African Kingdoms and empires were treated as non-sov.
- many African colonies tied to 1-2 export crops (cocoa, rubber, cotton, groundnuts)
Liberia in Scramble for Africa
not occupied because it was founded by free slaves from the US in 1847
European objectives for Scramble for Africa: responsibility
saw it as role and responsibility to modernise African Nations
European objectives for Scramble for Africa: Suez
vital trade connection
- Especially important for British (wanted to protect)
European objectives for Scramble for Africa: natural resources
to support growing industrial sectors and potential market for goods these factories produced eg. copper, rubber, diamonds, oil, gold
European objectives for Scramble for Africa: armed conflict
AVOIDING
- France and British almost went to war over Sudan
- Germany and France almost went to war over Morroco
-> create legal procedures
- “effective occupation”: a power had to demonstrate real control, administration, and policing to claim land
European objectives for Scramble for Africa: benefits compared to others
each country feared that if they didnt participate, another would reap the benefits of colonisatoin that it could have had
European objectives for Scramble for Africa: nationalist movements
imperial expansion
- colonial expansion= demonstrating legitimacy as great powers
European objectives for Scramble for Africa: sense of racial superiority
growth of social darwinism
- movement of people and information between Africa and Europe triggered echo chamber that reinforced European ideas of racial and cultural superiority
- exhibitions held where Indigenous African groups were displayed
- connection to manifest destiny
why then the Scramble for Africa?
- medical advances (quinine) to be able to survive tropical diseases -> more exploration from Europeans and more Europeans could be there longer
- European states adopted a worldview where control of land = global power
Impacts and consequences of the Race for Africa: many African nations didnt approve
- non compliance (both violent and non-violent)
- appeals by leaders made, saying they never signed for there land to be taken, but were ignored
Impacts and consequences of the Race for Africa: deaths
- took 10m lives
- deaths under Belgium Kings Leopold II as much as half of population of Congos Free State
- genocide in German South West Africa
Impacts and consequences of the Race for Africa: borders
- straight lines
- settled from European capitals, of people who barely had knowledge on geography and ethnic composition of areas whos borders they were desiging
- about 40/50% of populations in African countries belong to groups that have been paritioned by national border
- civil conflict is concentrated in historical homeland of partioned ethnicities
-> civil conflict intensity is approximately 25% higher in areas where partioned ethnicities reside - created weak state capacity (colonial powers built states for extraction not governance)
Impacts and consequences of the Race for Africa: loss of indigenous identity
- languages, traditions, economic models, modes of administration overshadowed / completely replaced by colonising countries
-> most sub-saharan countries have English, French or Portuguese as official language
