scramble for africa

 

 

Cecil Rhodes: Cape-Cairo railway project. Founder of the De Beers Mining Company, one of the first diamond companies, Rhodes was also the owner of the British South Africa Company, which carved out Rhodesia for itself. He wanted to "paint the map [British] red", and once famously declared: "all of these stars... these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets".

The Scramble for Africa (or the Race for Africa) was the proliferation of conflicting European claims to African territory during the New Imperialism period, between the 1880s and the start of World War I.
The latter half of the 19th century saw the transition from the "informal" imperialism of control through military influence and economic dominance to that of direct rule. Attempts to mediate imperial competition, such as the Berlin Conference (1884 - 1885) among the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the French Third Republic and the German Empire, failed to establish definitively the competing powers' claims. Dispute over Africa was one of the factors leading to the First World War.

Contents 1 Opening of the continent 2 Causes of the scramble 2.1 Africa and global markets 2.2 Strategic rivalry 2.2.1 Bismarck's Weltpolitik 2.2.2 The clash of rival imperialisms 2.2.3 The American Colonization Society and the foundation of Liberia 3 A succession of international crises leading to World War I 3.1 The colonization of the Kongo Empire (early 1880s) 3.2 The Suez Canal 3.3 The 1884-85 Berlin Conference 3.4 Britain's occupation of Egypt and South Africa 3.5 The 1898 Fashoda Incident 3.6 The Moroccan crisis 4 The colonial encounter 4.1 The production of cash crops 4.2 The colonial consciousness and colonial exhibitions 4.2.1 The "colonial lobby" 4.2.2 Colonial propaganda and jingoism 4.3 The extermination of the Namaka and the Herero 5 Conclusions 6 African colonies listed by colonizing power 6.1 Belgium 6.2 France 6.3 Germany 6.4 Italy 6.5 Portugal 6.6 Spain 6.7 United Kingdom 6.8 Independent states

Opening of the continent

David Livingstone, early explorer of the interior of Africa who discovered in 1855 the Mosi-oa-Tunya waterfall, which he renamed Victoria Falls. He failed however in locating the source of the Nile.

Henry Morton Stanley, discoverer of the 'lost' Livingstone and founder of the Congo Free State on behalf of Léopold II of Belgium.

The opening of Africa to Western exploration and exploitation had begun in earnest at the end of the 18th century. By 1835, Europeans had mapped most of northwestern Africa. Among the most famous of the European explorers was David Livingstone, who charted the vast interior and Serpa Pinto, who crossed both Southern Africa and Central Africa on a difficult expedition, mapping much of the interior of the continent. Arduous expeditions in the 1850s and 1860s by Richard Burton, John Speke and James Grant located the great central lakes and the source of the Nile. By the end of the century, Europeans had charted the Nile from its source, the courses of the Niger, Congo and Zambezi Rivers had been traced, and the world now realized the vast resources of Africa.
However, on the eve of the New Imperialist scramble for Africa, only ten percent of the continent was under the control of Western nations. In 1875, the most important holdings were Algeria, whose conquest by France had started in the 1830s — despite Abd al-Qadir's strong resistance and the Kabyles' rebellion in the 1870s; the Cape Colony, held by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and Angola, held by Portugal.
Technological advancement facilitated overseas expansionism. Industrialization brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, especially in the forms of steam navigation, railroads, and telegraphs. Medical advances also were important, especially medicines for tropical diseases. The development of quinine, an effective treatment for malaria, enabled vast expanses of the tropics to be penetrated.

Causes of the scramble

Africa and global markets

European claims in Africa, 1913

Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the world largely untouched by "informal imperialism" and "civilization", was also attractive to Europe's ruling elites for economic and racial reasons. During a time when Britain's balance of trade showed a growing deficit, with shrinking and increasingly protectionist continental markets due to the Long Depression (1873-1896), Africa offered Britain, Germany and other countries an open market that would garner it a trade surplus: a market that bought more from the metropole than it sold overall. Britain, like most other industrial countries, had long since begun to run an unfavorable balance of trade (which was increasingly offset, however, by the income from overseas investments) .As Britain developed into the world's first post-industrial nation, financial services became an increasingly important sector of its economy. Invisible financial exports, as mentioned, kept Britain out of the red, especially capital investments outside Europe, particularly to the developing and open markets in Africa, predominantly white settler colonies, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.

Further information: Rise of the New Imperialism

In addition, surplus capital was often more profitably invested overseas, where cheap labor, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. Another inducement to imperialism, of course, arose from the demand for raw materials unavailable in Europe, especially copper, cotton, rubber, tea, and tin, to which European consumers had grown accustomed and upon which European industry had grown dependent.
However, in Africa — exclusive of what would become the Union of South Africa in 1909 — the amount of capital investment by Europeans was relatively small, compared to other continents, before and after the 1884-85 Berlin Conference. Consequently, the companies involved in tropical African commerce were relatively small, apart from Cecil Rhodes' De Beers Mining Company, who had carved out Rhodesia for himself, as Léopold II would exploit the Congo Free State. These observations might detract from the pro-imperialist arguments of colonial lobbies such as the Alldeutscher Verband, Francesco Crispi or Jules Ferry, who argued that sheltered overseas markets in Africa would solve the problems of low prices and over-production caused by shrinking continental markets. However, according to the classic thesis of John A. Hobson, exposed in Imperialism (1902), which would influence authors such as Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), Trotsky or Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), this shrinking of continental markets was a main factor of the global New Imperialism period. Later historians have noted that such statistics only obscured the fact that formal control of tropical Africa had great strategic value in an era of imperial rivalry, while the Suez Canal has remained a strategic location. The 1886 Witwatersrand Gold Rush, which lead to the foundation of Johannesburg and was a major factor of the Second Boer War in 1899, accounted for the "conjunction of the superfluous money and of the superfluous manpower, which gave themselves their hand to quit together the country", which is in itself, according to Hannah Arendt, the new element of the imperialist era.

Strategic rivalry

While tropical Africa was not a large zone of investment, other regions overseas were. The vast interior — between the gold- and diamond-rich Southern Africa and Egypt, had, however, key strategic value in securing the flow of overseas trade. Britain was thus under intense political pressure, especially among supporters of the Conservative Party, to secure lucrative markets such as British Raj India, Qing Dynasty China, and Latin America from encroaching rivals. Thus, securing the key waterway between East and West — the Suez Canal— was crucial.The rivalry between the UK, France, Germany and the other European powers account for a large part of the colonization.

Poster for the 1906 Colonial Exhibition in Marseilles (France).

Thus, while Germany, which had been unified under Prussia's rule only after the 1866 Battle of Sadowa and the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, was hardly a colonial power before the New Imperialism period, it would eagerly participate in the race. A rising industrial power close on the heels of Great Britain, it hadn't yet had the chance to control oversea territories, mainly due to its late unification, its fragmentation in various states, and its absence of experience in modern navigation. This would change under Bismarck's leadership, who implemented the Weltpolitik (World Policy) and, after putting in place the bases of France's isolation with the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary and then the 1882 Triple Alliance with Italy, called for the 1884-85 Berlin Conference which set the rules of effective control of a foreign territory. Germany's expansionism would lead to the Tirpitz Plan, implemented by admiral von Tirpitz, who would also champion the various Fleet Acts starting in 1898, thus engaging in an arms race with Great Britain. By 1914, they had given Germany the second largest naval force in the world (roughly 40% smaller than the Royal Navy).

Bismarck's Weltpolitik

Behanzin, eleventh king of Dahomey in 1894, year of its conquest by France.

Germany began its world expansion in the 1880s under Bismarck's leadership, encouraged by the national bourgeoisie. Some of them, claiming themselves of Friedrich List's thought, advocated expansion in the Philippines and in Timor, other proposed to set themselves in Formosa (modern Taiwan), etc. In the end of the 1870s, these isolated voices began to be relayed by a real imperialist policy, known as the Weltpolitik ("World Policy"), which was backed by mercantilist thesis. In 1881, Hübbe-Schleiden, a lawyer, published Deutsche Kolonisation, according to which the "development of national consciousness demanded an independent oversea policy". Pan-germanism was thus linked to the young nation's imperialist drives. In the beginning of the 1880s, the Deutscher Kolonialverein was created, and got its own magazine in 1884, the Kolonialzeitung. This colonial lobby was also relayed by the nationalist Alldeutscher Verband. Germany thus became the third largest colonial power in Africa, acquiring an overall empire of 2.6 million square kilometers and 14 million colonial subjects, mostly in its African possessions (Southwest Africa, Togoland, the Cameroons, and Tanganyika).

The scramble for Africa led Bismarck to propose the 1884-85 Berlin Conference. Following the 1904 Entente cordiale between France and the UK, Germany tried to test the alliance in 1905, with the First Moroccan Crisis. This led to the 1905 Algeciras Conference, in which France's influence on Morocco was compensated by the exchange of others territories, and then to the 1911 Agadir Crisis. Along with the 1898 Fashoda Incident between France and the UK, this succession of international crisis proves the bitterness of the struggle between the various imperialisms, which ultimately led to World War I.

The clash of rival imperialisms

While de Brazza was exploring the Kongo Kingdom for France, Stanley also explored it in the early 1880s on behalf of Léopold II of Belgium, who would have his personal Congo Free State. France occupied Tunisia in May 1881 (and Guinea in 1884), which partly convinced Italy to adhere in 1882 to the German-Austrian Dual Alliance, thus forming the Triple Alliance. The same year, Great Britain occupied the nominally Ottoman Egypt, which in turn ruled over the Sudan and parts of Somalia. In 1870 and 1882, Italy took possession of the first parts of Eritrea, while Germany declared Togoland, the Cameroons and South West Africa to be under its protection in 1884. French West Africa (AOF) was founded in 1895, and French Equatorial Africa (AEF) in 1910. Italy continued its conquest to gain its "place in the sun". Following the defeat of the First Italo-Abyssinian War (1895-96), it acquired Somaliland in 1899-90 and the whole of Eritrea (1899). In 1911, it engaged in a war with the Ottoman Empire, in which it acquired Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (modern Libya).

Francesco Crispi, Italian prime minister (1887-1891;1893-96). Crispi opposed himself to Radical Felice Cavallotti over the Triple Alliance and the abandon of the Eritrean colony. He resigned after the 1896 defeat at Adowa during the First Italo-Abyssinian War.

Enrico Corradini, who fully supported the war, and later merged his group in the early fascist party (PNF), developed in 1919 the concept of Proletarian Nationalism, supposed to legitimize Italy's imperialism by a surprising mixture of socialism with nationalism: "We must start by recognizing the fact that there are proletarian nations as well as proletarian classes; that is to say, there are nations whose living conditions are subject...to the way of life of other nations, just as classes are. Once this is realized, nationalism must insist firmly on this truth: Italy is, materially and morally, a proletarian nation." The Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1935-36), ordered by Mussolini, would actually be one of the last colonial wars (that is, intended to colonize a foreign country, opposed to wars of national liberation), occupying Ethiopia for 5 years, which had remained the last African independent territory. The Spanish Civil War, marking for some the beginning of the European Civil War, would begin in 1936.
On the other hand, the British abandoned their splendid isolation in 1902 with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which would enable the Empire of Japan to be victorious during the war against Russia (1904-05). The UK then signed the Entente cordiale with France in 1904, and, in 1907, the Triple Entente which included Russia, thus pitted against the Triple Alliance which Bismarck had patiently made up.

The American Colonization Society and the foundation of Liberia

Even the United States took part, marginally, in this enterprise, through the American Colonization Society (ACS), established in 1816 by Robert Finley. The ACS offered emigration to Liberia ("Land of the Free"), a colony founded in 1820, to free black slaves; emancipated slave Lott Cary actually became the first American Baptist missionary in Africa. This colonization attempt was resisted by the native people.

James Monroe, first president of the American Colonization Society and US president (1817-1825). He invented the Monroe Doctrine, base of the US isolationism during the 19th century.

Led by Southerners, the American Colonization Society's first president was James Monroe, from Virginia, who became the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. Thus, one of the main proponents of American colonization of Africa was the same man who proclaimed, in his 1823 State of the Union address, the US opinion that European powers should no longer colonize the Americas or interfere with the affairs of sovereign nations located in the Americas. In return, the US planned to stay neutral in wars between European powers and in wars between a European power and its colonies. However, if these latter type of wars were to occur in the Americas, the U.S. would view such action as hostile toward itself. This famous statement became known as the Monroe Doctrine and was the base of the US' isolationism during the 19th century. Although the Liberia colony never became quite as big as envisaged, it was only the first step in the American colonization of Africa, according to its early proponents. Thus, Jehudi Ashmun, an early leader of the ACS, envisioned an American empire in Africa.

Between 1825 and 1826, he took steps to lease, annex, or buy tribal lands along the coast and along major rivers leading inland. Like his predecessor Lt. Robert Stockton, who in 1821 established the site for Monrovia by "persuading" a local chief referred to as "King Peter" to sell Cape Montserado (or Mesurado) by pointing a pistol at his head, Ashmun was prepared to use force to extend the colony's territory. In a May 1825 treaty, King Peter and other native kings agreed to sell land in return for 500 bars of tobacco, three barrels of rum, five casks of powder, five umbrellas, ten iron posts, and ten pairs of shoes, among other items. In March 1825, the ACS began a quarterly, The African Repository and Colonial Journal, edited by Rev. Ralph Randolph Gurley (1797-1872), who headed the Society until 1844. Conceived as the Society's propaganda organ, the Repository promoted both colonization and Liberia.
The Society controlled the colony of Liberia until 1847 when, under the perception that the British might annex the settlement, Liberia was proclaimed a free and independent state, thus becoming the first African decolonised state. By 1867, the Society had sent more than 13,000 emigrants. After the American Civil War (1861-1865), when many blacks wanted to go to Liberia, financial support for colonization had waned. During its later years the society focused on educational and missionary efforts in Liberia rather than further emigration. President Abraham Lincoln was rumored to have repeatedly tried to arrange resettlements of the kind the ACS supported, but each arrangement failed. According to those rumors, by 1865 Lincoln was one of the few strong advocates of colonization remaining in the United States Government, causing the program's abandonment after his assassination.

A succession of international crises leading to World War I

The colonization of the Kongo Empire (early 1880s)

David Livingstone's explorations, carried on by Henry Morton Stanley, galvanized the European nations into action. But at first, his ideas found little support, except from Léopold II of Belgium, who in 1876 had organized the International African Association. From 1879 to 1884, Stanley was secretly sent by Léopold II to the Congo region, where he made treaties with several African chiefs and by 1882 obtained over 900,000 square miles (2,300,000 km²) of territory, the Congo Free State. Léopold II, who personally owned the colony starting in 1885 and exploited it for ivory and rubber, would impose such a terror regime on the colonized people that Belgium decided to annex it in 1908. Including mass killings and slave labour, the terror had made between 3 to 22 million victims. This prompted Belgium to end Leopold II's rule, under influence from the Congo Reform Association, and to annex the Congo in 1908 as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo.

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza in his version of "native" dress, photographed by Félix Nadar.

While Stanley was exploring Congo on behalf of Léopold II of Belgium, the French marine officer Pierre de Brazza traveled into the western Congo basin and raised the French flag over the newly founded Brazzaville in 1881, thus occuping today's Republic of the Congo. Portugal, which also claimed the area due to old treaties with the native Kongo Empire, made a treaty with Great Britain on February 26, 1884 to block off the Congo Society's access to the Atlantic.

The Suez Canal

Nott's and Gliddon's Indigenous races of the earth (1857) used misleading imagery to suggest that "Negroes" ranked between whites and chimpanzees. Note the different angles at which the "white" and "negro" skulls are positioned. Such works were instrumental in the legitimation of colonialism.

As a result, the important developments were taking place in the Nile valley. Ferdinand de Lesseps had obtained concessions from Isma'il Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, in 1854-56, to build the Suez Canal. During the decade of work, over 1.5 million Egyptians were forced to work on the canal, 125,000 of whom perished due to malnutrition, fatigue and disease, especially cholera. Shortly before its completion in 1869, Isma'il Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, borrowed enormous sums from French and English bankers at high rates of interest. By 1875, he was facing financial difficulties and was forced to sell his block of shares in the Suez Canal. The shares were snapped up by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Benjamin Disraeli, who sought to give his country practical control in the management of this strategic waterway. When Isma'il Pasha repudiated Egypt's foreign debt in 1879, Britain and France assumed joint financial control over the country, forcing the Egyptian ruler to abdicate. The Egyptian ruling classes did not relish foreign intervention. The Urabi Revolt broke out against the Khedive and European influence in 1882, a year after the Mahdist revolt. Muhammad Ahmad, who had proclaimed himself the Mahdi, redeemer of Islam, in 1881, led the rebellion and was defeated only by Kitchener in 1898. Britain then assumed responsibility for the administration of the country.

 

The 1884-85 Berlin Conference

Main article: Berlin Conference
The occupation of Egypt and the acquisition of the Congo were the first major moves in what came to be a precipitous scramble for African territory. In 1884, Otto von Bismarck convened the 1884-85 Berlin Conference to discuss the Africa problem. The diplomats put on a humanitarian façade by condemning the slave trade, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages and firearms in certain regions, and by expressing concern for missionary activities. More importantly, the diplomats in Berlin laid down the rules of competition by which the great powers were to be guided in seeking colonies. They also agreed that the area along the Congo River was to be administered by Léopold II of Belgium as a neutral area, known as the Congo Free State, in which trade and navigation were to be free. No nation was to stake claims in Africa without notifying other powers of its intentions. No territory could be formally claimed prior to being effectively occupied. However, the competitors ignored the rules when convenient and on several occasions war was only narrowly avoided.

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SEE ALSO:	British Colonisation of the Americas | Crown Colnies  | Decolonisation | Divide and Conquer | Cash Crop | European Colonial Powers
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