Berlin Conference
The Berlin Conference was a meeting held in 1884-1885 where European powers established rules for the colonization and division of Africa. The conference aimed to prevent conflicts between European nations over African territories and to regulate trade and navigation along the Congo River. The decisions made at the conference had a significant impact on the subsequent colonization and exploitation of Africa.
6 Key excerpts on "Berlin Conference"
eBook - ePubAfrica as a Living Laboratory
Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950
- Helen Tilley(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- University of Chicago Press(Publisher)
...If these men had been operating in isolation without the support of nationally oriented geographical societies, then it is unlikely that their ad hoc treaties along the Congo and Niger rivers, on the east coast and in the interior, and across the western and southern territories would have been greeted favorably by metropolitan legislators. Geographical interests laid the groundwork for geopolitical negotiations, while geopolitics, in turn, circumscribed not only who would be included in international alliances but also how these would take place and what would be considered. This segue from science to politics helps to explain why the Berlin West Africa Conference (1884–85) took on such significance. Not every representative at the table wanted to pursue territorial rights, but all fourteen countries in attendance hoped to play a role in constructing the rules of engagement. 94 Just before the Berlin Conference convened, the Royal Geographical Society prepared a map on the “partition of the coast of Africa,” indicating which European nations held sway along the continent’s long coastline. Tellingly, next to the European “colonizing powers” the legend made room to include “independent kingdoms” and “native possessions,” several of which still existed (see plate 2). 95 Despite the circumscribed geographical focus of the Berlin Conference, members of geographical societies and officials concerned with African affairs understood that much more was at stake. In a London Times article that popularized the phrase “the Scramble for Africa,” an astute observer remarked that “the coast itself is of no value, except as giving access to the interior...
eBook - ePubAfrica and Europe
From Partition to Independence or Dependence?
- Amadu Sesay, Amadu Sesay(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 2 BERLIN AND AFRO-EUROPEAN RELATIONS Sola Akinrinade and Toyin Falola By the time the Berlin Conference took off in November 1884, most of the participating countries had already showed interest in acquiring various parts of Africa. 1 The general history of relations between the European powers and the African territories before this time had been one in which the African territories suffered rather than gained. The European countries maintained an informal dominance on these territories via economic and cultural penetration; but by the time the participants at Berlin were through and the provisions of the agreements implemented, the whole of the western coastline of Africa, spanning the Cape of Good Hope to Senegal, with the exception of Liberia, was claimed by the European powers. 2 The Congo was secured by King Leopold of Belgium through the use of his diplomatic skill. He was able to persuade the United States that his objectives were directed mainly against the slave trade. At the same time he was able to convince important British commercial and humanitarian interests that his regime in the Congo would be far more liberal than either the French or the Portuguese. Leopold went further to convince the French that the proposed colony would fail through insufficient funds, and then negotiated a treaty with France in which the Congo Free State of Leopold would revert to the French in case of bankruptcy. With this agreement firmly secured, France gave its backing to Leopold and the Congo Free State as the administering authority over the Congo. The situation over the Niger was however different. Tubman Goldie had already united the British traders in 1879 and he fought a bitter commercial war against the French. By the time the conference at Berlin took off, Goldie had already bankrupted the French traders...
eBook - ePubThe Partition of Africa
And European Imperialism 1880-1900
- John Mackenzie(Author)
- 2005(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The Partition of Africa 1880–1900 and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century We have been witnesses of one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of the world. So wrote Sir John Scott Keltie in the opening sentence of his book The Partition of Africa, published in 1893. Keltie and his contemporaries were enthralled by the statistics of that ‘most remarkable episode’. More than 10 million square miles of African territory and over 100 million African people had fallen to European rule in the space of little more than a decade. The concluding acts of the Partition were yet to come in the late 1890s and in the years immediately preceding the first world war, but in Keltie’s time the map of Africa was already beginning to look like its modern counterpart. In the middle of the century the European cartographer saw Africa as a continent of blank spaces where the principal physical features—rivers, lakes, mountains—were gradually being filled in by European exploration. In the late 1880s and early 1890s maps of Africa in school atlases were revised every year, for political boundaries and various colourings for the different empires were now the rage. Since the publication of Keltie’s book, writers and historians have conducted an energetic debate on the causes of the Partition of Africa, culminating in a veritable flood of books and articles in the last twenty years. This enduring interest is perhaps not surprising. The Scramble for Africa (as the Partition is sometimes more luridly known) was the most dramatic instance of the partition of the world by Europe and America in the late nineteenth century. It inaugurated a great revolution in the relationship between European and African peoples, and it sent out political, economic and social shock-waves, which continue to be felt in Africa to this day...
- John Lowe(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Muslim jihads (holy wars) and Zulu mfecane established paramountcies over parts of the ‘dark continent’ that had important repercussions on the African scene before the European partition began. For one thing, the maltreatment of the defeated tribal groups by the victors could make European rule seem, by comparison, as benign as a vicarage tea party. The timing of the partition was probably more closely related to specific political events than to economic trends which lack a precise chronology. One of the most plausible political explanations of the timing is the one advanced by Sanderson in terms of the decline of British ‘paramountcy’ in the early 1880s. Britain’s success in maintaining its informal influence over most of sub-Saharan Africa into the 1870s was due to respect for its naval power and the preoccupation of other powers, especially France and Germany, with more pressing concerns in Europe. However, Sanderson argues that evidence of British military weakness, coinciding with a decline in its naval strength relative to other maritime states, suggested to Bismarck that Britain’s ill-defined claims to influence over sub-Saharan Africa were vulnerable to concerted pressure. Britain’s acceptance of Franco-German demands for an international conference in 1884 marked the end of British ‘paramountcy’, but its sudden collapse left a void which was quickly filled by rival claims to African territory. By attempting to adjudicate on these competing claims, the Berlin West Africa conference of 1884–5 signified the start of the partition of Africa by the European powers. Oddly enough, this seems not to have been the intention of the delegates at Berlin. According to recent work on the subject, they were more concerned with affirming the principle of free trade in Africa than with territorial occupation...
eBook - ePub- J. R. V. Prescott(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...To a much greater extent than on any other continent, boundaries in this region were created during the peace conferences which followed widespread conflict. Judged by the speed with which agreement was reached at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the London Conference in 1913, and the peace conferences in Paris which ended World Wars I and II, it is possible to conclude that wars simplify the process of drawing boundaries. The successful powers usually have clear ideas of the territorial arrangements they will demand before victory is achieved, and the defeated states are rarely able to resist most of these territorial adjustments. In most cases there is probably an overwhelming desire on the part of all parties involved to secure an agreement which will allow the abnormality of war to be ended. Successful governments want to demonstrate to the tired populace the gains bought by military sacrifices; and they wish to avoid the need to maintain large armies and navies and to reduce to a minimum the funds which have to be expended on administering the territory of the defeated states. Defeated countries generally want to regain a level of independence necessary for the reconstruction of national morale and wealth. The Congress of Vienna 1815 The Congress of Vienna signed on 9 June 1815 is a convenient event to start a brief survey of the main events in the evolution of Europe’s boundaries. The aim of the victorious powers in these negotiations was to restore the political situations which existed before the Napoleonic Wars (Albrecht-Carrié 1958, pp. 9, 15). France was confined again within the boundaries of 1792, and King Louis XVIII was placed on the French throne. Denmark and Saxony, which had unwisely persisted with support for Napoleon too long, were punished by territorial losses. Denmark lost Norway, which joined Sweden, and significant parts of Saxony were attached to Prussia. There were other comparatively small alterations...
eBook - ePub- Arthur Norton Cook(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The frontiers were defined; the Fulani overlords of Northern Nigeria were compelled to accept the fact of British control, the foundationsof an administrative system were established. It becomes necessary, therefore, to shift our attention from the political aspectsof Nigerian development to consider the economic and social problems that arose in connection with the further exploitation of the vast African domain that had now come under British control. Itis not possible to consider within the limits of this study all of the many problems that forced their attention upon British administrators, but such issues as the control of the liquor traffic, the development of a transportation system, the exploitation of Nigerian resources, the evolution of an equitable system of land holding, and the further development of trade and commerce were fundamental and deserve attention. The Berlin Conference of 1884 recognized the fact that the traffic in liquor was an evil, and a serious menace to the future well-being of the natives. 1 It suggested that the powers take concerted action, but beyond the adoption of a few pious resolutions it did nothing effective. Sir George Goldie was deeply concerned, however, and took steps to control the distribution of liquor within the domain of the Niger Company, but found his efforts thwarted by the failure to control the sale of liquor in adjacent territories. The first real international effort to deal with the liquor problem was made in 1890, when a conference was called at Brussels. 2 1 For an able presentation of opposing views on this issue see J. A. MacDonald, Trade, Politics and Christianity in Africa and the Far East, (London, 1916), and E. D. Morel, Nigeria, Its Peoples and Problems, 2d. ed., (London, 1912). 2 Parl. Pap., 1890, 30, General Act of the Brussels Conference, c...
