The 1884Berlin Conference regulatedEuropean colonisation and trade in Africa, and is seen as emblematic of the "scramble".[7] In the last quarter of the 19th century, there were considerable political rivalries between theEuropean empires, which provided the impetus for the colonisation.[8] The later years of the 19th century saw a transition from "informal imperialism" – military influence and economic dominance – to direct rule.[9]
With the decline of the European colonial empires in the wake of the two world wars, most African coloniesgained independence during theCold War, and decided to keep their colonial borders in theOrganisation of African Unity conference of 1964 due to fears of civil wars and regional instability, placing emphasis onpan-Africanism.[10]
By 1841, businessmen from Europe had established small trading posts along the coasts of Africa, but they seldom moved inland, preferring to stay near the sea. They primarily traded with locals. Large parts of the continent were essentially uninhabitable for Europeans because of their high mortality rates fromtropical diseases such asmalaria.[11] In the middle of the 19th century, European explorers mapped much ofEast Africa andCentral Africa.
As late as the 1870s, Europeans controlled approximately 10% of the African continent, with all their territories located near the coasts. The most important holdings wereAngola andMozambique, held byPortugal; theCape Colony, held by theUnited Kingdom; andAlgeria, held byFrance. By 1914, onlyEthiopia andLiberia remained outside European control, with the former eventually being occupied byItaly in 1936 while the latter having strong connections with its historical colonizer, theUnited States.[12]
Technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas.Industrialization brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, especially in the forms of steamships, railways and telegraphs. Medical advances also played an important role, especially medicines for tropical diseases, which helped control their adverse effects. The development ofquinine, an effective treatment for malaria, made vast expanses of the tropics more accessible for Europeans.[13]
Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the world largely untouched by "informal imperialism", was attractive to business entrepreneurs. During a time when Britain'sbalance of trade showed a growing deficit, with shrinking and increasinglyprotectionist continental markets during theLong Depression (1873–1896), Africa offered Britain, Germany, France, and other countries an open market that would garner them a trade surplus: a market that bought more from the colonial power than it sold overall.[9][14]
Surplus capital was often more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. Another inducement for imperialism arose from the demand for raw materials, especiallyivory,rubber,palm oil,cocoa,diamonds,tea, andtin. Additionally, Britain wanted control of areas of the southern and eastern coasts of Africa for stopover ports on the route to Asia and itsempire in India.[15] But, excluding the area that became theUnion of South Africa in 1910, European nations invested relatively limited amounts of capital in Africa.
Pro-imperialist colonial lobbyists such as theAlldeutscher Verband,Francesco Crispi andJules Ferry, argued that sheltered overseas markets in Africa would solve the problems of low prices andoverproduction caused by shrinking continental markets.John A. Hobson argued inImperialism that this shrinking of continental markets was a key factor of the global "New Imperialism" period.[16]William Easterly, however, disagrees with the link made betweencapitalism andimperialism, arguing thatcolonialism is used mostly to promote state-led development rather than corporate development. He has said that "imperialism is not so clearly linked to capitalism and the free markets... historically there has been a closer link between colonialism/imperialism and state-led approaches to development."[17]
While tropical Africa was not a large zone of investment, other overseas regions were. The vast interior between Egypt and the gold and diamond-richSouthern Africa had strategic value in securing the flow of overseas trade. Britain was under political pressure to build up lucrative markets in India,Malaya, Australia and New Zealand. Thus, it wanted to secure the key waterway between East and West – theSuez Canal, completed in 1869. However, a theory that Britain sought to annex East Africa during 1880 onwards, out of geo-strategic concerns connected to Egypt (especially the Suez Canal),[18][8] has been challenged by historians such asJohn Darwin (1997) and Jonas F. Gjersø (2015).[19][20]
The scramble for African territory also reflected concern for the acquisition of military and naval bases, for strategic purposes and the exercise of power. The growing navies, and new ships driven by steam power, required coaling stations and ports for maintenance. Defence bases were also needed for the protection of sea routes and communication lines, particularly of expensive and vital international waterways such as the Suez Canal.[21]
Colonies were seen as assets inbalance of power negotiations, useful as items of exchange at times of international bargaining. Colonies with large native populations were also a source of military power; Britain and France used large numbers ofBritish Indian and North African soldiers, respectively, in many of their colonial wars (and would do so again in the coming World Wars). In the age ofnationalism there was pressure for a nation to acquire an empire as a status symbol; the idea of "greatness" became linked with the "White Man's Burden", or sense of duty, underlying many nations' strategies.[21]
Germany, divided intosmall states, was not initially a colonial power. In 1862,Otto von Bismarck became Minister-President of theKingdom of Prussia, and through a series of wars with bothAustria in 1866 andFrance in 1870 was able to unify all of Germany under Prussian rule. TheGerman Empire was formally proclaimed on 18 January 1871. At first, Bismarck disliked colonies but gave in to popular and elite pressure in the 1880s. He sponsored the 1884–85Berlin Conference, which set the rules of effective control of African territories and reduced the risk of conflict between colonial powers.[28] Bismarck used private companies to set up small colonial operations in Africa and the Pacific.
Pan-Germanism became linked to the young nation's new imperialist drives.[29] In the beginning of the 1880s, theDeutscher Kolonialverein was created, and published theKolonialzeitung. This colonial lobby was also relayed by the nationalistAlldeutscher Verband.Weltpolitik (world policy) was the foreign policy adopted by KaiserWilhelm II in 1890, intending to transform Germany into a global power through aggressive diplomacy, and the development of a large navy.[30] Germany became the third-largest colonial power in Africa, the location of most of its 2.6 million square kilometres of colonial territory and 14 million colonial subjects in 1914. The African possessions were Southwest Africa, Togoland, the Cameroons, and Tanganyika. Germany tried to isolate France in 1905 with theFirst Moroccan Crisis. This led to the 1905Algeciras Conference, in which France's influence on Morocco was compensated by the exchange of other territories, and then to theAgadir Crisis in 1911.[31]
Following unification, Italy sought to expand its territory and become a great power,taking possession of parts ofEritrea in 1870[32][33] and 1882. In 1889–90, it occupied territory on the south side of the Horn of Africa, forming what would becomeItalian Somaliland.[34] In the disorder that followed the 1889 death of EmperorYohannes IV, General Oreste Baratieri occupied theEthiopian Highlands along the Eritrean coast, and Italy proclaimed the establishment of a new colony of Eritrea, with its capital moved fromMassawa toAsmara. When relations between Italy and Ethiopia deteriorated, theFirst Italo-Ethiopian War broke out in 1895; Italian troops were defeated as the Ethiopians had numerical superiority, better organization, and support from Russia and France.[35] In 1911, Italy engaged in awar with the Ottoman Empire, in which it acquiredTripolitania andCyrenaica, that together formed what became known asItalian Libya. In 1919Enrico Corradini developed the concept ofProletarian Nationalism, which was supposed to legitimise Italy's imperialism by a 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 realised, nationalism must insist firmly on this truth: Italy is, materially and morally, a proletarian nation.[36]
TheSecond Italo-Abyssinian War (1935–1936), ordered by thefascist dictatorBenito Mussolini, was the last colonial war (that is, intended to colonise a country, as opposed towars of national liberation),[37] occupyingEthiopia—which had remained the last independent African territory, apart from Liberia.Italian Ethiopia was occupied by fascist Italian forces in World War II as part ofItalian East Africa though much of the mountainous countryside had remained out of Italian control due to resistance from theArbegnoch.[38] The occupation is an example of the expansionist policy that characterized theAxis powers as opposed to the Scramble for Africa.
David Livingstone's explorations, carried on byHenry Morton Stanley, excited imaginations with Stanley's grandiose ideas for colonisation; but these found little support owing to the problems and scale of action required, except from Leopold II of Belgium, who in 1876 had organised theInternational African Association. From 1869 to 1874, Stanley was secretly sent by Leopold II to theCongo region, where he made treaties with several African chiefs along theCongo River and by 1882 had sufficient territory to form the basis of theCongo Free State.
WhileStanley was exploring the Congo on behalf of Leopold II of Belgium, the Franco-Italian marine officer Pierre de Brazza travelled into the western Congo Basin and raised the French flag over the newly foundedBrazzaville in 1881, thus occupying today'sRepublic of the Congo.[22] Portugal, which also claimed the area because of old treaties with the Kingdom of Kongo, made a treaty with Britain on 26 February 1884 to block off Leopold's access to the Atlantic.
Tippu Tip, a Zanzibari Arab based in theSultanate of Zanzibar, also played a major role as a "protector of European explorers", ivory trader and slave trader. Having established a trading empire within Zanzibar and neighbouring areas in East Africa, Tippu Tip would shift his alignment towards the rising colonial powers in the region and at the proposal of Henry Morton Stanley, Tippu Tip became a governor of the "Stanley Falls District" (Boyoma Falls) in Leopold's Congo Free State, before being involved in theCongo–Arab War against Leopold II's colonial state.[40][41]
To the west, in the land where their expansions would meet, wasKatanga, the site of theYeke Kingdom ofMsiri. Msiri was the most militarily powerful ruler in the area and traded large quantities of copper, ivory and slaves—and rumours of gold reached European ears.[42] The scramble for Katanga was a prime example of the period. Rhodes sent two expeditions to Msiri in 1890 led byAlfred Sharpe, who was rebuffed, andJoseph Thomson, who failed to reach Katanga. Leopold sent four expeditions. First, theLe Marinel expedition could only extract a vaguely worded letter. TheDelcommune expedition was rebuffed. The well-armedStairs expedition was given orders to take Katanga with or without Msiri's consent. Msiri refused, was shot, and his head was cut off and stuck on a pole as a "barbaric lesson" to the people.[43] TheBia River expedition finished the job of establishing an administration of sorts and a "police presence" in Katanga. Thus, the half million square kilometres of Katanga came into Leopold's possession and brought his African realm up to 2,300,000 square kilometres (890,000 sq mi), about 75 times larger than Belgium. The Congo Free State imposed such aterror regime on the colonized people, including mass killings and forced labour, that Belgium, under pressure from theCongo Reform Association, ended Leopold II's rule and annexed it on 20 August 1908 as a colony of Belgium, known as theBelgian Congo.[44]
From 1885 to 1908,many atrocities were perpetrated in theCongo Free State; in these images, Native Congo Free State labourers who failed to meet rubber collection quotas have been punished by having their hands cut off.
Thebrutality of King Leopold II in his former colony of the Congo Free State[45][46] was well documented; up to 8 million of the estimated 16 million native inhabitants died between 1885 and 1908.[47] According toRoger Casement, an Irish diplomat of the time, this depopulation had four main causes: "indiscriminate war", starvation, reduction of births and diseases.[48]Sleeping sickness ravaged the country and must also be taken into account for the dramatic decrease in population; it has been estimated that sleeping sickness andsmallpox killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River.[49] Estimates of the death toll vary considerably. As the first census did not take place until 1924, it is difficult to quantify the population loss of the period. TheCasement Report set it at three million.[50]William Rubinstein writes: "More basically, it appears almost certain that the population figures given byHochschild are inaccurate. There is, of course, no way of ascertaining the population of the Congo before the twentieth century, and estimates like 20 million are purely guesses. Most of the interior of the Congo was literally unexplored if not inaccessible."[51]
A similar situation occurred in the neighbouringFrench Congo, where most of the resource extraction was run by concession companies, whose brutal methods, along with the introduction of disease, resulted in the loss of up to 50% of the indigenous population according to Hochschild.[52] The French government appointed a commission headed by de Brazza in 1905 to investigate the rumoured abuses in the colony. However, de Brazza died on the return trip, and his "searingly critical" report was neither acted upon nor released to the public.[53] In the 1920s, about 20,000 forced labourers died building a railroad through the French territory.[54]
Port Said entrance to Suez Canal, showing De Lesseps' statue
To construct theSuez Canal, French diplomatFerdinand de Lesseps had obtained many concessions fromIsma'il Pasha, theKhedive of Egypt and Sudan in 1854–56. Some sources estimate the workforce at 30,000,[55] but others estimate that 120,000 workers died over the ten years of construction from malnutrition, fatigue, and disease, especiallycholera.[56] Shortly before its completion in 1869, Khedive Isma'il borrowed enormous sums from British and French 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 Britain, under Prime MinisterBenjamin Disraeli, who sought to give his country practical control in the management of this strategic waterway. When Isma'il repudiated Egypt's foreign debt in 1879, Britain and France seized joint financial control over the country, forcing the Egyptian ruler to abdicate and installing his eldest sonTewfik Pasha in his place.[57] The Egyptian and Sudanese ruling classes did not relish foreign intervention.
During the 1870s, European initiatives against the slave trade caused an economic crisis in northern Sudan, precipitating the rise ofMahdist forces.[58] In 1881, theMahdist revolt erupted in Sudan underMuhammad Ahmad, severing Tewfik's authority in Sudan. The same year, Tewfik suffered an even more perilous rebellion by his Egyptian army in the form of theUrabi revolt. In 1882, Tewfik appealed for direct British military assistance, commencing Britain's administration of Egypt. A joint British-Egyptian military force entered the Mahdist War.[59] Additionally the Egyptian province ofEquatoria (located in South Sudan) led byEmin Pasha was also subject to an ostensiblerelief expedition of Emin Pasha against Mahdist forces.[60] The British-Egyptian force ultimately defeated the Mahdist forces in Sudan in 1898.[59] Thereafter, Britain seized effective control of Sudan, which was nominally calledAnglo-Egyptian Sudan.
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 1884–1885 Berlin Conference to discuss the African problem.[61] While diplomatic discussions were held regarding ending the remaining slave trade as well as the reach of missionary activities, the primary concern of those in attendance was preventing war between the European powers as they divided the continent among themselves.[62] More importantly, the diplomats inBerlin 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 Leopold II as a neutral area in which trade and navigation were to be free.[63] No nation was to stake claims in Africa without notifying other powers of its intentions. No territory could be formally claimed before being effectively occupied. However, the competitors ignored the rules when convenient, and on several occasions war was only narrowly avoided (seeFashoda Incident).[64] TheSwahili coast territories of the Sultanate of Zanzibar were partitioned between Germany and Britain, initially leaving the archipelago ofZanzibar independent until 1890, when that remnant of the Sultanate was made into a British protectorate with theHeligoland–Zanzibar Treaty.[65]
Britain's administration of Egypt and South Africa
Britain's administration of Egypt and theCape Colony contributed to a preoccupation over securing the source of theNile River.[66] Egypt was taken over by the British in 1882, leaving the Ottoman Empire in a nominal role until 1914, when London made it a protectorate. Egypt was never an actual British colony.[67] Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda were subjugated in the 1890s and early 20th century; and in the south, the Cape Colony (first acquired in 1795) provided a base for the subjugation of neighbouring African states and the DutchAfrikaner settlers who had left the Cape to avoid the British and then founded their republics.Theophilus Shepstone annexed theSouth African Republic in 1877 for the British Empire, after it had been independent for twenty years.[68] In 1879, after theAnglo-Zulu War, Britain consolidated its control of most of the territories of South Africa. The Boers protested, and in December 1880 they revolted, leading to theFirst Boer War.[69] British Prime MinisterWilliam Gladstone signed a peace treaty on 23 March 1881, giving self-government to theBoers in theTransvaal. TheJameson Raid of 1895 was a failed attempt by the British South Africa Company and theJohannesburg Reform Committee to overthrow the Boer government in the Transvaal. TheSecond Boer War, fought between 1899 and 1902, was about control of the gold and diamond industries; the independent Boer republics of theOrange Free State and the South African Republic were this time defeated and absorbed into the British Empire.
The French thrust into the African interior was mainly from the coasts ofWest Africa (present-day Senegal) eastward, through theSahel along the southern border of theSahara. Their ultimate aim was to have an uninterrupted colonial empire from theNiger River to the Nile, thus controlling all trade to and from the Sahel region by their existing control over the caravan routes through the Sahara. The British, on the other hand, wanted to link their possessions inSouthern Africa with their territories inEast Africa and these two areas with the Nile basin.
Muhammad Ahmad, leader of the Mahdists. This fundamentalist group of Muslim dervishes overran much ofSudan andfought British forces.
The Sudan (which included most of present-day Uganda) was the key to the fulfilment of these ambitions, especially since Egypt was already under British control. This "red line" through Africa is made most famous by Cecil Rhodes. Along withLord Milner, the British colonial minister in South Africa, Rhodes advocated such a "Cape to Cairo" empire, linking the Suez Canal to the mineral-rich South Africa by rail. Though hampered by the German occupation ofTanganyika until the end of World War I, Rhodes successfully lobbied on behalf of such a sprawling African empire.
Britain had sought to extend its East African empire contiguously from Cairo to theCape of Good Hope, while France had sought to extend its holdings from Dakar to the Sudan, which would enable its empire to span the entire continent from theAtlantic Ocean to theRed Sea. If one draws a line fromCape Town toCairo (Rhodes's dream), and one fromDakar to theHorn of Africa (the French ambition), these two lines intersect somewhere in eastern Sudan nearFashoda, explaining its strategic importance.
A French force underJean-Baptiste Marchand arrived first at the strategically located fort at Fashoda, soon followed by a British force underLord Kitchener, commander in chief of the British Army since 1892. The French withdrew after a standoff and continued to press claims to other posts in the region. TheFashoda Incident ultimately led to the signature of theEntente Cordiale of 1904, which guaranteed peace between the two.
In 1890, both the United Kingdom and France were able to reach a diplomatic solution over a colonial dispute that would guarantee freedom of trade for the British Empire while allowing France to expand their influence in North Africa.[70] In exchange for France recognizing Britain's protectorate over Zanzibar, the British Empire recognized France's claim to Madagascar as well as their sphere of influence in North Africa stretching down to the border region of Sokoto.[71] However, finely demarcating this border was difficult to do without a large map.[72]
Although the Berlin Conference had set the rules for the Scramble for Africa, it had not weakened the rival imperialists. As a result of theEntente Cordiale, the German Kaiser decided to test the solidity of such influence, using the contested territory ofMorocco as a battlefield. Kaiser Wilhelm II visitedTangier on 31 March 1905 and made a speech in favour of Moroccan independence, challenging French influence in Morocco. France's presence had been reaffirmed by Britain and Spain in 1904. The Kaiser's speech bolstered French nationalism, and with British support, the French foreign minister,Théophile Delcassé, took a defiant line. The crisis peaked in mid-June 1905 when Delcassé was forced out of the ministry by the more conciliation-minded premierMaurice Rouvier. But by July 1905 Germany was becoming isolated, and the French agreed to a conference to solve the crisis.
The 1906Algeciras Conference was called to settle the dispute. Of the thirteen nations present, the German representatives found their only supporter wasAustria-Hungary, which had no interest in Africa. France had firm support from Britain, the U.S., Russia, Italy, and Spain. The Germans eventually accepted an agreement, signed on 31 May 1906, whereby France yielded certain domestic changes in Morocco but retained control of key areas.
However, five years later the Second Moroccan Crisis (orAgadir Crisis) was sparked by the deployment of the German gunboatPanther to the port ofAgadir in July 1911. Germany had started to attempt to match Britain'snaval supremacy—the British navy had a policy of remaining larger than the next two rival fleets in the world combined. When the British heard of thePanther's arrival in Morocco, they wrongly believed that the Germans meant to turn Agadir into a naval base on the Atlantic. The German move was aimed at reinforcing claims for compensation for acceptance of effective French control of theNorth African kingdom, where France's pre-eminence had been upheld by the 1906 Algeciras Conference. In November 1911, a compromise was reached under which Germany accepted France's position in Morocco in return for a slice of territory in theFrench Equatorial African colony ofMiddle Congo.[73]
France andSpain subsequently established a fullprotectorate over Morocco on 30 March 1912, ending what remained of the country's formal independence. Furthermore, British backing for France during the two Moroccan crises reinforced theEntente between the two countries and added to Anglo-German estrangement, deepening the divisions that would culminate in the First World War.
Following the Berlin Conference, the British, Italians, and Ethiopians sought to claim lands inhabited by the Somalis. TheDervish movement, led bySayid Muhammed Abdullah Hassan, existed for 21 years, from 1899 until 1920. The Dervish movement successfully repulsed the British Empire four times and forced it to retreat to the coastal region. Because of these successful expeditions, the Dervish movement was recognized as an ally by theOttoman andGerman empires. TheTurks named HassanEmir of the Somali nation, and the Germans promised to officially recognise any territories the Dervishes were to acquire. After a quarter of a century of holding the British at bay, theDervishes were finally defeated in 1920 as a direct consequence of Britain's use of aircraft.
Between 1904 and 1908, Germany's colonies inGerman South West Africa andGerman East Africa were rocked by separate, contemporaneous native revolts against their rule. In both territories the threat to German rule was quickly defeated once large-scale reinforcements from Germany arrived, with theHerero rebels in German South West Africa being defeated at theBattle of Waterberg and the Maji-Maji rebels in German East Africa being steadily crushed by German forces slowly advancing through the countryside, with the natives resorting toguerrilla warfare.[74][75]
German efforts to clear the bush of civilians in German South West Africa resulted in a genocide of the population. In total, as many as 65,000 Herero (80% of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Namaqua (50% of the total Namaqua population) either starved, died of thirst, or were worked to death in camps such asShark Island concentration camp between 1904 and 1908. Between 24,000 and 100,000 Hereros, 10,000Nama, and an unknown number ofSan died in the genocide.[76][77][78][79][80][81][82] Characteristic of this genocide was death from starvation, thirst, and possibly the poisoning of the population's wells, whilst they were trapped in theNamib Desert.[83][84][85]
In its earlier stages, imperialism was generally the act of individual explorers as well as some adventurous merchantmen. The colonial powers were a long way from approving without any dissent the expensive adventures carried out abroad. Various important political leaders, such asWilliam Gladstone, opposed colonization in its first years. However, during his second premiership between 1880 and 1885, he could not resist the colonial lobby in his cabinet and thus did not execute his electoral promise to disengage from Egypt. Although Gladstone was personally opposed to imperialism, thesocial tensions caused by the Long Depression pushed him to favourjingoism: the imperialists had become the "parasites of patriotism."[86] InFrance,Radical politicianGeorges Clemenceau was adamantly opposed to it: he thought colonization was a diversion from the "blue line of theVosges" mountains, that isrevanchism and the patriotic urge to reclaim theAlsace-Lorraine region which had been annexed by the German Empire with the 1871Treaty of Frankfurt. Clemenceau madeJules Ferry's cabinet fall after the 1885Tonkin disaster. According toHannah Arendt inThe Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), this expansion of national sovereignty on overseas territories contradicted the unity of thenation state which provided citizenship to its population. Thus, a tension between theuniversalist will respect human rights of the colonized people, as they may be considered as "citizens" of the nation-state, and the imperialist drive to cynicallyexploit populations deemed inferior began to surface. Some, in colonizing countries, opposed what they saw as unnecessary evils of the colonial administration when left to itself; as described inJoseph Conrad'sHeart of Darkness (1899)—published around the same time asKipling'sThe White Man's Burden—or inLouis-Ferdinand Céline'sJourney to the End of the Night (1932).
Colonial lobbies emerged to legitimise the Scramble for Africa and other expensive overseas adventures. In Germany, France, and Britain, the middle class often sought strong overseas policies to ensure the market's growth. Even in lesser powers, voices likeEnrico Corradini claimed a "place in the sun" for so-called "proletarian nations", bolstering nationalism and militarism in an early prototype of fascism.
A plethora of colonialist propaganda pamphlets, ideas, and imagery played on the colonial powers' psychology of popular jingoism and proud nationalism.[87] A hallmark of the French colonial project in the late 19th century and early 20th century was thecivilizing mission (mission civilisatrice), the principle that it was Europe's duty to bring civilisation to benighted peoples.[88] As such, colonial officials undertook a policy of Franco-Europeanisation in French colonies, most notablyFrench West Africa andMadagascar. During the 19th century, French citizenship along with the right to elect a deputy to the French Chamber of Deputies was granted to the four old colonies of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane and Réunion as well as to the residents of the "Four Communes" in Senegal. In most cases, the elected deputies were white Frenchmen, although there were some black deputies, such as the SenegaleseBlaise Diagne, who was elected in 1914.[89]
By the end of World War I the colonial empires had become very popular almost everywhere in Europe:public opinion had been convinced of the needs of a colonial empire, although most of the metropolitans would never see a piece of it.Colonial exhibitions were instrumental in this change of popular mentalities brought about by the colonial propaganda, supported by the colonial lobby and by various scientists.[90] Thus, conquests of territories were inevitably followed by public displays of the indigenous people for scientific and leisure purposes.
Carl Hagenbeck, a German merchant in wild animals and a future entrepreneur of most Europeans zoos, decided in 1874 to exhibitSamoa andSami people as "purely natural" populations. In 1876, he sent one of his collaborators to the newly conquered Egyptian Sudan to bring back some wild beasts andNubians. Presented in Paris, London, and Berlin these Nubians were very successful. Such "human zoos" could be found in Hamburg, Antwerp, Barcelona, London, Milan, New York City, Paris, etc., with 200,000 to 300,000 visitors attending each exhibition.Tuaregs were exhibited after the French conquest ofTimbuktu (visited byRené Caillié, disguised as a Muslim, in 1828, thereby winning the prize offered by the FrenchSociété de Géographie);Malagasy after the occupation of Madagascar;Amazons ofAbomey afterBehanzin's mediatic defeat against the French in 1894. Not used to the climatic conditions, some of the indigenous died from exposure, such as someGalibis in Paris in 1892.[91]
Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, director of theJardin d'Acclimatation, decided in 1877 to organise two "ethnological spectacles", presenting Nubians andInuit. Ticket sales at the Jardin d'Acclimatation doubled, with a million paying entrances that year, a huge success for these times. Between 1877 and 1912, approximately thirty "ethnological exhibitions" were presented at the zoo.[92] "Negro villages" were presented in Paris'1878 World's Fair; the1900 World's Fair presented the famousdiorama "living" in Madagascar, while the Colonial Exhibitions in Marseille (1906 and 1922) and in Paris (1907 and 1931) displayed human beings in cages, often nudes or quasi-nudes.[93] Nomadic "Senegalese villages" were also created, thus displaying the power of the colonial empire to all the population.
In the U.S.,Madison Grant, head of the New York Zoological Society, exposedPygmyOta Benga in theBronx Zoo alongside the apes and others in 1906. At the behest of Grant, ascientific racist andeugenicist, zoo directorWilliam Temple Hornaday placed Ota Benga in a cage with an orangutan and labeled him "TheMissing Link" in an attempt to illustrateDarwinism, and in particular that Africans like Ota Benga are closer to apes than were Europeans. Other colonial exhibitions included the 1924British Empire Exhibition and the 1931 Paris "Exposition coloniale".
From the beginning of the 20th century, the elimination or control of disease in tropical countries became a driving force for all colonial powers.[94] Thesleeping sickness epidemic in Africa was arrested through mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk.[95] In the 1880s cattle brought from British Asia to feed Italian soldiers invading Eritrea turned out to be infected with a disease calledrinderpest. Decimation of native herds severely damaged local livelihoods, forcing people to labor for their colonizers.
In the 20th century, Africa saw the biggest increase in its population because of lessening of themortality rate in many countries through peace, famine relief,medicine, and above all, the end or decline of the slave trade.[96] Africa's population has grown from 120 million in 1900[97] to over 1 billion today.[98]
The continuinganti-slavery movement in Western Europe became a reason and an excuse for the conquest and colonization of Africa. It was the central theme of theBrussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90. From start of the Scramble for Africa, virtually all colonial regimes claimed to be motivated by a desire to suppress slavery and the slave trade. In French West Africa, following conquest and abolition by the French, over one million slaves fled from their masters to earlier homes between 1906 and 1911. In Madagascar, the French abolished slavery in 1896, and approximately 500,000 slaves were freed. Slavery was abolished in the French controlled Sahel by 1911. Independent nations attempting to westernize or impress Europe sometimes cultivated an image of slavery suppression. In response to European pressure, theSokoto Caliphate abolished slavery in 1900, and Ethiopia officially abolished slavery in 1932. Colonial powers were mostly successful in abolishing slavery, though slavery remained active in Africa, even though it has gradually moved to a wage economy. Slavery was never fully eradicated in Africa.[99][100][101][102]
During the New Imperialism period, by the end of the 19th century, Europe added almost 9,000,000 square miles (23,000,000 km2) – one-fifth of the land area of the globe – to its overseas colonial possessions. Europe's formal holdings included the entire African continent except Ethiopia, Liberia, andSaguia el-Hamra, the latter of which was eventually integrated intoSpanish Sahara. Between 1885 and 1914, Britain took nearly 30% of Africa's population under its control; 15% for France, 11% for Portugal, 9% for Germany, 7% for Belgium and 1% for Italy.[citation needed] Nigeria alone contributed 15 million subjects, more than in the whole of French West Africa or the entire German colonial empire. In terms of surface area occupied, the French were the marginal leaders, but much of their territory consisted of the sparsely populated Sahara.[103][104]
Political imperialism followed the economic expansion, with the "colonial lobbies" bolstering chauvinism and jingoism at each crisis in order to legitimise the colonial enterprise. The tensions between the imperial powers led to a succession of crises, which exploded in August 1914, when previous rivalries and alliances created a domino situation that drew the major European nations into World War I.[105]
After the First World War, Germany's possessions were partitioned among Britain (which took a sliver of western Cameroon, Tanzania, western Togo, and Namibia), France (which took most of Cameroon and eastern Togo) and Belgium (which took Rwanda and Burundi).
The British were primarily interested in maintaining secure communication lines toIndia, which led to initial interest inEgypt andSouth Africa. Once these two areas were secure, it was the intent of British colonialists such asCecil Rhodes to establish a Cape-Cairo railway and to exploit mineral and agricultural resources. Control of theNile was viewed as a strategic and commercial advantage. Overall, by 1921, the British had control approximately 33.23% of Africa, or 3,897,920 mi2 (10,09,55,66 km2).[107][108]
Liberia was founded, colonized, established, and controlled by theAmerican Colonization Society, a private organisation established in order to relocate freedAfrican American and Caribbean slaves from the United States and the Caribbean islands in 1822.[109][110] Liberia declared its independence from the American Colonization Society on July 26, 1847.[111] Liberia is Africa's oldest republic and the second-oldest black republic in the world (after Haiti). Liberia maintained its independence during the period as it was viewed by European powers as either a territory, colony[112] or protectorate of the United States.
The same powers assumed Ethiopia to be a protectorate of Italy although the country had never accepted this, and its independence from Italy was recognized after theBattle of Adwa which resulted in theTreaty of Addis Ababa in 1896.[113] The country remained independent until 1936 when it was occupied by Fascist Italy underBenito Mussolini and annexed with Italian-possessed Eritrea and Somaliland, later formingItalian East Africa; in 1941, during World War II, it was occupied by the British Army and its full sovereignty was restored in 1944 after a period of military administration.[114]
TheSultanate of Aussa existed from the 18th to the 20th century. The Ethiopian Empire nominally laid claim to the region but were met with harsh resistance. Due to their skills in desert warfare, the Afars managed to remain independent.[115] The Sultan Yayyo visitedRome along with countless other nobility from across East Africa to support the creation of Italian East Africa.[116] This marked the end of the region's independence and it was disestablished and incorporated into Italian East Africa.
TheMbunda Kingdom, in present-day southeast Angola, also remained independent during the Scramble for Africa. At its greatest extent, it reached from Mithimoyi in central Moxico to the Cuando Cubango Province in the southeast, bordering Namibia. Portugal declared war on the kingdom in theKolongongo War, and ultimately conquered it and captured KingMwene Mbandu Lyonthzi Kapova in 1917.[3]
When Germany established a colony in Namibia in 1884, they left theOvambo kingdoms undisturbed. After World War I, Namibia was annexed by the South African government into the Union of South Africa; this brought major changes, with South African plantation, cattle breeding and mining operations entering the Ovamboland. The Portuguese colonial administration in Angola, who had previously focused on their coastal, northern and eastern operations, entered southern Angola to form a border with the expanding South African presence. The Ovambo people launched several armed rebellions against South African rule in the 1920s and 1930s, which were all suppressed by the Union Defence Force.[5]
TheDervish State existed from 1899 until 1920, after successfully repulsing the British Empire four times and forced it to retreat. The Dervish State was the only Muslim state on the African continent to maintain its independence.[117] The Dervishes were finally defeated in 1920 after theSomaliland Campaign.
Egba, a government of theEgba people in Nigeria, was legally recognised by the British as independent until being annexed into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914.[1]
Anti-neoliberal scholars connect the old scramble to a new scramble for Africa, coinciding with the emergence of an "Afro-neoliberal" capitalist movement in postcolonial Africa.[118] When African nations began to gain independence after World War II, their postcolonial economic structures remained undiversified and linear. In most cases, the bulk of a nation's economy relied oncash crops ornatural resources. These scholars claim that the decolonisation process kept independent African nations at the mercy of colonial powers by structurally dependent economic relations. They also claim that structural adjustment programs led to the privatization and liberalization of many African political and economic systems, forcefully pushing Africa into the global capitalist market, and that these factors led to development under Western ideological systems of economics and politics.[119]
In the era ofglobalization, several African countries have emerged aspetrostates (for example Angola, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Sudan). These are nations with an economic and political partnership between transnational oil companies and the ruling elite class in oil-rich African nations.[120] Numerous countries have entered into aneo-imperial relationship with Africa during this time period. Mary Gilmartin notes that "material and symbolic appropriation of space [is] central to imperial expansion and control"; nations in the globalization era who invest in controlling land internationally are engaging in neocolonialism.[121] Chinese (and other Asian countries) state oil companies have entered Africa's highly competitive oil sector.China National Petroleum Corporation purchased 40% of Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company. Furthermore, the Sudan exports 50–60% of its domestically produced oil to China, making up 7% of China's imports. China has also been purchasing equity shares in African oil fields, invested in industry related infrastructure development and acquired continental oil concessions throughout Africa.[122]
^Touval, Saadia (1967). "The Organization of African Unity and African Borders".International Organization.21 (1):102–127.doi:10.1017/S0020818300013151.JSTOR2705705.
^Compare:Killingray, David (1998)."7: The War in Africa". InStrachan, Hew (ed.).The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War: New Edition (2nd ed.). Oxford:Oxford University Press (published 2014). p. 101.ISBN978-0-19-164040-7. Retrieved21 February 2017.In 1914 the only independent states in Africa were Liberia and Abyssinia.
^"Quinine".broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk. Archived fromthe original on 16 February 2020. Retrieved18 December 2019.
^Langer, William A; Bureau of International Research of Harvard University and Radcliffe College (1935).The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902. Vol. 1. New York and London: Alfred A Knopf.
^abH.R. Cowie,Imperialism and Race Relations. Revised edition, Nelson Publishing, Vol. 5, 1982.
^abHochschild, Adam (1999).King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. New York: Mariner Books. p. 281.ISBN0-358-21250-2.OCLC1105149367.
^Khanna, V. N. (2013).International Relations (5th ed.). India: Vikas Publishing House. p. 55.ISBN9789325968363.
^George Shepperson, "The centennial of the West African conference of Berlin, 1884–1885." Phylon 46.1 (1985): 37–48onlineArchived 2019-10-21 at theWayback Machine.
^Arendt, Hannah (1973).The origins of totalitarianism (New ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 222.ISBN9780156701532.OCLC614421.
^Kitson, Alison (2001).Germany, 1858–1990: Hope, Terror, and Revival. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 64.ISBN0-19-913417-0.OCLC47209403.
^Del Boca, Angelo (1969).The Ethiopian War 1935–1941. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.ISBN978-0-226-14217-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
^Forbath, Peter (1977).The River Congo: The Discovery, Exploration and Exploitation of the World's Most Dramatic Rivers. [Harper & Row]. p. 374.ISBN978-0-06-122490-4.
^Stig Förster, Wolfgang Justin Mommsen, and Ronald Edward Robinson, eds.Bismarck, Europe and Africa: The Berlin Africa conference 1884–1885 and the onset of partition (Oxford University Press, 1988).
^Nuhn, Walter (1989).Sturm über Südwest. Der Hereroaufstand von 1904 (in German). Koblenz, DEU: Bernard & Graefe-Verlag.ISBN978-3-7637-5852-4.[page needed]
^Schaller, Dominik J. (2008). Moses, A. Dirk (ed.).From Conquest to Genocide: Colonial Rule in German Southwest Africa and German East Africa [Empire, Colony Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History] (first ed.). Oxford: Berghahn Books. p. 296.ISBN978-1-84545-452-4.see his footnotes to German language sources citation #1 for Chapter 13.
^Jeremy Sarkin-Hughes (2008)Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904–1908, p. 142, Praeger Security International, Westport, Conn.ISBN978-0-31336-256-9
^Moses, A. Dirk (2008).Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation and Subaltern Resistance in World History. New York: Berghahn Books.ISBN978-1-84545-452-4.[page needed]
^Schaller, Dominik J. (2008).From Conquest to Genocide: Colonial Rule in German Southwest Africa and German East Africa. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 296.ISBN978-1-84545-452-4.
^Friedrichsmeyer, Sara L.; Lennox, Sara; Zantop, Susanne M. (1998).The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. p. 87.ISBN978-0-472-09682-4.
^Baronian, Marie-Aude; Besser, Stephan; Jansen, Yolande, eds. (2007).Diaspora and Memory: Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics. Thamyris, Intersecting Place, Sex and Race, Issue 13. Leiden, NDL: Brill/Rodopi. p. 33.ISBN978-9042021297.ISSN1381-1312.
^Ulrich van der Heyden; Holger Stoecker (2005)Mission und Macht im Wandel politischer Orientierungen: Europaische Missionsgesellschaften in politischen Spannungsfeldern in Afrika und Asien zwischen 1800–1945, p. 394, Franz Steiner Verlag, StuttgartISBN978-3-515-08423-9
^Andrew S. Thompson, and John M. MacKenzie,Developing Africa: Concepts and practices in twentieth-century colonialism (Manchester University Press, 2016).
^Shillington, Kevin (2005). Encyclopedia of African history. New York: CRC Press, p. 878
^Manning, Patrick (1990).Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades. London: Cambridge University Press.
^Lovejoy, Paul E. (2012). Transformations of Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. London: Cambridge University Press.
^Martin Klein, "Slave Descent and Social Status in Sahara and Sudan", inReconfiguring Slavery: West African Trajectories, ed. Benedetta Rossi (Liverpool:Liverpool University Press, 2009), 29.
^Richard Rathbone, "World war I and Africa: introduction."Journal of African History 19.1 (1978): 1–9.
^James Joll and Gordon Martel,The Origins of the First World War (4th ed. 2006), pp. 219–253.
^William Mulligan,The Origins of the First World War (2017), pp. 230–238.
Robinson, Ronald; Gallagher, John; Denny, Alice (1961).Africa and the Victorians: The official mind of imperialism (2 ed.). Macmillan.ISBN9780333310069.OL17989466M.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Shillington, Kevin (2005).History of Africa. Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-0-333-59957-0.
Southall, Roger; Melber, Henning (2009).A New Scramble For Africa?: Imperialism, Investment and Development. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Curtin, Philip D.Disease and empire: The health of European Troops in the Conquest of Africa (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
Darwin, John. "Imperialism and the Victorians: The dynamics of territorial expansion."English Historical Review (1997) 112#447 pp. 614–42.
Finaldi, Giuseppe.Italian National Identity in the Scramble for Africa: Italy's African Wars in the Era of Nation-building, 1870–1900 (Peter Lang, 2009)
Förster, Stig, Wolfgang Justin Mommsen, and Ronald Edward Robinson, eds.Bismarck, Europe and Africa: The Berlin Africa conference 1884–1885 and the onset of partition (Oxford University Press, 1988)online
Gifford, Prosser, and William Roger Louis.France and Britain in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule (1971)
Gifford, Prosser, and William Roger Louis.Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial rivalry and colonial rule (1967)online.
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