Scramble for Africa - history.

« Sir Henry Morton StanleyAnglo-American explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley was a key figure in the Scramble for Africa.

His late 19th-century exploration anddevelopment of the lower Congo River in the name of Belgian king Leopold II led to the creation of the huge Congo Free State asLeopold’s personal property.THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE European competition over African territory in the 1870s heightened once Belgian king Leopold II got involved.

Merchants under French government protection had beenadvancing up the Sénégal River with an eye toward connecting that river with the Niger by rail.

This connection would open a vast market in West Africa’s interior.

At thesame time, British palm oil merchants were pushing up the Niger River by steamer, and Anglo-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley was journeying down the CongoRiver.

In his journeys, Stanley had discovered that the river’s upper reaches were open to trade.

However, it took Leopold to raise the stakes.

For 20 years the wealthy rulerhad dreamt of creating a Belgian colonial empire.

In 1876 he established the International African Association, an organization that had stated scientific and humanitariangoals but was truly a front to further Leopold’s imperial design.

Then, in 1879, when Britain ignored Stanley’s offer to open Central Africa and funnel its trade to the mouthof the Congo, Leopold employed Stanley to do just that.

By 1880 the explorer was back in the lower Congo, building road and river access to connect the Atlantic Oceanwith Stanley Falls, located about 2300 km (about 1400 mi) upstream.

Across the river in the early 1880s, French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was exploring andnegotiating treaties for France, forcing Stanley to obtain treaties for Leopold.

Their claims appeared to overlap near the mouth of the Congo, a land area claimed by Portugalas well. Events in North Africa raised tensions further.

In 1881, France occupied Tunisia to prevent Italy from gaining land on Algeria’s border.

A year later Britain occupied thebankrupt Ottoman possession of Egypt to guarantee repayment of its huge foreign debt.

France, which also had a significant financial stake in Egypt and had shared “dualcontrol” of Egypt’s finances with Britain since the mid-1870s, was left without influence.

Neither France nor Germany approved of Britain taking over Egypt, but eachexpressed approval to gain British support for its own colonial actions.

It was fast becoming a game of European diplomatic wrangling with African territories as pawns. III THE SCRAMBLING BEGINS (1884-1891) Otto von BismarckGerman chancellor Otto von Bismarck helped spur on the Scramble for Africa by declaring German protectorates over several Africanterritories in 1884 and 1885.

He hosted the Berlin West Africa Conference between late 1884 and early 1885 with the goal of settlingrival European claims to African territory.Hulton Deutsch While Britain, France, and Leopold were advancing their aims in Africa, Europe’s fastest-rising military and industrial power, Germany, was biding its time.

Its leader, Ottovon Bismarck, appeared content to allow the others to expend diplomatic energy on African initiatives while Germany concerned itself with domestic issues.

However, aspressures mounted from German merchants wanting a share of any potential African market, Bismarck realized German interests might best be served by his taking controlof the diplomatic struggles involving Africa.

Thus, in the summer of 1884 Bismarck declared German protectorates over three African territories—Togoland (comprisingpresent-day Togo and eastern Ghana), Cameroon, and South-West Africa (present-day Namibia).

Then, he joined France in calling for a conference of colonial powers inBerlin.

The stated goals of the conference were to be the settling of Congo claims between Britain, France, and Portugal, and of Anglo-French rivalries along the Niger River.In addition, however, European powers recognized that rules and rationalizations were needed for the seizing of African territories, especially for seizures that held potentialfor European conflict. The Berlin West Africa Conference (November 1884-February 1885) involved representatives of 14 European countries and the United States.

The Ottoman Empire, facingthe loss of territory on all sides, was not represented at the conference.

Much of the conference work took place outside Berlin, as envoys moved between London, Paris,and Brussels negotiating which European power could rightfully claim lands inhabited by Africans.

By the time the conference ended, Leopold had secured ownership of theCongo Free State, a state 50 times the size of Belgium; France saw acceptance of its claims to French Congo; Portugal lost most of its Congo claims; and European powersrecognized Germany’s new protectorates.

(The day following the conference, Bismarck declared another protectorate in East Africa.) The European nations declared freetrade along the Congo and free navigation on the Niger, stated lofty goals as their mission in African colonies, and set out rules for additional territorial grabs.

The mostsignificant of these rules stated that colonial powers were obligated to notify each other when they claimed African territory.

Further, subsequent “effective occupation” ofthe claimed area was necessary for the claim to remain valid.

Through it all, as Europeans negotiated their rights to African territory, not a single African was present.

Oncethe conference was over, it was clear that a European Scramble for African territories was underway. Southern Africa became a much more important element in the Scramble a year after the Berlin Conference.

At that time, word spread of the world’s largest known depositsof gold in the Afrikaner-controlled South African Republic (or Transvaal).

Western miners and industrialists flocked into southern Africa to profit.

Among those involved infinance and operation of the mines was British magnate Cecil Rhodes, a leader of diamond mining in the Cape Colony.

Rhodes was a believer in the “civilizing” mission ofBritish colonialism—he dreamed of a British African empire stretching from the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo, Egypt.

Thus, hoping to find still more gold north of Transvaal in1890, he led a “pioneer column” of settlers north.

These prospectors overcame African opposition and carved out the new British colonies of Southern and NorthernRhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe and Zambia). Most European powers were not content to let a chance at claiming further territory slip.

France may have had the grandest territorial desires of any nation.

Its majoradvances were eastward from the Sénégal River and down the Niger from its headwaters.

French armies slowly overcame opposition from the powerful Tukolor Empire and. »