Alicia Jones-Mills
History 80a
D H Anthony
May 14, 2014
Congress of Berlin
The Berlin Conference in L’Illustration, 1884 (©L’Illustration)
For a very long time, Africa was in the eye sight of every major western power. Not only did the country awe people with its mass and beauty, its resources stayed grand and up for grabs. Ambitious European empires curiosity had explorers diving deep into this massive continent. Even with its size Africa wasn’t big enough for Western parties to share, competitions became bloody violent conflicts. These conflicts became so great that Portugal came up with an idea to get together and talk about what to do about Africa.
Africa being a huge conflict between the power struggles against natives and each other. The Western powers decided a sit down would be in order. They decided to call this sit down, The Berlin Conference. The conference of Berlin was also known around the world as the Congo conference. On November 15, 1884 Austria- Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden- Norway, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and the United States met to discuss the politics over Africa. At the request of Portugal, the meeting was called together so all major powers in the western hemisphere could discuss and negotiate the control of Africa. The conference attempted to assign a set of realities that were already taking place on the continent. Preceding to 1870, the British, French, Portuguese, and Germans acquired territory and control of large amounts of land on the African continent. This period was known as the “scramble for Africa.” This conference promoted discussing the control of the slave trade and promoting philanthropic generosit...
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...ixing the “Africa Problem”, but it was about merrily conquering Africa for selfish and Capitalistic ways. Africa capture was so that the world could share its rich resources in a gain to western economies, but destruction to African culture and its people. The Berlin conference was more like a free-for-all between western players and indigenous people of Africa.
The colonizers didn’t have anyone to answer to but themselves. All 14 countries at the conference signed on to tell and set restrictions on land they wanted to conquer. The conference was supposed to be a way for the countries to start to move away from the slave trade, but a lot of times ended in the slave acts towards African people. In Belgium's case Stanley was able to trick tribes into signing their lives away. The conference never really set ground rules for the extortion of the people in Africa.
By 1885, little to no independent countries existed throughtout the whole African continent. This was due to the imperialism done by strong European countries. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, and Spain are to blame. There are many possible contributing factors as to why the European countries decided to completely carve up Africa, split it up, imperialize the whole of the continent. Because of the need for resources Africa could supply, the European desire for power, and the European's reaction to the White Man's burden, they took control of almost every square mile in Africa through imperialization.
Europe, in the late 1800’s, was starting a land grab on the African continent. Around 1878, most of Africa was unexplored, but by 1914, most of Africa, with the lucky exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, was carved up between European powers. There were countless motivations that spurred the European powers to carve Africa, like economic, political, and socio–cultural, and there were countless attitudes towards this expansion into Africa, some of approval and some of condemnation. Europe in this period was a world of competing countries. Britain had a global empire to lead, France had competition with Britain for wealth and so did other nations like Germany and Russia.
With their extensive knowledge in technology and well built government, Europeans countries were superior to the rest. Following the Berlin Conference, in which European countries discussed on colonizing the rudimentary tribes and kingdoms of Africa, was the Scramble for Africa. As a result of the European impositions, colonized Africans either formed alliances, started rebellions, or compiled to the implications to prevent further destruction.
In the video, “The Magnificent African Cake” by Basil Davidson, Africa was divided up into new colonies by Europeans. After the end of slavery in Africa, Europeans wanted to expand their empires for industrialization and commerce. This period of time was called the “scramble for Africa” because many European countries were claiming as much land from Africa. In 1884, the Berlin Congress was held and these European countries “sliced” up the African countries like a cake where each country got its portion of land. The opinions and representation of Africans was non existent. In fact, Europeans considered Africans as “helpless children or lazy settlers.” This led to the feeling that Africans were inferior to Europeans and killings of Africans often took place in the European colonies. In the end of the distribution of African land in 1914, there only remained two countries that were not under European control. The main countries involved in the colonization of Africa included France, England, Portugal, Germany, and Denmark.
The Europeans stole the land from the Africans, and imposed their way of life into African society. Imperialists brought military technology along with them, decreasing the likelihood that the Africans could resist their forces of ethnocentric civilization. To make matters worse, each country in Europe wants its own share of the African continent. The imperial powers reached an agreement over the available land in Africa at the Berlin Conference in 1884 and 1885. They consented that to implant a name to the appropriated zone, the colonial power must display that they are able to demonstrate colonial control over the area....
There were many reasons for the European countries to be competing against each other to gain colonies in Africa. One of the main reasons may be that Europeans believed that the more territory a country was able to control, the more powerful and important they were believed to be. Other reasons for countries to be competing include the many natural resources that could only be found in Africa and a need for markets in surrounding places so that manufactured goods could be sold for a large profit. When the European manufacturing plants were built, the raw materials from Africa were extracted and the company owners developed an indigenous labor force, which was managed by foreigners. This all led to the Africans being taken over by the foreigners.
European countries were desperate for more land and to avoid war, they set up The Berlin Conference (1884-5) to draw lines on the map of Africa and create colonies for each of them. By 1914, basically all of Africa was colonized. They interfered with Africa’s culture, which caused much frustration among the African people. Another great example is seen in Disney’s Pocahontas. This movie recreates a true story and does a great job in showing how the white men invaded the land of the Native Americans, taking what did not belong to them. It shows the struggle the natives faced during this invasion and how unfair it was for these people to just show up and take their homes and lives from
Europeans saw Africa as being uncivilized and backwards, but they could become like the West with help. Africa was considered the “dark continent”, Europeans thought that the natives were below them and needed their “help” to become humanized and cultured (Jones). It was an attitude similar to orientalism, Africans had little chance to engage in a dialogue about their culture and heritage. Africa was a different and “other” land that was full of valuable resources to Europeans that the natives did not understand the value of. To the West, and many Europeans, Africa existed as a place full of resources to be taken.
The scramble for Africa represents the most thorough and systematic process of colonialism in world history. The European colonial powers managed to conquer and control almost the entire continent of Africa in a short, twenty-five year period from about 1875 to 1900. Some of the European states involved were already well-established global powers; the others were up and coming nations that desired to emulate and compete with the dominant imperial states. Various factors allowed for and contributed to the conquering of the whole of Africa by European states. The slow, but ever-growing European presence on the perimeter and the completion for dominance between the major European states acted as the platform for the inevitable quest for the middle. The obstacles brought on by indigenous resistance were no match for the European military might and technological superiority. The idea that indigenous territories were in need of Western intervention aided by scientific racism served to legitimize colonialism, especially in the face opposition within the imperial powers. The spark that set off the chain reaction of conquest was the Belgian occupation of the Congo by King Leopold II. Scramble for Africa was bloody and eventful end to the Long 19th century that was brought on by colonialism and that left the continent of Africa in a state of shambles up unto the present day.
Not only were colonies a vital source of cheap labor and the importation of raw material, they also represented the expansion of trade and additional areas for commerce. However, economic mercantilism soon evolved to include forms of political imperialism. While the Berlin Conference of 1884 and its partitioning of Africa provided new resources of growth and riches for rulers like King Leopold II of Belgium, it also served as an opportunity to advance political interests and rewrite the world order. With little regard for existing cultures and social structures, Leopold forced much of the indigenous population to extract ivory and rubber in the Congo and used the newfound wealth to fund military ventures and other political projects. Similarly, other nations like Japan sought to conquer and annex different areas of the globe in hopes to capturing more economic and political influence. Soon, countries were locked in a battle to outdo one another. The fight for new resources created a vicious cycle in which competition and imperialism reinforced each
Africa was seen here to have been a victim of European invasion. The Europeans took advantage of the weapons they had, and the enmities that existed between some African states which made them seek alliances with foreigners as the Europeans. They would have combated the invasion through joined forces and a confederation had they known the European’s intention.
The Berlin Conference was started in 1884 by German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck and lasted through February of 1885. It was designed to assist the European countries in developing themselves as a stronger force among world powers to allow them to overtake more unknown territories. “The motives for what became known as the ‘scramble for Africa’ in which Europeans began slicing up that cake, were political, economic, and cultural” (Nardo). King Leopold II, from Belgium, showed the strongest interest in the conference as he was strategically planning the capture of a colony to finally expand his empire. He felt that without the possession of other territories that Belgium held a lower status politically and economically than the countries that had already captured new lands.
The Scramble for Africa was a period of time where major European countries fought over and colonized land in Africa, stretching from South Africa to Egypt. The scramble for Africa began shortly after the slave trade, and ended at WW1, and is a strong representation of the ‘New Imperialism’. The first country to act was Belgium, who colonized Congo at 1885, but soon, other countries such as Portugal and Great Britain joined in in order to not miss out. Firstly, the European could not colonize Africa easily, due to Africa’s giant land mass and the diseases that spread throughout the land. But then, came the Steam train, Maxim guns and new cures for diseases that paved the way for the Europeans to control Africa. Since one of the reasons Europeans wanted to colonize Africa was that they wanted to ‘civilize’ the people, the leader of Germany, Otto Von Bismarck, decide that they have a conference to split the land and not fight each other. Soon, in 1914, nearly all African countries were colonized by Europeans except for Ethiopia and Liberia. Different countries had different styles of colonization. For example, France was less eager to let the African chiefs take control of their colonies than Britain, who set up a African Government to their colonies. Basically, the scramble for Africa was a period of time when European countries colonized Africa.
‘The Scramble for Africa’ was a period of rapid colonization of underdeveloped countries within Africa. Britain and various other European countries had a major economic, social, and military evolution which sparked their colonization of Africa. During the Scramble for Africa, European countries debated and argued over which segment of Africa was theirs to obtain, which resources they could hoard, and which areas they could use for strategic interests. Europe had no intention of educating Africa, their intention was to use their superior power to exploit the continent’s resources and economies, all for and strategic interests. The colonization of these countries brought Europe mass amounts of wealth and useful materials not attainable in Europe
During the 19th century Europeans have tried so hard to invade and take over other territories. Africa’s territory intrigued Europeans, so they took it upon themselves to seize it known as the “Scramble for Africa.” The Scramble of Africa happened during the New Imperialism Period which involved invasion, occupation, division, colonization, and annexation by Europe. Europeans argued that by impacting colonization on Africa they also were exporting civilization to a continent in which they saw as backwards and undeveloped. The countries that were involved were Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. Some reasons that Europeans decided to seize Africa is because they though it extend their culture abroad. In addition, to if one nation conquered a territory other nations felt the need to respond or else they would lose power and prestige. Industrialization started to become common in the 19th century and it gave countries technology, wealth, and motivation to see if there was anything else. Nations always competed for availability to raw