Colonising Africa: What happened at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885?

The African continent was beginning to serve as a permanent resource base for their newly expanding industrial sectors as it was the end of the 19th century.

More than the ongoing trade between the two continents that had run for decades, though, the Europeans wanted direct control of Africa’s natural resources. In addition, these countries aimed to “develop and civilise Africa”, according to documents from that period.

Thus began the mad “Scramble for Africa”, as it would later be called. King Leopold II of Belgium and Great Britain, Portugal, France, Germany, and King Leopold II of Belgium sent scouts to sign agreements establishing trade and sovereignty with local leaders, purchasing or simply staking flags and claiming vast landslides of territory dotted across the continent rich in everything from palm oil to rubber.

Squabbles soon erupted in Europe over who “owned” what. The French, for example, clashed with Britain over several West African territories, and again with King Leopold over Central African regions.

To avoid an all-out conflict between the rival European nations, all stakeholders agreed to a meeting in Berlin, Germany in 1884-1885 to set out common terms and manage the colonisation process.

No African nations were invited or represented.

(Al Jazeera)

What was the topic of the Berlin Conference?

German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck took up the task of organizing and hosting the conference in Berlin at his personal residence, 77 William Street, in November 1884.

For months leading up to that, French officials, in missives to Bismarck, had raised worries about Britain’s gains, especially its control of Egypt and the Suez Canal transport route. Germany, too, was worried about conflicting areas with the British, such as Cameroon.

The Bismarck-led talks lasted from November 15, 1884 until February 26, 1885. The clear mapping and consent of who owned which area were on the agenda. Regions of tax-free commerce and free navigation, particularly in the Congo and Niger River basins, were also to be clarified.

Who attended?

At the meeting, 14 nations’ ambassadors and diplomats attended.

Four of them – France, Germany, Britain, and Portugal – already controlled the most African territory and were thus the chief stakeholders.

King Leopold of Belgium sent emissaries to the United Nations to request recognition of the “International Congo Society,” a body that he had established to establish his personal rule over the Congo Basin.

No African leader was present. The Sultan of Zanzibar requested an invitation, but it was denied.

Nine additional nations, excluding those, would likely leave the conference without any territory whatsoever. They were:

Austria-Hungary
Denmark
Russia
Italy
Sweden-Norway
Spain
Netherlands
Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
United States of America (US)

What was the outcome?

A General Act of 38 clauses, which authorized and ratified the partition of Africa, was signed and ratified by European leaders after three months of tussle. Due to the anti-imperialist tendencies of domestic politics at the time, the US ultimately chose not to sign the treaty.

The colonising nations drew up a ragged patchwork of new African colonies, superimposed on existing “native” nations. However, many of the actual borders recognised today would be finalised at bilateral events after the conference, and following World War I (1914-1918) when the Ottoman and German Empires fell and lost their territories.
The Congo and Niger River basins’ free trade was also made possible by the General Act. Additionally, it recognized King Leopold’s controversial International Congo Society, which some had questioned as a private property. However, Leopold claimed he was carrying out humanitarian work. Areas that ended up under Leopold, known as the Congo Free State, would suffer some of the worst brutalities of colonisation, with hundreds of thousands worked to death on rubber plantations, or punished with limb amputations.
Finally, the Act made it necessary for all parties to safeguard the “native tribes’ moral and material wellbeing,” as well as to further halt the Slave Trade, which had been officially ended in 1807/1808 but was still illegally in progress. Additionally, it stated that “effective occupation” entail successfully establishing administrative colonies in the regions rather than simply staking flags on newly acquired territory as a ground for ownership.

Colonialism — November 9, 1895: Colonial administrator Major Lothaire listening to a dispute in the Congo Free State]Hulton Archive/Getty Images]

Who ‘ got ‘ which territories?

Western “ownership” of African territories was not finalised at the conference, but after several bilateral events that followed. Because of its independence from the US, only one nation was not partitioned. Italy briefly invaded Ethiopia, but the majority of the time it resisted colonization. A map that was closer to what we now call Africa would appear after the German and Ottoman empires fell following World War I.

Which colonial kings seized control of the continent in the early 20th century through this list:

Britain: Cape Colony (South Africa), Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Bechuanaland Protectorate (Botswana), British East Africa (Kenya), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Nyasaland (Malawi), Royal Niger Company Territories (Nigeria), Gold Coast (Ghana), Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Sudan), Egypt, &nbsp, British Somaliland (Somaliland)
Portugal: Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), Angola, Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau), Cape Verde
Germany: German Southwest Africa (Namibia), German East Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi), German Kamerun (Cameroon), Togoland (Togo)
Belgium: Congo Free State (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Italy: Italian Somaliland (Somalia), Eritrea
Spain: Equatorial Guinea (Rio Muni)

What did the conference change?

Historians point out that unlike what is widely believed, the Berlin Conference did not kick-start the colonisation process, instead, it accelerated it.

While only about 20 percent of Africa – mainly the coastal parts of the continent – had already been staked by European powers before the conference, by 1890, five years after it, about 90 percent of African territory was colonised, including inland nations.

People of various cultures and languages were grouped together, even groups that had never been friendly to one another, according to colonialists, who largely disregarded previous alignments.

There are also those who claim that the conference itself had no significance, such as researcher Jack Paine, who claimed that many of the boundaries we now recognize would not be formalized until very recently.

With the exception of the lone exception of the Congo Free State, which was established at the time, the Conference “established very little in the way of making states,” according to Paine, a professor of political studies at Emory University, in an interview with Al Jazeera.

According to him, the conference was founded in part because Europeans had already started a “scramble” for African territory. The general notion that the Berlin Conference was a turning point in the division of Africa by Europe is hard to give much cred.

Tom Mboya of Kenya — On his way back from a London conference where he won concessions from the British to give Africans a greater voice in their government, Tom Mboya, the Kenyan nationalist leader and member of the legislative council, is greeted by supporters at Nairobi Airport on February 27, 1960. [AP Photo]

Paine, and many other political scientists, however, agree that colonisation determined the future of the continent in ways that continue to have profound geo-political effects on today’s Africa.

Resources were looted, culture and resistance subjugated.

Even after African leaders successfully fought for independence and most countries became liberated between the 1950s and 1970s, building free nations was difficult&nbsp, due to the damage of colonisation, researchers say.

Because of colonialism, Africa “had acquired a legacy of political fragmentation that could neither be eliminated nor made to operate satisfactorily”, researchers Jan Nijman, Peter Muller and Harm de Blij wrote in their 1997 book Realms, Regions, and Concepts.

Following independence, civil wars broke out across the continent, and in many instances, caused armies to take power, for example in Nigeria and Ghana. According to political theorists, this is due to the fact that most groups were for the first time forced to collaborate, sparking conflict.

According to scholars, military rulers would continue to rule many nations for years, preventing political and economic development in ways that are still discernible today. Former colonies Mali and Burkinabe, both under the military’s leadership, have since turned their backs on France due to perceived political interference, which they claim is a sign of neo-colonialism.