The Scramble for Africa (1876-1914) was when European powers took over most of Africa in the late 1800s. By 1914 all of Africa was under white rule except for Ethiopia and Liberia. White rule in most places lasted till the 1960s.
The European powers that took part:
- Britain
- France
- Portugal
- Germany
- Belgium
- Italy
- Spain
As late as 1880 most of Africa was still free. In tropical Africa Europeans controlled parts of the coast and sent some missionaries inland but that was pretty much it. Parts to the north were under French and Turkish rule, parts to the south were settled by the Dutch, who became Afrikaners.
Until the late 1800s malaria and distance made white rule across most of Africa next to impossible. But then came steamships (1802), railways (1811), quinine (1850), machine guns (the Gatling gun in 1861 and particularly the Maxim in 1884) and undersea telegraph cables (1866).
In the late 1870s Belgium and Portugal began to make moves in Africa. Other countries, fearing they would lose out, joined in. So began the Scramble.
The rules for the Scramble were laid down at the Berlin Conference (1884-1885). In effect those who controlled a part of the coast could move inland and take over that bit of Africa without fear of having to fight other European countries. Those who did not use their right would lose it. This came during a long peace in Europe.
That was huge: it meant that while Africans were busy fighting each other the Europeans were not! Africans at that time did not even think of themselves as “Africans”. That came later as a side effect of white rule.
Weapons: In 1890 Europeans agreed not to sell arms to Africans. That was huge too: Africans had nothing that could fight off machine guns. The only guns they had in large numbers were mostly just muskets, which take six times longer to load and shoot than even a rifle.
Armies: Even apart from weapons, most African armies were neither large nor well-trained. Africa did not have standing or professional armies like Europe did. Europe’s greater wealth also meant it could field larger armies – partly made up of African mercenaries.
So in the course of the 1880s and 1890s Europeans took over almost all of Africa. Churchill took part in it as a young British soldier in Sudan. He wrote about it in “The River War” (1899).
Even the white countries in southern Africa lost their independence. They were defeated by the British in the Boer Wars (1880-1881, 1899-1902).
Only Ethiopia successfully defended itself, defeating Italy at the Battle of Adowa (1896).
Liberia lost land to France and Britain but held on to independence. It was in effect under American protection.
Until at least the 1960s many Europeans regarded their rule of Africa as good, welcomed even by the Africans themselves. After all, whites brought peace and things like railways, roads, lamps, bicycles, ploughs, new foods and city life. What is freedom compared to that?
See also:
- Africa: the last 13,000 years
- Adowa
- white man’s burden
- An Open Letter to King Leopold II
- Fanon: The So-Called Dependency Complex of the Colonized
- Chinua Achebe: Africa’s Tarnished Name
- A bit of realism for those interested in Africa
- Transatlantic slave trade
- British Empire
- The white inventor argument
you missed out Holland and Germany. I think it’s fair to say that Europe still thinks of that time as good. the only reason they left was because it wasn’t economically viable for them anymore. I often wonder what Africa would be like now if the scramble had not happened
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Interesting post. You should do another about what colonial life was like under European rule. Economics, work, exploitation, administration, religion, colonial development, education, and interesting events, etc.
I’ve noticed that schools often gloss over what colonialism is and what it meant for Africa and other parts of the world. It’s always:
1)Scramble for Africa
2)HUGE BLANK
3)Europeans start the process of decolonization after WWII.
The end.
Decolonization and neo-colonialism also sound like interesting topics…
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Another great post.
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Thank you for explaining this to people. This tends to be left out of history books.
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Merci, Abagond. Good post.
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@The Cynic – That HUGE BLANK is too horrible to be included in history books. I don’t know a whole lot, but what I learned made me sad and angry. I remember seeing pictures of smiling Nuns standing next to little African children wearing khaki uniforms whose limbs had been hacked off.
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Here is a bit of that huge blank:
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Well, Finland did not, because it had been colonized by the swedes for 800 years and passed on the Russian empire in 1809. We got our independence in 1917.
What happened in Africa was pretty much what had happened in Americas before with one exception: In Africa the people were too many to be wiped out and cultural history was too long and rich to be pushed into reservations.
The trigger might have been the quinine. After that the malaria was no longer such an absolute terror which it had been before. Knowledge of other tropical deseases and their treatments also lowered the psychological barrier.
I saw a documentary of a finnish skipper who ran a river boat in Kongo during the worst times of king Leopold (forgot the name of the guy). His diary was the bases of the doc. At first the guy was affraid of everything, then he developed almost a crush to the tropics, then he became resentful and hated the whole continent.
What was interesting was that from the beginning he was abhorred by the behaviour of the belgians towards the locals. That went on during his whole stay in Kongo, some decade or more. At first he protested, then he tried to rationalise it, then he just closed his eyes and tried to not to see the atrocities. Of course, the belgians paid his salary so…
If I remember correctly he left the place and moved back to Finland and then eventually to US. Not sure if I remember this right.
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A lot of this lead to WW1.
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Oh my bad. I read an article in the Economist about ‘the new colonialists’. It was about China taking an interest in Africa and was trying to imply that they are taking advantage of African countries. In reality, the Chinese are not taking anything without payment, unlike the Europeans before. The chinese have brought a lot of scummy business practices over there. Like building hospitals that begin to fall apart in months. wtf?! but nevertheless, it was interesting for the magazine to paint such a negative picture on what is essentially mutual business. It’s like the world perceives Africans as babies and i hate that.
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@ proudchocolategirl
No, I believe that it was indeed Nzinga, who’s territory, at the time of her reign, extended into Congolese territory.
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thanks for the vid proudchocolategirl
check this video out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgWOOwQNGtU&NR=1 . it’s about the rwandan massacre
it shows what happens when you sit around and wait for others to do something, when the others have no vested interest. america had no gain from stopping this massacre so they did nothing. maybe the same thing could be said about white supremacy in america. we live in a sad world
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Abagond:
History is the most hated subject in school, yet, it’s the most important. The history lesson that you gave to all of us will never see the light of day in the public school system in this country. Black people are discouraged from knowing their history, and we see the results of brainwashing and miseducation amongst the masses of black people on this planet. Abagond, encourage everybody to pass along the knowledge.
Tyrone
Zen Aquarius
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Abagond:
It’s amazing how the tables have been turned. The europeans invaded africa for economic reasons, and now, the same is being done to europe, Irony! Despite all the evil that has been done to “Momma Africa” for the past 500+ years, she will be victorious and prosperous, Indeed!
Tyrone
Free Aquarius
http://www.theafricachannel.com
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Tyrone said, “Black people are discouraged from knowing their history…”
Not only that, but knowing black history (and literature) is optional. In the US everyone is required to know who came to America and established the first colonies. That is the standard. Everyone is required to read the famous works of not only American authors, but British as well. Yet the people who lived and died to build our economy are but a paragraph in a textbook and sing-song tales about inventions and accomplishments in the month of February.
No one is actually required to know who they were and how they lived, what their lives were like, what traditions they were forced to leave behind, how people from so many different countries pushed together on a ship became like family and merged their cultures and learned to communicate in each other’s languages in a final effort to still feel connected to something. No, that stuff ends up being optional information. WP think it’s for BP to know. But Paul Revere? Who doesn’t know about him?
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NO NO NO!! it was not weapons that were used to take over africa!! what it was was white people coming in there acting all nice and throwing the africans off just like they do now. look at how ww patronize bm and look at the divide and conquer going on now between bm and bw. They send in those missionaries (remember in avatar). the white folks act all nice and friendly showing everybody the bible while the scouts are surveying the land for the resources. THEN they get violent when the people figure out whats going on and ask for payment for the items they are taking out of the country. thats when white folks start shooting.
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@ Tariq
You are so right about the divide and conquer that is going on between Black men and Black women. There is so much hatred and anger between us. It makes me want to cry.
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please have an article about black people and indie rock!
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If you want an elegant and disturbing view of how the European colonists saw themselves, I suggest you read Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. It’s the story of a man employed to travel up the Congo River and retrieve a rogue ivory trader, but it’s really the story of colonization and the dark side of human nature. To me the most striking passage is when Marlow sees a French warship firing blindly into the jungle at natives it can’t even be sure are there. Conrad wrote it in 1889, and if it seems familiar that’s because it was the inspiration for “Apocalypse Now”.
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@Bulanikgirl
The book is a lot more complex than Wikipedia would have you believe. Joseph Conrad was writing a pyschological drama turning on one man’s reaction to the horrors of colonialism while steamboating up the Congo River. He was basing that on the time that he actually witnessed the horrors of colonialism while steamboating up the Congo River. In the novel it’s not just the Africans who are dehumanized – the few Europeans he meets wind up being sadistic bullies or batshit crazy, or both.
So to your points:
1. Every character in the book is a metaphorical extension of the darkness and danger or the jungle. Entering the jungle itself is a metaphor for unleashing the dark side of human nature. Conrad was arguing that the so-called “civilizing project” of colonization was a farce, because you can’t drag someone out of the jungle by entering it yourself (hence the hopeless mission to retrieve Kurtz ).
2. I think if you actually read the book you’ll find a sympathy for oppressed Africa that was well outside the norm for its time. Remember, he actually captained a steamboat up the Congo River to see things for himself – and this was in the 19th century. Everyone emerges from the society they live in, and if Joseph Conrad lived today he’d probably be a freelance journalist reporting on civil war in the Congo. Rather than judge his worldview as ugly and racist (thought it was condescending), I think a generous person can look at Conrad and see a guy who saw oppression and wanted it to stop. We need more authors like him today.
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@Bulanikgirl
Sorry about the unkind conclusion, but it looked a lot like you’d just jumped to the “controversy” section of the Wikipedia page and grabbed the main points. My mistake.
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Quoting The Cynic:
I second this. The living conditions of Africans under colonization and the struggles which led to independence, especially, deserve to be better known.
@ The Cynic
Regarding colonial life:
Try and google Afrique 50 by René Vautier. It’s a short documentary that was made in the former french colonies during the decade preceding the independence. It was banned by French colonial authorities because the realities it described went against the propaganda of the time.
The french version of the movie is easily available on the net, but you should look for the English version. I would provide a link but, unfortunately, I’m currently experiencing some connection issues which prevent me from viewing movies online.
There are also articles by historians dealing on the subject. This one for instance:
http://www.webguinee.net/bibliotheque/histoire/jscanale/eoah/colonial_syst/gn_colon-syst.html
It specifically covers the case of Guinea, but I believe it gives a good idea of what colonization actually was, regardless of the nationality of the colonizer and the place they chose to “civilize”.
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Again, not having read the whole thread:
I personally think that the Berlin conference is one of the biggest crimes against humanity. There’s a germsn tv documentary I saw about the politics and dispute between the European countries greedely fighting ovet the spoils of Africa. How little they cared of people’s lives, the different tribes and nations of idigenous people… It is simply disgusting and apalling.
The long-lasting European image of lazy Africans is largely based on the fact that Belgians basically starved africans to death, meaning that they didn’t give them enough food to be able to work…labour was cheap those days…one worker died, but was easily replaced by another slave of another village.
Human life was expendable, profit was the only thing that mattered. Civilization was just an excuse for a continent-wide exploitation.
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Good post Abagond.
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@Dahoman X
Oh damn! Almost two months and I’m just now seeing your reply. Thx for the link and the movie recommendation. I really love history, esp. African history, so I greatly appreciate it.
Afrique 50 reminds me of two other classical colonial themed African movies.
1)Ousmane Sembene’s, Black Girl.
It tells the story of a Senegalese maid who goes to France to work for(be exploited by) a French women. The plot is an obvious metaphor for Senegal’s colonial experience with France. I believe it was the first film produced by a Black African.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060758/
2)Gillo Pontecorvo’s, The Battle of Algiers
This film is about Algeria’s liberation movement against French colonial rule.
I’m pretty sure most people would find this two old black and white foreign films boring, but I really enjoyed them.
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I’ve been chatting with people re: Scottish independence.
What struck me was this.
WHat happened in Ireland (especialy), Scotland and even Wales was shockingly similar to what happened in Africa, though on a much smaller scale.
it was as if a dragon got the taste for human meat, and then saw a town – and proceeded to eat everyone it found in an orgy of debauchery.
Other places: The Canary Islands; South America; North America.
Funyn how the oppressed often become oppressors: Scots and Irish benefitted from and helped build the empire that then conquered Africa. But they had been among Europe’s most beknighted, colonized people for several centuries.
Oddly, memory is longer than lives: the Scots in a bar were nostalgic for a time that hasn’t been relevant in the living memory of their great grandparents’ grandparents.
Africa was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Celts managed to eke out of it. Maybe the people of Africa will.
I spent a few months in Botswana a decade ago. It was pretty impressive. They seem to have eked out.
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[…] "The Scramble for Africa (1876-1914) was when European powers took over most of Africa in the late 1800s. By 1914 all of Africa was under white rule except for Ethiopia and Liberia. White rule in most places lasted till the 1960s.The European powers that took part:BritainFrancePortugalGermanyBelgiumItalySpain […]
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[…] See on abagond.wordpress.com […]
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[…] "The Scramble for Africa (1876-1914) was when European powers took over most of Africa in the late 1800s. By 1914 all of Africa was under white rule except for Ethiopia and Liberia. White rule in most places lasted till the 1960s. The European powers that took part:BritainFrancePortugalGermanyBelgiumItalySpain […]
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Helpful information🤗 Thank you.👌🏽
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I saw this post on a social media site that said “Of all the countries in Africa, Ethiopia has no Independence Day because it was never colonized. Learned something new today.
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Only civilized peoples deserve freedom. The Boer Republics were the only legitimate states that were destroyed in the Scramble for Africa, but we will get them back.
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