The Scramble for Africa

In 1884 there were little more than a few trading stations along the coasts of Africa, missionaries spreading out from them, and explorers seeking to fill in maps. The main European peoples interested in Africa during this period - to the extent that they were interested - were the French, the British, the Portuguese and the Germans. Soon after German unification, a tremendous colonial drive formed in the country. Had it not been that German explorers were so intrepid and kept killing themselves off, Germany might have had a larger stake in Africa earlier than she in fact had. It was the intensification of German activity and the entry of Belgium into Africa which created the catalyst leading to the colonial occupation of Africa by European countries. The term 'sphere of influence' was first used of African interests.

The Germans began to occupy parts of the coast that had been occupied previously by the Portuguese, the British and the French. The mercantile traders began to raise objections in their own parliaments and with their own governments. This period was preceded by several decades in which traders and settlers in places as far away as Fiji were badgering their governments to annex territories. Throughout, the British government refused to take on any more responsibilities. The Americans were more successful in their refusal, but demands were nevertheless made on them. French governments, because of their heavy losses in the Franco-German War and the consequent need for an outlet for energies and an assignment for existing organisations, were more amenable to such suggestions. Yet even they did not want to assume most of the responsibilities that ultimately they did. Do not forget how much social energy a colonial empire takes to run.

The Germans, after their unification, began to look for outlets. They had a lot of idle people and an organisation that needed something to do. After Waterloo, the same factors began to affect the British, but not with the same force. It was at the same time - the middle nineteenth century -that Europe became a market-dominated society. It is difficult for us to realise today that it was not until the first third of the nineteenth century that England became unequivocally a market-type society: the need for all persons, in order to live, to sell one of the factors of production in the market. Always before that, people could stand outside the market or enter it only peripherally. It was with the Corn Laws and the Poor Laws and the Speenhamland Act of 1832 in England - later on the continent - that people were pushed into the market. Something had to give. The organisation was there. And the 'colonial areas' were there. The whole got involved in the internecine fusses among the European principalities (as it might best be put from an African point of view).

When the Germans, a new nation, emerged on the African scene they were feared by the French, as well as by the British and all the others. When the Germans settled down and began to occupy the countries they claimed, everyone else began also to occupy their own stretches of territory. All the chessmen were now in place except the king. The king turned out to be Leopold II of the Belgians. Leopold was just as ambitious as the rest, but had a small, contained country in Europe which he could not expand. He thereupon put his not inconsiderable personal fortune into African exploration with an eye to expansion of his realms in that area. In 1876 Leopold founded an organisation called the African International Association. He tried to get national chapters formed in various countries and to maintain the international headquarters in Belgium. In fact, national headquarters were formed in the capitals of most European countries; the international headquarters, however, never took fire and to the end remained no more than the Belgian chapter. Americans sent representatives to the meetings of the various societies although they never formed a society themselves.

With the Germans occupying the position they did, and with Leopold wanting an outlet for his energies, his people, and his capital, a conference in Berlin was called by Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1884-5. The Berlin Conference did several things: it regulated trade on the Congo and internationalised it. It regulated trade on the Niger-Benue. Perhaps most important of all for subsequent events, it laid down the rule that if a country was going to make a claim to territory, that territory had to be actually occupied. The result of this conference was that the occupation of Africa - the so-called 'scramble for Africa' - began. There followed a series of bilateral treaties among various European countries dividing up the coast, and stretching inland.

Leopold got the others to agree that he could establish a free state in the Congo Basin. He was the king of both Belgium and the Free State. The Congo Free State did not belong to Belgium - it belonged to Leopold. All of the money that went into it was his. So was all that came out. Stanley, in the hire of Leopold, proceeded up the south bank of the Congo signing treaties with the chiefs; he was all but paralleled by de Brazza on the north side of the Congo signing similar treaties for the French.

The British action in the scramble took place almost entirely in terms of trading companies: the South Africa Company, the Central Africa Company, the Royal Niger Company and others. These companies manned colonial governments and maintained private armies long before the British government became involved directly.

The French government was much more directly behind the activities of Frenchmen. From their position on the Ogowe they pushed north, and from their position in Senegal they pressed eastwards, the two forces meeting in the vicinity of Lake Chad.

Out of the scramble the Germans got Togo, Cameroun, South West Africa and Tanganyika-Ruanda-Urundi. The Portuguese reasserted their rights to Portuguese Guinea, Angola and Mozambique. The British, the Portuguese and the Germans were all fussing about Angola - the decision in favour of Portugal (but perhaps with the connivance of some of the British factions who wished to avoid the responsibilities of empire) was made by President Grant.

The Congo Free State was left, in Leopold's will, to Belgium. So did it become the Belgian Congo. Cecil Rhodes dreamed of a railroad and British domination from the Cape to Cairo. The accompanying maps show the positions of European nations in 1884, 1885 and 1914. The face of the African map was changed overnight. The face of Africa was, however, to take longer.

Important actions in the First World War were fought in Africa, when Germany lost her hold. Then Africa settled down to being forgotten again - until after the Second World War. The quietude of colonialism was upon her.

Although Africa had felt the impact of Europe for centuries, it was not until after the First World War that so-called 'competent' administration was established over all of the areas of Africa. Northern Nigeria's middle belt did not have a stable administration until about 1918 - Africans before that time had been widely influenced by Europe, but in most areas that influence was material and superficial until the 1920s. At the same time, there were to be found along the coast and in South Africa situations in which third, fourth and even fifth generations of Christianised, educated Africans were to be found. The tremendous range is still there.

With the scramble for Africa, the African populations became what might be called 'frozen'. Migratory movements did not cease, but did slow to a crawl. And all Africa was gripped in the vice of false stability which is the earmark of every successful colony. Boundaries were established, chiefs were appointed, and 'responsible' leadership was ensconced in foreign-dominated political systems.

And for the next decades, it looked to Europeans as if 'traditional' Africa was slow, unchanging, eternal and, indeed, sleeping. Africa had been effectively darkened. (P. Bohannap: Africa and the Africans, Doubleday).