The Scramble for Africa and the Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference of November 1884 to February 1885 was the diplomatic event that produced the colonial partition of Africa. Convened at the invitation of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck and attended by representatives of fourteen European states and the Ottoman Empire, the conference agreed on a set of rules for the recognition of colonial claims in Africa, and produced the General Act of the Berlin Conference, which established the framework for the partition of the continent. The conference did not itself partition Africa — the partition had already begun, and the conference was a response to it — but it set the rules by which the partition was to be conducted. The conference was, in this respect, the legal foundation of the colonial era in Africa.

The Context of the Scramble

The Scramble for Africa was the rapid intensification of European colonial activity in Africa in the 1880s. In 1876 only a small portion of Africa — Algeria (French from 1830), the Cape Colony (British from 1806), Senegal (French from the 17th century), and a few coastal enclaves — was under formal European control. By 1914, almost the entire continent had been partitioned among the European powers. France had acquired a vast empire in West and Central Africa, including what is now Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, and Madagascar. Britain had acquired Egypt (1882), the Sudan (jointly with Egypt, 1898), Nigeria (1900), Kenya (1895), Uganda (1894), the Rhodesias (1889-1895), and Bechuanaland (1885). Germany had acquired Togo (1884), Cameroon (1884), German South-West Africa (1884), and German East Africa (1885). Belgium had acquired the Congo Free State (1885). Italy had acquired Eritrea (1882) and Italian Somaliland (1889). Portugal had expanded its existing colonies of Angola and Mozambique.

The reasons for the Scramble are a matter of historical debate. The older tradition, of which the work of J. A. Hobson and the Lenin-influenced literature of the 1920s and 1930s is representative, treated the Scramble as a consequence of the European search for markets and raw materials in the era of the Second Industrial Revolution. The more recent scholarship, of which D. K. Fieldhouse’s Colonialism, 1870–1945 (1981) is the most comprehensive statement, has been more cautious. The Scramble, on this more recent view, was the result of a complex set of economic, political, and strategic factors, and the European powers were, in many respects, drawn into the partition by the actions of their rivals. The “official mind” of the British government, as Robinson and Gallagher argued in The Imperialism of Free Trade (1953), was, in the main, reluctant to acquire formal colonies, but was forced to do so by the actions of the French, the Germans, and the Belgians.

The Origins of the Conference

The Berlin Conference was the response to a particular crisis in West Africa in 1884. The principal cause was the British policy of establishing protectorates along the Niger coast, which the German government, in particular, regarded as an attempt by the British to exclude German commercial activity from the region. The German annexation of Cameroon in July 1884, in defiance of British claims, was the immediate trigger. The French annexation of Guinea and the Ivory Coast, and the Italian annexation of Eritrea, added to the diplomatic pressure.

Bismarck, who had been reluctant to involve Germany in colonial adventures, decided in the summer of 1884 that the partition of Africa was inevitable, and that the best way to protect German interests was to convene an international conference to establish the rules. The French, who had their own interests in West and Central Africa, agreed to participate. The British, who had been pursuing a policy of gradual expansion along the Niger coast, agreed reluctantly, in the hope that the conference would produce a recognition of British claims.

The Conference and the General Act

The Berlin Conference opened on 15 November 1884 and concluded on 26 February 1885. The principal participants were Bismarck (the host and president of the conference), the French foreign minister Jules Ferry, the British representative Sir Edward Malet, the American representative John A. Kasson, the Portuguese representative Marquis de Penafiel, and the representatives of the other European states. The principal African participants — the king of the Belgians, Leopold II, who had established the International Association of the Congo in 1877 — were not officially present, but his interests were represented by various delegates.

The General Act of the Berlin Conference, signed on 26 February 1885, was a substantial document. The most important provisions were the following:

The principle of effective occupation was the most important of these provisions, and it was the provision that shaped the partition of Africa in the following decades. The principle required a European power to demonstrate that it had established an administration capable of exercising effective control over the territory, and it required the European power to notify the other signatories of its claim. The principle was, in effect, a spur to the partition: the European powers, in order to protect their claims, were required to establish a more visible presence in the territories they claimed, and the result was a more rapid and more complete partition.

The Consequences

The Berlin Conference did not itself partition Africa. The partition was already in progress, and the conference was a response to it. But the General Act established the rules by which the partition was to be conducted, and the principle of effective occupation in particular had a major effect on the pace and the form of the partition.

The principle of effective occupation, in particular, was the basis of the British policy of establishing protectorates along the Niger coast, the British East Africa coast, and the British South Africa. The British South Africa Company, the Imperial British East Africa Company, and the Royal Niger Company were the principal instruments of the British application of the principle. The German government, similarly, established German East Africa, German South-West Africa, and the German protectorates in West Africa through the establishment of colonial administrations. The French government, in its own empire in West and Central Africa, established a series of colonial administrations on the model of the Algerian administration that had been developed earlier in the century.

The conference was also the occasion for the establishment of the Congo Free State, the personal colony of Leopold II of Belgium, which was the most notorious of the colonial regimes in Africa. The Berlin Conference recognised the Congo Free State as the sovereign territory of Leopold’s International Association, and the General Act established the framework for the administration of the Congo. The subsequent history of the Congo Free State — the brutality of the concession companies, the mutilation of the Congolese population, the international scandal of the early 1900s — was one of the most shameful episodes in the history of European colonialism.

The Historiographical Debate

The historiography of the Berlin Conference has been substantially revised since the 1970s. The older tradition, of which the work of H. E. G. Robinson and W. G. F. Townley is representative, treated the conference as a rational and orderly process of the partition of Africa. The post-independence African historiography, of which the work of A. Adu Boahen, J. F. Ade Ajayi, and the contributors to the Cambridge History of Africa is the most distinguished representative, has insisted on the African dimension. The African rulers, on this more recent view, were not simply the passive objects of the European partition; they were active participants in the process, and they made choices that shaped the outcome. The current generation of historians, of whom the work of Michael Crowder, John Lonsdale, Bruce Berman, and the contributors to the Oxford History of the British Empire are the most distinguished representatives, has produced a more nuanced picture. The Berlin Conference, on this more recent view, was one of a series of events that shaped the partition of Africa, and its principal significance was the establishment of the principle of effective occupation. The conference, in short, did not cause the partition; it codified the conditions under which the partition would be conducted.

Historiographical Note

The historiography of the Scramble for Africa has been substantially revised since the 1970s. The older tradition, of which the work of J. A. Hobson and the Lenin-influenced literature of the 1920s and 1930s is representative, treated the Scramble as a consequence of the European search for markets and raw materials in the era of the Second Industrial Revolution. The more recent scholarship, of which D. K. Fieldhouse’s Colonialism, 1870–1945 (1981) is the most comprehensive statement, has been more cautious. The Scramble, on this more recent view, was the result of a complex set of economic, political, and strategic factors, and the European powers were, in many respects, drawn into the partition by the actions of their rivals. The “official mind” of the British government, as Robinson and Gallagher argued in The Imperialism of Free Trade (1953), was, in the main, reluctant to acquire formal colonies, but was forced to do so by the actions of the French, the Germans, and the Belgians. The current generation of historians, of whom the work of Michael Crowder, John Lonsdale, Bruce Berman, and the contributors to the Oxford History of the British Empire are the most distinguished representatives, has produced a more nuanced picture. The Scramble, on this more recent view, was the result of a complex set of economic, political, and strategic factors, and the European powers were, in many respects, drawn into the partition by the actions of their rivals.

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