AFRICA Partition and Colonization

Colonialism: Kickin’ it Old School When Europeans first travelled the globe they saw the need to exploit the territories they claimed. The territories were controlled and colonised. Europeans sought to replicate their culture and society around the world. American Colonies. From 1600 to 1850, this was the preferred style of development. In this period the major colonisers were: British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch. During the 1700s, wars fought in Europe were transposed into these colonies. Namely, the British waged war on their enemies colonies to economically cripple them. It was immensely successful! By the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Britain was the dominate colonial power.

What Changed in a Century

An Uneasy Feeling The success of the British in creating a huge colonial system also coincided with more powerful forced – Victorianism Morality and Liberalism. They did not always work together, but instead helped created a distorted sense of right and wrong and sense of equity. They did not want to take over the territory, but would stay for a little while. Imperialism: The economic, political control of a nation / region through indirect control.

Imperialism: a policy of conquering and then ruling other lands as colonies Colonialism: the process of acquiring and maintaining colonies During the 1400’s, European countries expanded to other lands. The motivating factors for this expansion were the 3 G’s: Gold Glory God The factors for this expansion varied a bit by the 19 th century, to be the 3 C’s: Commerce Christianity Civilization.

Why was Africa “partitioned”? Early days of slave trade- Europeans were content to stay along coast and have slaves brought to them By late 1700’s, countries used explorers, sponsors, agents and chartered companies to acquire information to later be used for trading purposes and even as a basis for “claiming” land Towards the end of the 19 th century Africa was divided up among the European countries in less than 20 years. This rapid division was called the Scramble for Africa.

Reasons for the partition of the continent Wealth: when the primary export from Africa changed from being slaves to natural products such as gold, ivory, cloves, peanuts, cotton, and rubber, this was the era of legitimate trade. The most important product was palm oil, used extensively in the Industrial Revolution to keep the large machines going. European countries all wanted to invest in certain areas to make lots of money.

Reasons for the partition of the continent Competition: different European countries wanted to control areas of Africa. Belgium (King Leopold)-hired Henry Stanley to explore the Congo River. He claimed an area 80 times larger than Belgium Germany (Otto von Bismarck) claimed large area in central Africa Britain, France, Portugal, Spain and Italy all wanted part of Africa

Reasons for the partition of the continent Spreading Christianity: many Europeans felt it was their duty to spread Christianity to the “dark” areas of Africa. Rudyard Kipling referred to this as “the White Man’s Burden” Dr. David Livingston was most famous missionary- he wanted to abolish remaining instances of the slave trade that he found

Reasons for the partition of the continent European settlement: Germany> East Africa & SW Africa France> N. Africa Portugal> W. Africa Dutch / British > S. Africa & Central Africa White South Africa settlements grew with discovery of diamonds in 1867 & gold in 1885

“Rules” “The magnificent African cake” this is what King Leopold called Africa at the 1884 conference set up to make rules for how Africa would be divided Berlin Act (1885) – laid down rules for the process that was already started Partition to be done in three stages

Three stages: Treaties between European nations and African rulers. The ruler was asked to accept “protection” from the European country; unfortunately, they didn’t always understand what they were signing, or were tricked into it Treaties between European nations to define boundaries. Many times nations and ethnic groups were split. Pacification - the actual occupation of the area

In their effort to create an empire the Europeans redrew the map of Europe. When the “Scramble for Africa” was over, 10,000 identifiable ethnic, religious and cultural groups had been pushed into 40 states or protectorates. Rwanda, Congo, Sudan, South Africa As part of their power struggle, pieces of Africa were traded around by the Europeans National boundaries were straight lines drawn on a map, disregarding terrain or ethnicity. Long time enemies are together – Uganda, Chad, Sudan, Nigeria Groups divided arbitrarily = Congo, Somaliland