The Scramble for Africa: Late 19th Century

By the mid-1800s Africa was home to hundreds of independent societies, kingdoms and empires.

Before about 1880, Europeans mostly traded along Africa's coasts and had few colonies inland. Africa had its own states, trade routes, languages and religions, from the Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa to the Zulu Kingdom in the south and the ancient empire of Ethiopia.

• Most of the continent was ruled by Africans, not Europeans.
• African societies traded gold, ivory, cloth, salt and other goods over long distances.
• Europeans knew the coasts well but little of the interior.

The Scramble had economic, political and social causes that pushed on one another.

New technology and medicine tipped the balance of power towards European armies.

For centuries disease had kept Europeans out of Africa's interior. In the 1800s new inventions changed that. The drug quinine protected against malaria, steamships carried soldiers up rivers, and railways and the telegraph moved troops and messages quickly.

• The Maxim machine gun gave European forces deadly firepower against African armies.
• Quinine let European soldiers survive in malaria zones.
• Steamships, railways and the telegraph made it easier to control distant land.

European powers met in Berlin to agree rules for dividing Africa among themselves - and no Africans were invited.

As European countries raced to claim African land, their rivalry threatened to cause war between them. The German leader Otto von Bismarck called a conference in Berlin from November 1884 to February 1885. Representatives of about 14 European nations (and the United States) attended.

• The aim was to divide Africa peacefully - for the Europeans, not for Africans.
• Not a single African ruler was invited to the conference.
• The meeting ended with the signing of the General Act on 26 February 1885.

The Berlin Conference set out how a European country could claim a piece of Africa.

The General Act laid down guidelines for claiming territory. The most important idea was 'effective occupation': to claim land, a European power had to show it actually controlled it, with officials, soldiers or treaties. This encouraged a rush to occupy as much land as possible.

• A power claiming coastline also had to notify the others of its claim.
• The Congo River basin was declared a free-trade zone open to all European traders.
• Borders were often drawn as straight lines on a map, ignoring African communities on the ground.

By 1914 almost all of Africa was ruled by a handful of European powers.

In just a few decades the map of Africa was redrawn. Britain and France took the largest shares, while Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Italy and Spain claimed other territories. Only Ethiopia and Liberia kept their independence.

• Britain dreamed of a line of colonies 'from Cairo to Cape Town'.
• France controlled much of West and North Africa.
• King Leopold II of Belgium took the Congo as his personal possession.

The Congo shows how brutal colonial rule could be when profit came before people.

King Leopold II of Belgium ran the Congo as his private property from 1885. To harvest rubber and ivory for huge profits, his officials forced Congolese people to work under a system of violence and cruel punishment. Millions of people are believed to have died from violence, hunger and disease.

• Villages were forced to collect rubber or face harsh punishment.
• News of the abuses eventually caused an outcry in Europe.
• In 1908 the Belgian government took control away from Leopold.

1. 1880s European powers race to claim African land
2. 1884 Berlin Conference opens (November)
3. 1885 General Act signed; Congo becomes Leopold's
4. 1896 Ethiopia defeats Italy at the Battle of Adwa
5. 1904 Herero and Nama resistance in South West Africa
6. 1905 Maji Maji uprising in German East Africa
7. 1908 Belgian state takes the Congo from Leopold

Across the continent, African societies resisted colonial takeover in many different ways.

Colonial rule was not accepted quietly. Some African leaders fought wars of resistance, others used diplomacy and treaties to protect their people, and many ordinary people resisted through strikes, refusing to pay taxes and keeping their cultures alive.

• Armed resistance: kingdoms and communities took up arms against invading armies.
• Diplomatic resistance: some rulers negotiated to slow or limit European control.
• Everyday resistance: people resisted through protest, non-cooperation and culture.

Ethiopia defeated an invading Italian army and kept its independence.

In 1896, Italy tried to conquer Ethiopia. Emperor Menelik II united Ethiopian forces and, at the Battle of Adwa on 1 March 1896, decisively defeated the Italian army. Ethiopia remained one of the only African states to keep its independence through the Scramble.

• Menelik II had built up a large, well-armed and united force.
• The victory forced Italy to recognise Ethiopia's independence.
• Adwa became a proud symbol of African resistance across the continent.

Two major uprisings against German rule show both the courage of resistance and the brutal cost.

In German East Africa (today Tanzania), the Maji Maji uprising (1905-1907) united many communities against forced cotton-growing and harsh rule. In German South West Africa (today Namibia), the Herero and Nama people rose up in 1904. German forces crushed both, and their treatment of the Herero and Nama is today recognised as one of the first genocides of the 20th century.

• Maji Maji united different groups against a shared enemy.
• The Herero and Nama were driven into the desert and killed in huge numbers.
• These events show both the strength of resistance and the cruelty of colonial rule.

The partition of Africa reshaped the continent in ways still felt today.

By 1914 nearly all of Africa was under European control. African peoples lost their independence and land, and colonial economies were built to serve Europe. The borders drawn in Berlin cut across communities and became the borders of many modern African countries.

• Africans lost political independence and control of their own resources.
• Colonial borders ignored African communities and still cause tension today.
• The struggle against colonial rule would grow into 20th-century independence movements.

The Scramble for Africa was the rapid European conquest of Africa - resisted bravely, with consequences that still matter.

In roughly one generation, European powers divided and conquered almost all of Africa, agreeing the rules among themselves at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 while excluding Africans entirely. Africans resisted through war, diplomacy and everyday defiance - winning at Adwa and rising up in Maji Maji and against German rule - but most were defeated by superior firepower, leaving deep and lasting effects.