In 1870, only 10% of the African continent was formally under European control.
Explore the political and physical landscape of Africa in 1875, prior to the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, which formalized the European colonial territory claims on the continent.
This map offers a glimpse into a pivotal moment in history, showcasing the African states and early European colonies that existed before the "Scramble for Africa" dramatically reshaped the continent.
Afrique. Steel engraved map, with some added color, 21 x 23 cm., set within a larger pictorial framework. From Levasseur’s Atlas national illustré des 86 départements et des possessions de la France (Paris, 1852).
African States and European Colonies in 1875
The map highlights several African states, including:
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- Morocco
- Algiers (Algeria)
- Tripoli
- Egypt
- Nubia
- Abyssinia
- Dar Fur
- Waday
- Bornu
- Sokoto
- Gando
- Masina
- Senegambia
- Sierra Leone
- Liberia
- Upper Guinea
- Lower Guinea
- Zambesia-Mozambique
- Zanguebar
- Madagascar
Additionally, the map shows the following European colonies:
- Natal
- Caffraria
- Orange Republic
- Cape Colony
Two inset maps detail the Cape Colony and Natal, and Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula, including the Suez Canal and the cultivated districts of Egypt.
Africa in 1882.
The Scramble for Africa: A Prelude
The pre-colonial map of Africa in 1875 serves as a stark reminder of the dramatic changes that were about to unfold. The "Scramble for Africa" was the invasion, conquest, and colonisation of most of Africa by seven Western European powers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
By 1841, businessmen from Europe had established small trading posts along the coasts of Africa, but they seldom moved inland, preferring to stay near the sea. They primarily traded with locals. As late as the 1870s, Europeans controlled approximately 10% of the African continent, with all their territories located near the coasts. The most important holdings were Angola and Mozambique, held by Portugal; the Cape Colony, held by the United Kingdom; and Algeria, held by France.
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Technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas. Industrialization brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, especially in the forms of steamships, railways and telegraphs. Medical advances also played an important role, especially medicines for tropical diseases, which helped control their adverse effects.
Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the world largely untouched by "informal imperialism", was attractive to business entrepreneurs. Surplus capital was often more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. Another inducement for imperialism arose from the demand for raw materials, especially ivory, rubber, palm oil, cocoa, diamonds, tea, and tin.
Pro-imperialist colonial lobbyists argued that sheltered overseas markets in Africa would solve the problems of low prices and overproduction caused by shrinking continental markets.
The vast interior between Egypt and the gold and diamond-rich Southern Africa had strategic value in securing the flow of overseas trade. Britain was under political pressure to build up lucrative markets in India, Malaya, Australia and New Zealand. Thus, it wanted to secure the key waterway between East and West - the Suez Canal, completed in 1869.
The scramble for African territory also reflected concern for the acquisition of military and naval bases, for strategic purposes and the exercise of power. The growing navies, and new ships driven by steam power, required coaling stations and ports for maintenance. Colonies were seen as assets in balance of power negotiations, useful as items of exchange at times of international bargaining.
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Colonies with large native populations were also a source of military power; Britain and France used large numbers of British Indian and North African soldiers, respectively, in many of their colonial wars (and would do so again in the coming World Wars).
In the early 1880s, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was exploring the region along the Congo River for France, at the same time Henry Morton Stanley explored it on behalf of the Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo, backed by Leopold II of Belgium, who would have it as his personal Congo Free State.
A Brief History of The Scramble For Africa
France occupied Tunisia in May 1881, which may have convinced Italy to join the German-Austrian Dual Alliance in 1882, thus forming the Triple Alliance.
The same year, Britain occupied Egypt, which ruled over Sudan and parts of Chad, Eritrea, and Somalia.
In 1884, Germany declared Togoland, the Cameroons and South West Africa to be under its protection; and France occupied Guinea.
The Role of Germany and Italy
Germany, divided into small states, was not initially a colonial power.
In 1862, Otto von Bismarck became Minister-President of the Kingdom of Prussia, and through a series of wars with both Austria in 1866 and France in 1870 was able to unify all of Germany under Prussian rule.
The German Empire was formally proclaimed on 18 January 1871.
At first, Bismarck disliked colonies but gave in to popular and elite pressure in the 1880s. Pan-Germanism became linked to the young nation's new imperialist drives.
Weltpolitik (world policy) was the foreign policy adopted by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890, intending to transform Germany into a global power through aggressive diplomacy, and the development of a large navy.
Germany became the third-largest colonial power in Africa, the location of most of its 2.6 million square kilometres of colonial territory and 14 million colonial subjects in 1914. The African possessions were Southwest Africa, Togoland, the Cameroons, and Tanganyika.
Following unification, Italy sought to expand its territory and become a great power, taking possession of parts of Eritrea in 1870 and 1882. In 1889-90, it occupied territory on the south side of the Horn of Africa, forming what would become Italian Somaliland.
In 1911, Italy engaged in a war with the Ottoman Empire, in which it acquired Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, that together formed what became known as Italian Libya.
The Congo Free State and Leopold II
David Livingstone's explorations, carried on by Henry Morton Stanley, excited imaginations with Stanley's grandiose ideas for colonisation; but these found little support owing to the problems and scale of action required, except from Leopold II of Belgium, who in 1876 had organised the International African Association.
By 1890 the Congo Free State had consolidated control of its territory between Leopoldville and Stanleyville and was looking to push south down the Lualaba River from Stanleyville.
The scramble for Katanga was a prime example of the period. Rhodes sent two expeditions to Msiri in 1890 led by Alfred Sharpe, who was rebuffed, and Joseph Thomson, who failed to reach Katanga. Leopold sent four expeditions. First, the Le Marinel expedition could only extract a vaguely worded letter. The Delcommune expedition was rebuffed. The well-armed Stairs expedition was given orders to take Katanga with or without Msiri's consent. Msiri refused, was shot, and his head was cut off and stuck on a pole as a "barbaric lesson" to the people.
Thus, the half million square kilometres of Katanga came into Leopold's possession and brought his African realm up to 2,300,000 square kilometres (890,000 sq mi), about 75 times larger than Belgium.
The brutality of King Leopold II in his former colony of the Congo Free State was well documented; up to 8 million of the estimated 16 million native inhabitants died between 1885 and 1908.
According to Roger Casement, an Irish diplomat of the time, this depopulation had four main causes: "indiscriminate war", starvation, reduction of births and diseases. Sleeping sickness ravaged the country and must also be taken into account for the dramatic decrease in population; it has been estimated that sleeping sickness and smallpox killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River.
Territorial changes in Africa 1880-1913.
Other Colonial Activities
To construct the Suez Canal, French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps had obtained many concessions from Isma'il Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan in 1854-56.
Some sources estimate the workforce at 30,000, but others estimate that 120,000 workers died over the ten years of construction from malnutrition, fatigue, and disease, especially cholera.
Shortly before its completion in 1869, Khedive Isma'il borrowed enormous sums from British and French bankers at high rates of interest. By 1875, he was facing financial difficulties and was forced to sell his block of shares in the Suez Canal. The shares were snapped up by Britain, under Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who sought to give his country practical control in the management of this strategic waterway.
The Berlin Conference and its Impact
In 1884, Otto von Bismarck convened the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference to discuss the African problem.
While diplomatic discussions were held regarding ending the remaining slave trade as well as the reach of missionary activities, the primary concern of those in attendance was preventing war between the European powers as they divided the continent among themselves.
More importantly, the diplomats in Berlin laid down the rules of competition by which the great powers were to be guided in seeking colonies. They also agreed that the area along the Congo River was to be administered by Leopold II as a neutral area in which trade and navigation were to be free.
The Berlin Conference transformed Africa's colonization from informal economic penetration to systematic political control through its 'effective occupation' principle.
No nation was to stake claims in Africa without notifying other powers of its intentions. No territory could be formally claimed before being effectively occupied.
British Expansion in Africa
Britain's administration of Egypt and the Cape Colony contributed to a preoccupation over securing the source of the Nile River.
Egypt was taken over by the British in 1882, leaving the Ottoman Empire in a nominal role until 1914, when London made it a protectorate. Egypt was never an actual British colony.
Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda were subjugated in the 1890s and early 20th century; and in the south, the Cape Colony (first acquired in 1795) provided a base for the subjugation of neighbouring African states and the Dutch Afrikaner settlers who had left the Cape to avoid the British and then founded their republics.
Theophilus Shepstone annexed the South African Republic in 1877 for the British Empire, after it had been independent for 20 years.
In 1879, after the Anglo-Zulu War, Britain consolidated its control of most of the territories of South Africa.
The Boers protested, and in December 1880 they revolted, leading to the First Boer War.
British Prime Minister William Gladstone signed a peace treaty on 23 March 1881, giving self-government to the Boers in the Transvaal.
The Jameson Raid of 1895 was a failed attempt by the British South Africa Company and the Johannesburg Reform Committee to overthrow the Boer government in the Transvaal.
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