New Imperialism and the "Scramble for Africa"

Things happened, and the rest is history

1. 01

   Britain occupies Egypt

   Event

   What happened

   In 1875 Britain buys the Egyptian ruler's shares in the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869. Egypt's heavy debts bring British and French financial control, and in 1881 to 1882 an army officer, Ahmed Urabi, leads a nationalist movement against it. In September 1882 British forces defeat Urabi's army at Tel el-Kebir and occupy Egypt.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Britain said the occupation would be temporary, but its troops stayed until the 1950s. Historians debate whether it was driven mainly by the Canal and the route to India or by the crisis inside Egypt. French resentment of the occupation soured relations between the powers. Many scholars treat 1882 as a trigger that made other powers hurry to stake their own claims in Africa.

   Sources

   1. BookRobinson, Ronald, and John Gallagher, with Alice Denny. Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism. London: Macmillan, 1961.Argues that the Egyptian crisis set off the Scramble.
   2. BookCole, Juan R. I. Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypt's Urabi Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
2. 02

   Leopold II and the Congo

   Event

   What happened

   From 1876 King Leopold II of the Belgians sponsors the International African Association, and from 1879 the explorer Henry Morton Stanley signs treaties with local chiefs along the Congo river for him. Leopold lobbies the powers, and by 1884 to 1885 the United States and several European states recognise his claim. The Congo Free State is made his personal possession.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The Congo Free State became notorious for forced labour, especially in rubber collection, and for very high mortality. Reports by missionaries and the British consul Roger Casement fed an international campaign led by E. D. Morel. In 1908 the Belgian state took over the colony as the Belgian Congo. Estimates of the population loss are uncertain and debated, but are widely given in the millions.

   Sources

   1. BookHochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
   2. BookPakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991.
3. 03

   The Berlin Conference, 1884 to 1885

   Event

   What happened

   From November 1884 to February 1885, fourteen states, including European powers, the Ottoman Empire and the United States, meet in Berlin at the invitation of Germany's chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The General Act they sign guarantees free trade in the Congo basin, bans the slave trade in principle, and says new coastal claims must be notified to other powers and backed by effective occupation. No African ruler takes part.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The conference did not divide Africa up, as is often said, and it drew few borders itself. It did set the rules for competing claims, and so encouraged treaty-making and military occupation inland. Most boundaries were fixed later in bilateral treaties between the powers, often drawn with little knowledge of local societies. The pace of annexation quickened sharply in the years after 1885.

   Sources

   1. PrimaryGeneral Act of the Berlin Conference on West Africa. Treaty signed at Berlin, 26 February 1885.
   2. BookFörster, Stig, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, and Ronald Robinson, eds. Bismarck, Europe, and Africa: The Berlin Africa Conference 1884-1885 and the Onset of Partition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
4. 04

   Maxim guns, quinine and steamers

   Event

   What happened

   In the mid-1800s, quinine prophylaxis lowers European death rates from malaria, and river steamers allow travel far inland. Breech-loading rifles spread, and from the 1880s the Maxim machine gun, invented in 1884, arms colonial forces. At Omdurman in Sudan on 2 September 1898, an Anglo-Egyptian army under Kitchener defeats the Mahdist army with heavy losses on the Mahdist side.

   ↓ The rest is history

   Historians such as Daniel Headrick argue that these tools made conquest cheaper and faster, though they were not the only cause. Many African states also had firearms and won victories, such as Isandlwana in 1879 and Adwa in 1896. Technology did not decide every campaign, but it widened the gap in many later ones.

   Sources

   1. BookHeadrick, Daniel R. The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
   2. BookEllis, John. The Social History of the Machine Gun. London: Croom Helm, 1975.
5. 05

   Theories of imperial motive

   Event

   What happened

   In 1902 the English economist J. A. Hobson publishes Imperialism: A Study, arguing that surplus capital seeking investment drives expansion. In 1916 Lenin builds on this in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Later historians, including Robinson and Gallagher in the 1950s, stress strategic and local crises over economic motives.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The debate has never been settled. Studies show that much colonial trade and investment in Africa was small compared with that elsewhere, which weakens purely economic explanations. Others point to nationalism, domestic politics and the actions of men on the spot. Most historians now combine several causes.

   Sources

   1. BookHobson, J. A. Imperialism: A Study. London: James Nisbet, 1902.
   2. BookWesseling, H. L. Divide and Rule: The Partition of Africa, 1880-1914. Westport: Praeger, 1996.
6. 06

   Ethiopia wins at Adwa

   Event

   What happened

   In 1889 Italy and the Ethiopian emperor Menelik II sign the Treaty of Wuchale. The Italian and Amharic texts differ over whether Ethiopia must use Italy for foreign relations, and Menelik rejects the Italian reading. After Italian advances, the two armies meet at Adwa on 1 March 1896, and Menelik's much larger force defeats the Italians.

   ↓ The rest is history

   By the Treaty of Addis Ababa in October 1896 Italy recognised Ethiopian independence. Ethiopia was one of only two African states to remain independent through the Scramble, along with Liberia. Adwa became a symbol of resistance across Africa and in the African diaspora. Italy returned to invade in 1935.

   Sources

   1. BookJonas, Raymond. The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
   2. BookMarcus, Harold G. The Life and Times of Menelik II: Ethiopia 1844-1913. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.
7. 07

   Fashoda and the Anglo-French settlement

   Event

   What happened

   In July 1898 a French expedition under Jean-Baptiste Marchand reaches Fashoda on the Nile, in present-day South Sudan. Kitchener arrives with a larger force in September, after Omdurman, and both sides refer the matter home. France withdraws in December 1898, and in March 1899 a convention sets their spheres in the region.

   ↓ The rest is history

   The crisis brought the two powers close to war. It was settled by a diplomatic bargain, not battle. France later reached the Entente Cordiale with Britain in 1904, which settled further colonial disputes, including Egypt and Morocco.

   Sources

   1. BookBrown, Roy. Fashoda Reconsidered: The Impact of Domestic Politics on French Policy in Africa, 1893-1898. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970.
   2. BookPakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991.
8. 08

   Resistance and the Maji Maji and Herero wars

   Event

   What happened

   African societies resisted conquest in many ways, from the Samori Touré's long campaigns in West Africa to risings after colonial rule began. In German East Africa the Maji Maji war breaks out in 1905 against forced cotton growing. In German South West Africa, the Herero rise in January 1904 and the Nama in October 1904.

   ↓ The rest is history

   German forces crushed these revolts. In the Herero and Nama war, a German order by General Lothar von Trotha called for the Herero to be driven out, and many died in the desert or in camps. Historians commonly call this the first genocide of the twentieth century, and Germany formally acknowledged it as genocide in 2021. Deaths in Maji Maji are debated, with estimates in the tens to hundreds of thousands.

   Sources

   1. BookGewald, Jan-Bart. Herero Heroes: A Socio-Political History of the Herero of Namibia, 1890-1923. Oxford: James Currey, 1999.
   2. BookIliffe, John. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
9. 09

   The Berlin Conference carved up Africa with a ruler

   Popular belief

   The legend

   It is often said that in 1884 to 1885 European leaders sat around a table in Berlin and drew the borders of Africa with a ruler, dividing the continent among themselves.

   ↓ The rest is history

   This is a simplification. The conference set rules about coastal claims and the Congo basin, and recognised Leopold's Congo, but most borders came later from treaties between individual powers, such as the Anglo-German agreement of 1890. Many lines followed rivers, watersheds or latitudes because maps were poor, and some followed existing African political boundaries. Africans were not consulted, and the borders cut across many communities. Their legacy is real, but the single-table image is not.

   Sources

   1. BookFörster, Stig, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, and Ronald Robinson, eds. Bismarck, Europe, and Africa: The Berlin Africa Conference 1884-1885 and the Onset of Partition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
   2. BookPakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991.
10. 10

    Livingstone, Stanley and "Dr Livingstone, I presume?"

    Popular belief

    The legend

    The journalist Henry Morton Stanley finds the lost missionary David Livingstone by Lake Tanganyika and greets him with the famous words "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" The story is told as a high point of exploration that opened Africa to Europe.

    ↓ The rest is history

    Stanley did meet Livingstone at Ujiji on 10 November 1871, on an expedition for the New York Herald. The famous line comes from Stanley's own account, and the relevant page of his diary was torn out, so it cannot be checked. Livingstone's journeys and his campaign against the East African slave trade did stir public interest in Africa. Stanley later explored the Congo for Leopold II, which links the story to the Scramble.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryStanley, Henry M. How I Found Livingstone: Travels, Adventures, and Discoveries in Central Africa. London: Sampson Low, 1872.
    2. BookJeal, Tim. Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer. London: Faber and Faber, 2007.
11. 11

    The civilising mission

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Colonial powers claimed that empire was a duty to bring civilisation, Christianity and an end to slavery to African peoples. Kipling's 1899 poem "The White Man's Burden" is the best known expression, and the idea is still repeated as a justification.

    ↓ The rest is history

    The idea was real and widely used, including at Berlin, where the powers pledged to suppress the slave trade and improve native welfare. Missionary and anti-slavery groups did influence policy. But in practice colonial rule usually served the interests of the ruling power, and in places such as the Congo Free State humanitarian language covered severe abuse. Kipling's poem was addressed to Americans on the occupation of the Philippines, published in 1899.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryKipling, Rudyard. "The White Man's Burden." Poem, published in McClure's Magazine, February 1899.
    2. BookConklin, Alice L. A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.