AFRICA

Partition and Colonization

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, and God.

The factors for this expansion varied a bit by the 19th century, to be the 3 C’s: commerce, Christianity, and 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

In less than 20 years Africa was divided up among the European countries. 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 (Tanganyika) & SW

Africa Britain> Kenya & (now) Zimbabwe France> N. Africa (Algeria) Portugal> Angola & Mozambique Existing S.Africa white 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