This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com.

"Expansion Was Everything": Europe'sColonization of Africa

French and German commissioners operating in the swamp forests of the Lobaye valley to establish new Franco-German borders in Congo.Image from the public domain

In the late 1800s, English businessman Cecil Rhodes made a fortune claiming huge tracts of land

in South Africa — places rich in gold and diamonds — and brutally exploiting the labor of the local

population, who he considered to be members of an inferior race. Thousands died as a result of the

labor practices his businesses used in Africa. In his later years, he wrote that "the world is nearly

all parceled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonized. To think

of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach, I would

annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so

far."

Rhodes was an imperialist, and to an imperialist, "expansion was everything." Imperialism is the

policy of expanding the rule of a nation or empire over foreign countries by force. In the 1800s,

European nations acquired great wealth and power from both the natural resources of the lands

they conquered and the forced labor of the people from whom they took the land. Imperialists

used ideas from eugenics and Social Darwinism to justify their conquests. To imperialists like

By Facing History on 11.03.17Word Count 1,175Level MAX

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com.

Rhodes, the idea that there would soon be no

opportunity for further expansion was unsettling.

The French held similar views. In a speech to the

French Chamber of Deputies in 1884, Jules Ferry,

who twice served as prime minister of France, said:

"Gentlemen, we must speak more loudly and more

honestly! We must say openly that indeed the higher

races have a right over the lower races. . . . I repeat,

that the superior races have a right because they have

a duty. They have the duty to civilize the inferior

races. . . . In the history of earlier centuries these

duties, gentlemen, have often been misunderstood,

and certainly when the Spanish soldiers and explorers

introduced slavery into Central America, they did not

fulfill their duty as men of a higher race. . . . But in our

time, I maintain that European nations acquit

themselves with generosity, with grandeur, and with

the sincerity of this superior civilizing duty."

A few

months

later,

France

took part

in an

international meeting known as the Congress of Berlin. It was called by Otto von Bismarck, then

chancellor of Germany, and was attended by 15 nations. They came to establish rules for dividing

up Africa — the only large landmass Europeans had not yet fully colonized. By agreeing to abide by

those rules, the group hoped to avoid a war in Europe. They paid little or no attention to the effects

of their decisions on Africans or the people of any other continent. The results of their efforts can

be seen in the following map. The first shows Africa just before the Congress of Berlin; the second

map shows the continent in 1913.

At the Congress of Berlin in 1884, 15 European powers divided Africa among them. By 1914, these

imperial powers had fully colonized the continent, exploiting its people and resources.

In 1915, W.E.B. Du Bois, an African-American scholar and activist, summed up the meeting held

some 30 years earlier in an article in the Atlantic Monthly. In it, he revealed that the Congress of

Berlin was having an impact on Africa nearly two weeks before the first group of delegates arrived

in Germany.

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com.

"The

Berlin

Conference to apportion the rising riches of Africa

among the white peoples met on the fifteenth day of November, 1884. Eleven days earlier, three

Germans left Zanzibar (whither they had gone secretly disguised as mechanics), and before the

Berlin Conference had finished its deliberations they had annexed to Germany an area over half as

large again as the whole German Empire in Europe. Only in its dramatic suddenness was this

undisguised robbery of the land of seven million natives different from the methods by which

Great Britain and France got four million square miles each, Portugal three quarters of a million,

and Italy and Spain smaller but substantial areas."

"The methods by which this continent has been stolen have been contemptible and dishonest

beyond expression. Lying treaties, rivers of rum, murder, assassination, mutilation, rape, and

torture have marked the progress of Englishman, German, Frenchman, and Belgian on the dark

continent. The only way in which the world has been able to endure the horrible tale is by

deliberately stopping its ears and changing the subject of conversation while the deviltry went on."

"It all began, singularly enough . . . with Belgium.

Many of us remember [Henry] Stanley's great solution

of the puzzle of Central Africa, when he traced the

mighty Congo sixteen hundred miles from Nyangwe

to the sea. Suddenly the world knew that here lay the

key to the riches of Central Africa. It stirred uneasily,

but [King] Leopold of Belgium was first on his feet,

and the result was the Congo Free State. . . . But the

Congo Free State, with all its magniloquent heralding

of Peace, Christianity, and Commerce, degenerating

into murder, mutilation, and downright robbery,

differed only in degree and concentration from the

tale of all Africa in this rape of the continent already

furiously mangled by the slave trade. That sinister

traffic, on which the British Empire and the American

Republic were largely built, cost black Africa no less

than 100,000,000 souls, the wreckage of its political

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com.

and social life, and left the continent in precisely that state of helplessness which invites

aggression and exploitation. "Color" became in the world's thought synonymous with inferiority,

"Negro" lost its capitalization, and Africa was another name for bestiality and barbarism."

"Thus, the world began to invest in color prejudice. The "Color Line" began to pay dividends. For

indeed, while the exploration of the valley of the Congo was the occasion of the scramble for

Africa, the cause lay deeper. . . . Already England was in Africa, cleaning away the debris of the

slave trade and half consciously groping toward the new Imperialism. France, humiliated and

impoverished, looked toward a new northern African empire, sweeping from the Atlantic to the

Red Sea. More slowly, Germany began to see the dawning of a new day, and, shut out from

America by the Monroe Doctrine, looked to Asia and Africa for colonies. Portugal sought anew to

make good her claim to her ancient African realm; and thus a continent where Europe claimed but

a tenth of the land in 1875, was in 25 more years practically absorbed."

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com.

Quiz

1 What role did the slave trade play in imperialism?

(A) The slave trade began as a result of imperialist attitudes toward African people, and its continuingpractice allowed large numbers of native Africans to be forced to labor for European colonists.

(B) The slave trade greatly weakened the sovereignty and ability of African nations to defend againstforeign powers, and created the language and attitudes of racism that allowed imperialism to laterflourish.

(C) The slave trade created a vast amount of wealth for European explorers who wanted to colonize Africa,and provided them with the resources they needed to convince leaders to invest in imperialism.

(D) The slave trade was developed to assist foreign powers in their attempts to conquer and exploit Africa,and came to an end when imperialism allowed European control of Africa's resources.

2 HOW does the author describe imperialism in Africa over the course of the article?

(A) First, the author explains the effects of individuals who tried to conquer Africa. The author thencompares this with the imperialist actions taken by European leaders in the following decades, andconcludes by quoting different perspectives on imperialism.

(B) First, the author identifies the two men who were responsible for organizing the Congress of Berlin. Theauthor then outlines the ideas that were discussed at the conference, and concludes by explaining howthey were the seeds of imperialism.

(C) First, the author describes two individuals as examples of European attitudes toward Africa. The authorthen outlines how countries agreed to split the continent between them, and concludes by quoting anarticle on imperialism's effects.

(D) First, the author compares the attitudes of two different European countries toward Africa. The authorthen describes the conflicts between nations that were resolved by the Congress of Berlin, andconcludes by describing how imperialism ended.

3 Which image included with the article BEST depicts the idea that Europeans believed they had a right to benefit from the forcedlabor of African people?

(A) top image

(B) second image

(C) third image

(D) bottom image

4 Look at the two maps of Africa included with the article.

What limitations does the article have that the maps do NOT have?

(A) The article does not compare the populations of many African nations before and after the beginning ofthe slave trade.

(B) The article does not contrast the percentage of Africa under European control before and after theCongress of Berlin.

(C) The article does not easily identify the many existing African nations that were absorbed into Europeanimperial colonies.

(D) The article does not explain the brief amount of time between the decisions made at the Congress ofBerlin and complete colonization.