Berlin Conference — Scramble for Africa
Fourteen states met in Berlin between November 1884 and February 1885 to agree the rules for taking Africa. No African was present. The conference did not, as is often said, partition the continent on a map — no boundaries were drawn there and most of the conquering happened afterwards — but it set the terms on which the powers would recognise each other's claims, which is what made the following two decades possible. The central provision was effective occupation: a power claiming coastal territory had to demonstrate an administration and the ability to protect trade, which converted paper claims into an obligation to send soldiers and officials. Free navigation was declared on the Congo and Niger, free trade in the Congo basin, and the suppression of the slave trade was written in as a humanitarian object. Bismarck convened it because Germany had entered the colonial business late and because the Congo question — where Britain, France and Portugal all had interests — needed settling before it produced a European war. Its most consequential outcome was Leopold II of the Belgians, who by lobbying, forged treaties and an association of geographical and philanthropic names obtained recognition of the Congo Free State as his personal property, some seventy-six times the size of Belgium. The regime he ran there for rubber killed several million people and was taken from him by his own parliament in 1908. By 1914 the only African states not under European rule were Ethiopia and Liberia. The borders that eventually resulted cut through some 190 cultural groups and left fifteen states landlocked. African governments confirmed them collectively in 1964 rather than open every one of them, which is the most consequential decision the continent's leaders have taken since independence.
- Year: 1884 CE
- Category: Political
