Scramble for Africa

Topic: The Making of a Global World · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 3 "The Making of a Global World"

Meaning

The Scramble for Africa was the rush by European powers in the late nineteenth century, from about the 1880s to the First World War, to grab and divide almost all of Africa for its land, raw materials, plantations and minerals. The race had begun before 1885, but it sped up sharply after the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 [2]. It matters because it shows the dark side of the nineteenth-century world economy. For Africans, being linked to world trade brought loss of land, cattle, freedom and livelihood. The borders drawn then still shape African states today.

Explanation

Background: why Europe wanted Africa

• In the nineteenth century, world trade grew fast. Europe's factories needed raw materials, and its investors wanted plantations and mines.
• Africa had plenty of land but few people. Most Africans lived off land and livestock. Cattle meant wealth, food and social standing.
• Exploration opened the way for conquest.
• Henry Morton Stanley was sent by the newspaper New York Herald to find the missing missionary Livingstone.
• Explorers like Stanley mapped rivers and routes. Armies and traders later used these maps.
• NCERT calls this "not an innocent search for scientific information".

The Berlin Conference (1884–85): drawing the map

• The talks ran from 15 November 1884 to 26 February 1885 in Berlin [2].
• 14 countries sent representatives. Only about half of them had, or later got, real colonies in Africa: Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy and Spain [2].
• The meeting ended with the General Act of the Berlin Conference on West Africa, signed 26 February 1885 [2].
• Key decisions:
• "Effective occupation": a power could claim land only if it really controlled it on the ground. This made every power grab land faster [2].

• King Leopold's claim was recognised. The Congo Free State came under his control, on condition that trade along the rivers stayed free [2].

• The borders were ruler-straight lines on paper. They did not follow rivers, hills or the lands of different peoples.

How colonial rule worked on the ground: making Africans work for wages

• Africans had their own land and cattle, so they rarely worked for a wage. European mines and plantations could not find workers.
• Colonial governments forced Africans into wage work by law:
• Heavy taxes: these could be paid only with cash earned on European plantations or in mines.
• New inheritance laws: only one member of a family could inherit land. The others were left landless and had to work for wages.

• Compounds: mineworkers were shut inside fenced camps. They could not move freely or look for better jobs.

• Gold raised the demand for labour. Gold was found at the Witwatersrand in South Africa. By the 1890s, South Africa produced over 20% of the world's gold.

Rinderpest: how a cattle disease helped colonial rule

• Rinderpest ("cattle plague") is a fast-spreading disease that kills cattle.
• How it arrived: it came with infected cattle imported from British Asia to feed Italian soldiers invading Eritrea in East Africa, in the late 1880s. FAO says it entered the Horn of Africa in 1887 through the Red Sea port of Massawa [3][4].
• How it spread: it moved west "like forest fire". It reached the Atlantic coast in 1892 and the Cape in 1897, and killed 90% of the cattle in its path.
• How it helped colonial power:
• Africans lost their herds, and with them their food, wealth and bargaining power.
• Planters, mine owners and colonial governments took control of the few cattle left.

• With nothing to fall back on, Africans had to work in mines and plantations.

• Results of the Scramble:

• Britain and France made the biggest gains.
• Belgium and Germany became new colonial powers.
• The USA became a colonial power in the late 1890s by taking over colonies earlier held by Spain.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: mainly the late nineteenth century. The Scramble had started before 1885 and sped up after the Berlin Conference [2].
• Places: Berlin (the conference); Congo (Leopold's Congo Free State); Eritrea and the port of Massawa (where rinderpest entered); the Witwatersrand in South Africa (gold); the Atlantic coast and the Cape (the spread of rinderpest).
• Key people: King Leopold (Congo Free State); Henry Morton Stanley (explorer sent by the New York Herald); Livingstone (the missionary Stanley was sent to find).
• How we know:
• The General Act of the Berlin Conference (26 February 1885), the official treaty record [2].
• Colonial maps with straight-line borders.
• FAO records on how rinderpest entered and spread in Africa [3].

• The NCERT account (Class 10, Ch 3), which uses Africa as its main example of the costs of nineteenth-century globalisation.

• Later history: after a vaccine and freeze-drying (lyophilisation) in the late 1930s, FAO started the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP) in 1994. The last outbreak was in Kenya in 2001. Rinderpest was declared eradicated in 2011, the second viral disease ever wiped out after smallpox [4].

Don't confuse with

• Congress of Berlin (1878): a different Berlin meeting, about the Balkans after the Russo-Turkish war. The Berlin Conference (1884–85) dealt with Africa and ended with the General Act of 26 February 1885 [2].
• Congo Free State vs a Belgian state colony: the Berlin Conference recognised the Congo as King Leopold's own possession [2]. It was not a colony of the Belgian state at that time.
• Rinderpest vs smallpox: rinderpest killed cattle in Africa and broke Africans' livelihood. Smallpox killed people in the Americas and cleared the way for Spanish conquest. Both were later eradicated: smallpox first, rinderpest second in 2011 [4].
• "Effective occupation" vs simply claiming land: under the Berlin rule, a claim counted only if the power really occupied the land [2]. A line on a map or a coastal claim alone was not enough.

Prelims Hooks

• The Berlin Conference ran from 15 November 1884 to 26 February 1885, had 14 countries represented, and ended with the General Act signed 26 February 1885 [2].
• The conference set the principle of "effective occupation" and recognised King Leopold's Congo Free State [2].
• Trap: the new colonial powers in Africa were Belgium and Germany. Britain and France made the largest gains. The USA became a colonial power in the late 1890s by taking former Spanish colonies.
• Henry Morton Stanley was sent by the New York Herald to find Livingstone.
• Rinderpest entered Africa through Massawa (1887), carried by cattle from British Asia for Italian soldiers in Eritrea. It reached the Atlantic coast in 1892 and the Cape in 1897, killing 90% of cattle [3][4].
• Ways used to create wage labour: heavy taxes, a one-heir inheritance law and compounds for mineworkers. Gold came from the Witwatersrand, and South Africa produced over 20% of world gold by the 1890s.

Mains Points

• Globalisation had winners and losers. The same flows of goods, capital and people that made Europe rich took land, cattle and freedom away from Africans. The Scramble shows that joining the world economy did not always mean progress.
• Wage labour created by force, and disease used for control.
• "Free" wage labour in Africa was created by coercion: taxes, new inheritance rules and compounds. This links to indentured labour from India and to the plantation economy.

• Rinderpest was not planned as a weapon. Colonial supply chains carried it to Africa, and colonial powers then used their control of the surviving cattle to bring Africans under their rule.

• Arbitrary borders, long-run cost. The straight lines drawn in 1885 cut across communities. They became the borders of African states after independence [2]. This helps explain later conflicts and weak states, a useful link between GS-I world history and GS-II.

Related concepts

• Theories of imperialism
• Berlin Conference
• Congo Free State
• Boer War
• Rinderpest

Read more

• Late nineteenth-century colonialism and rinderpest in Africa