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What Other Factors Played a Role in the Scramble to Happen?
- Steam Engines and Iron Hulled Boats — In 1840 the Nemesis arrived at Macao, south China. It changed the face of international relations between Europe and the rest of the world. The Nemesis had a shallow draft (five feet), a hull of iron, and two powerful steam engines. It could navigate the non-tidal sections of rivers, allowing access inland, and it was heavily armed. Livingstone used a steamer to travel up the Zambezi in 1858, and had the parts transported overland to Lake Nyassa. Steamers also allowed Henry Morton Stanley and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza to explore the Congo.
- Medical Advances — Africa, especially the western regions, was known as the ‘White Man’s Grave’ because of the danger of two diseases: malaria and yellow fever. During the eighteenth century only one in ten Europeans sent out to the continent by the Royal African Company survived. Six of the ten would have died in their first year. In 1817 two French scientists, Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou, extracted quinine from the bark of the South American cinchona tree. It proved to be the solution to malaria; Europeans could now survive the ravages of the disease in Africa. (Unfortunately yellow fever continued to be a problem – and even today there is no specific treatment for the disease.)
- Politics — After the creation of a unified Germany (1871) and Italy (a longer process, but its capital relocated to Rome also in 1871) there was no room left in Europe for expansion. Britain, France and Germany were in an intricate political dance, trying to maintain their dominance, and an empire would secure it. France, which had lost two provinces to Germany in 1870 looked to Africa to gain more territory. Britain looked towards Egypt and the control of the Suez canal as well as pursuing territory in gold rich southern Africa. Germany, under the expert management of Chancellor Bismarck, had come late to the idea of overseas colonies, but was now fully convinced of their worth. (It would need some mechanism to be put in place to stop overt conflict over the coming land grab.)
- Military Innovation — at the beginning of the nineteenth century Europe was only marginally ahead of Africa in terms of available weapons as traders had long supplied them to local chiefs and many had stockpiles of guns and gunpowder. But two innovations gave Europe a massive advantage. In the late 1860s percussion caps were being incorporated into cartridges – what previously came as a separate bullet, powder and wadding, was now a single entity, easily transported and relatively weather proof. The second innovation was the breach loading rifle. Older model muskets, held by most Africans, were front loaders, slow to use (maximum of three rounds per minute) and had to be loaded whilst standing. Breach loading guns, in comparison, had between two to four times the rate of fire, and could be loaded even in a prone position. Europeans, with an eye to colonization and conquest, restricted the sale of the new weaponry to Africa maintaining military superiority.
The Mad Rush Into Africa in the Early 1880s
Within just 20 years the political face of Africa had changed – with only Liberia (a colony run by ex- African-American slaves) and Ethiopia remaining free of European control. The start of the 1880s saw a rapid increase in European nations claiming territory in Africa:
- In 1880 the region to the north of the river Congo became a French protectorate following a treaty between the King of the Bateke, Makoko, and the explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza.
- In 1881 Tunisia became a French protectorate and the Transvaal regained its independence.
- In 1882 Britain occupied Egypt (France pulled out of joint occupation), Italy begins colonization of Eritrea.
- In 1884 British and French Somaliland created.
- In 1884 German South West Africa, Cameroon, German East Africa, and Togo created, RÃo de Oro claimed by Spain.
Europeans Set the Rules for Dividing Up the Continent
The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 (and the resultant General Act of the Conference at Berlin) laid down ground rules for the further partitioning of Africa. Navigation on the Niger and Congo rivers was to be free to all, and to declare a protectorate over a region the European colonizer must show effective occupancy and develop a ‘sphere of influence’.
The floodgates of European colonization had opened.
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