Scramble for Africa

Scramble for Africa, a phrase widely used to refer to the period from the late 19th to the early 20th century in which European imperial powers claimed control of most African territory. It is also used to describe the actions undertaken by those countries, with the goals of expanding strategic territorial claims and securing access to valuable natural resources and strategic trade routes. In the 1870s only 10 percent of African territory was controlled by European countries. By 1914 about 90 percent of that territory had been incorporated into one European empire or another, including the land of every present-day country on the continent except Ethiopia and Liberia.

Origins

European interest in Africa was stimulated by 19th-century expeditions into the interior of the continent undertaken by European explorers, two of the most famous being David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley. These expeditions led to the dissemination of information about the continent’s geography, natural resources, and commercial potential. This information, together with European industrial and military advantages and growing strategic and economic competition among European powers, encouraged further intervention on the continent. The completion of the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1869 and subsequent French-British ownership of the canal’s operating company as well as the victory of Great Britain in the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879, illustrated the growing strategic importance of Africa and foreshadowed the rapid territorial expansion that became known as the Scramble for Africa.

The Scramble begins

In the 1880s various European empires began taking steps to secure and expand their territorial control in Africa. For example, France and Italy expanded their holdings in the areas now known as Senegal, Tunisia, and Eritrea, while in 1882 Great Britain began a military occupation of Egypt to protect the imperial power’s financial interests in that country.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

King Leopold II of Belgium is often considered to be one of the principal figures who nudged the previously piecemeal process of colonization into a competitive multinational enterprise. Under the cover of securing trade along the Congo River in the interior of Africa, by 1884 Leopold’s agents of the International Association of the Congo had negotiated for territorial control—or what they interpreted as territorial control—with 450 local peoples and entities. The resulting treaties ostensibly gave Leopold’s association direct control over a vast swathe of sub-Saharan Africa, which the king claimed as his sovereign territory. But controversy ensued because Leopold’s control of this territory conflicted with an agreement between Great Britain and Portugal regarding their right to operate along the Congo River.

The German chancellor and prime minister Otto von Bismarck is also considered to be one of the leaders who accelerated the Scramble, stemming from his annexation of Togo, Cameroon, and Angra Pequena in 1884 as well as from his proposal for a conference to be held by the European powers regarding their African claims. That proposal resulted in the Berlin Conference (also called the Berlin West Africa Conference), which was held from November 15, 1884, to February 26, 1885.

Representatives from 14 countries from Europe and beyond attended the conference, though only half of them—Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, and Spain—already had, or would go on to have, recognized colonial holdings in Africa. The conference resolved the immediate issue of Leopold’s claim by recognizing the Congo Free State as being under his control, though he was required to agree to free trade along rivers in his territory. The conference attendees also agreed on a common framework for the recognition of European “effective occupation” of African territory and on the principle that control of territory could not be claimed until said territory was actually occupied. Spheres of influence were recognized—though not fixed—and both the Niger and Congo rivers were declared free waters. These agreements were formalized in the General Act of the Berlin Conference on West Africa, signed on February 26, 1885.

While the Berlin Conference gave a veneer of legality and orderliness to European actions in Africa over the next decades, historians now view it as a cover for blatant profiteering and the avaricious exercise of imperial ambitions that were at the core of the movement now called the Scramble for Africa.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

Motivations

A number of factors drove the Scramble after the Berlin Conference legitimized the process of imperial expansion. One was straightforward competition: Each country feared that, if it did not participate in the Scramble, another would accrue the benefits of colonization that it could have had. Imperial expansion also played into powerful nationalist movements within European countries. Germany and Italy had only recently unified, and both sought to demonstrate their status—and implicitly, legitimacy—as great powers through colonial expansion.

Perhaps the factor most commonly identified as truly motivating the Scramble for Africa is the monetary profits from colonization. This did play an important role, and in cases such as Leopold’s, it was the main reason for colonization. Industrialization had created growing demand for many natural resources found in Africa, such as rubber, palm oil, and copper, and European industrial countries wanted to gain access to natural resources that could be refined into more-profitable commodities—a form of exploitation that provoked a key criticism of capitalism in the ensuing decades. Colonial expansion was also presented as a form of market expansion, in which conquered countries acted as captive markets for exports from the imperial center. However, much of this profit was either concentrated in the hands of those who gained monopolies from colonial governments or largely rhetorical, as the costs of running a colony usually outweighed the profits that accrued to the colonizing power.

Another important impetus for European countries to participate in the Scramble was the complex interplay of nationalism, the growth of social Darwinism and eugenics, and a sense of racial superiority within European societies, all of which led to widespread popular support for imperial expansion. One of the justifications for the Berlin Conference had in fact been to end the international slave trade in Congo territory, and expansion of colonial territory in Africa was championed by social reformers and many European governments as a “civilizing mission,” through which African populations would be Christianized and therefore “civilized.” The movement of peoples and information between Africa and Europe triggered by the Scramble formed a rhetorical echo chamber that reinforced Europeans’ ideas of their racial and cultural superiority. Perhaps the pinnacle of this process was the practice of holding exhibitions in which members of Indigenous African groups were displayed like zoo animals. Some early practitioners of anthropology also played a key role in fueling public belief in the moral legitimacy of the Scramble for Africa. Literature too perpetuated the idea of the civilizing mission of European powers in Africa, popularized in such works as the Rudyard Kipling poem “The White Man’s Burden.”

Effects and legacy

African societies resisted European expansion in many different ways, although military advantages often enabled colonial powers to prevail. One notable example to the contrary is the Battle of Adwa (1896), in which the Ethiopian army of Emperor Menilek II triumphed over Italian forces after Italy tried to claim Ethiopia as a protectorate.

The Scramble for Africa resulted in the creation of dozens of polities and innumerable treaties, and from this several events emerged as pivotal in international politics, including the Fashoda incident (1898), the Moroccan crises (1905–06, 1911), and the wars between the British and the Boers in Southern Africa. In the Fashoda crisis, conflicting claims over lines of influence in Africa between British and French troops came to a head near a fort at Fashoda (located in what is now South Sudan). The standoff raised the specter of a European war as a result of imperial jockeying, and it formed the basis of the Entente Cordiale (1904). In 1905 Germany challenged this treaty and agreements from the Berlin Conference when it tried to exert influence over Morocco, which was recognized by other European powers as falling under French control. This First Moroccan Crisis (1905–06)—and the Second Moroccan Crisis (1911)—cemented ties between Britain and France as well as engendering hostility between them and Germany. These international relationships would play a key role in World War I (1914–18). Finally, the 1902 British victory over the two Boer republics in the South African War (1899–1902) allowed that empire to consolidate its control over the strategically key southern region of the continent.

The effects of the Scramble for Africa on African peoples themselves were devastating, and they continue to be felt to the present day. For instance, it is estimated that as much as half the population of Leopold’s Congo Free State died under his brutal and deadly rule. Indeed, his mismanagement was such that the Belgian government assumed responsibility for the state in 1908. In another example, from 1904 to 1907 the German colonial government undertook the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples in German South West Africa (see German-Herero conflict of 1904–07), doing incalculable harm to those societies. Some studies have shown that the borders put in place by colonial powers that became the basis for national borders in the 20th century have had a measurable negative impact on the stability of various countries.

Also, Indigenous languages, traditions, economic models, and modes of administration were typically overshadowed, if not completely replaced, by those of the colonizing countries, the effects of which can still be seen today. Most sub-Saharan countries have either English, French, or Portuguese as an official language as a result of colonial administration, and countries have had to adapt to or change the economic infrastructure established during the colonial period. Thus, even more than a century after the Scramble for Africa ended, it continues to have an impact on the world.