In the early stages of the Scramble for Africa, the Berlin Conference (1884–85) provided a framework for European “effective occupation” of African territory and recognized spheres of influence on the continent. 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. Though the European “scramble” for African territory had already begun years earlier, the pace of colonization greatly accelerated after the conference.
The Berlin Conference provided a veneer of legality and orderliness to European actions in Africa over the next decades, though historians now view it as a cover for blatant profiteering and the avaricious exercise of imperial ambitions that were at the heart of the Scramble.