Berlin Conference

Prior to the conference, European diplomats had already begun to interact with African rulers, establishing connections to continental trade networks. European spheres of power and influence were limited to coastal Africa at this time as Europeans had only established trading posts (protected by gunboats). In 1876, King Leopold II of Belgium, who had founded and controlled the International African Association the same year, invited Henry Morton Stanley to join him in researching and "civilising" the continent. Explorers and missionaries played a significant role in laying the groundwork for the Berlin Conference (1884–1885). They mapped large parts of the continent, negotiated treaties with local leaders, and promoted narratives that justified European expansion. For example, Christian missionary, David Livingstone, called for a worldwide crusade to defeat the Arab-controlled slave trade and "liberate Africa" by the introduction of "commerce, Christianity" and civilisation. Finally, Portugal, which had essentially abandoned a colonial empire in the area, long held through the mostly defunct proxy Kingdom of Kongo, also claimed the area, based on old treaties with Restoration-era Spain and the Catholic Church. It quickly made a treaty on 26 February 1884 with its old ally, Great Britain, to block off the Congo Society's access to the Atlantic. France moved to take over Tunisia, one of the last of the Barbary states, using a claim of another piracy incident. In 1882, realising the geopolitical extent of Portuguese control on the coasts, but seeing penetration by France eastward across Central Africa toward Ethiopia, the Nile, and the Suez Canal, Britain saw its vital trade route through Egypt to India threatened. ==Conference==

'' The European race for colonies made Germany start launching expeditions of its own, which frightened both British and French statesmen. The number of plenipotentiaries (representative diplomats) varied per nation, but these 14 countries sent representatives to attend the Berlin Conference and sign the subsequent Berlin Act: No matter their number of plenipotentiaries or their presence in the region, each country possessed a single vote for formal resolutions. Uniquely, the United States reserved the right to decline or to accept the conclusions of the conference. ==General Act==

sharing the Congo One of the major outcomes of the General Act was that the properties occupied by Belgian King Leopold's International Congo Society were confirmed as belonging to the Society. Partly to gain public acceptance, Thus, an international prohibition of the slave trade throughout their respected spheres was signed by the European members. In his novella Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad sarcastically referred to one of the participants at the conference, the International Association of the Congo (also called "International Congo Society"), as "the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs." The General Act of the Berlin Conference also decreed that the 14 signatory powers would have free trade throughout the Congo Basin. == Principle of effective occupation == The principle of effective occupation stated that a power could acquire rights over colonial lands only if it possessed them or had effective occupation: if it had treaties with local leaders, flew its flag there, and established an administration in the territory to govern it with a police force to keep order. However, as the scope of the Berlin Act was limited to the lands that fronted on the African coast, European powers in numerous instances later claimed rights over interior lands without demonstrating the requirement of effective occupation, as articulated in Article 35 of the Final Act. British delegates, by contrast, reserved the right to control its large territorial holdings without directly governing them. Domestically, Britain's constitution prevented direct governance without the official annexation of territory, and the British government worried that the precedent of treating African protectorates as fully-governed annexations would have costly consequences for its empire worldwide. In its foreign policy, Britain viewed Germany as a latecomer to African colonisation and assumed it was unlikely to acquire extensive territories beyond its initial claims—claims that were nonetheless proving to be more valuable than many British possessions. That logic caused it to be generally assumed by Britain and France that Germany had an interest in embarrassing the other European powers on the continent and forcing them to give up their possessions if they could not muster a strong political presence. In the end, the British view prevailed. The reluctance of European powers to exercise direct control over their African territories is evident in the protocols of the Berlin Conference, particularly regarding the Principle of Effective Occupation. To reconcile differing positions—especially between Germany and Britain—the powers ultimately agreed that effective occupation could be established by a European state setting up a coastal base, from which it could expand into the interior. The conference participants did not view the rules of occupation as requiring full European hegemony on the ground. Belgium had initially proposed that effective occupation should include obligations to "cause peace to be administered," but this provision was removed from the final document due to opposition from Britain and France. That principle, along with others that were written at the conference, allowed the Europeans to conquer Africa but to do as little as possible to administer or control it. To meet that minimum standard, empires frequently invested in telegraph lines as cheap and scalable territorial markers. State-sponsored telegraph infrastructure also enabled long-distance communication, and thus management, of a colony by the imperial metropole. Article 35 did not fully apply to the hinterlands of Africa at the time of the conference. Article 34 permitted empires to claim inland territories so long as they first demonstrated their occupation of an adjacent coast. This gave rise to conflicting interpretations of a "Hinterland Doctrine" due to the unsettled questions of how empires could draw their boundaries and how far inland their claims could reach from the coast. The uneven shape of the African continent did not provide neat solutions, and without a legal definition of the term "hinterland", confusion over Article 34 required empires to negotiate over every disputed hinterland claim, a process which usually favored the militarily or economically strongest claimant. ==Agenda==

• Portugal–Britain: The Portuguese government presented a project, known as the "Pink Map," or the "Rose-Coloured Map," in which the colonies of Angola and Mozambique were united by co-option of the intervening territory (the land later became Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi). All of the countries attending the conference, except for Britain, endorsed Portugal's ambitions. Just over five years later, in 1890, the British government issued an ultimatum that demanded the Portuguese withdraw from the disputed area. • France–Britain: A line running from Say in Niger to Maroua, on the northeastern coast of Lake Chad, determined which part belonged to whom. France would own territory to the north of the line, and Britain would own territory to the south of it. The basin of the Nile would be British, with the French taking the basin of Lake Chad. Furthermore, between the 11th and 15th degrees north in latitude, the border would pass between Ouaddaï, which would be French, and Darfur in Sudan, which would be British. In reality, a no man's land 200 km wide was put in place between the 21st and 23rd meridians east. • France–Germany: The area to the north of a line, formed by the intersection of the 14th meridian east and Miltou, was designated to be French, and the area to the south would be German, later called German Cameroon. • Britain–Germany: The separation came in the form of a line passing through Yola, on the Benue, Dekoa, going up to the extremity of Lake Chad. • France–Italy: Italy was to own what lies north of a line from the intersection of the Tropic of Cancer and the 17th meridian east to the intersection of the 15th parallel north and the 21st meridian east. ==Aftermath==

The Berlin Conference offered European powers a framework to redirect their rivalries outward, allowing them to expand into new territories while addressing growing interests from the United States, Russia, and Japan. It also provided a platform for constructive dialogue aimed at limiting future conflicts among European states. As a result, colonial rule was established across nearly the entire African continent. Following World War II, when African nations gained independence, they did so as fragmented states, reflecting the arbitrary boundaries and divisions imposed during the colonial period. Despite the far-reaching consequences of the Berlin Conference, no African rulers were invited to participate. The Scramble for Africa intensified as a result of the General Act of the Berlin Conference, and especially the principle of effective occupation. In central Africa in particular, expeditions were dispatched to coerce traditional rulers into signing treaties, using force if necessary. • , founded with the support of the United States for freed slaves to return to Africa. • , which fended off Italian invasion from Eritrea in the First Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895–1896 but fell to Italian occupation in 1936 as a result of defeat in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. • Majeerteen Sultanate, a Somali kingdom founded in the early 18th century which remained independent until it was annexed by Italy in the 20th century. • Sultanate of Hobyo, carved out of the former Majeerteen Sultanate, which ruled northern Somalia until the 20th century, when it was incorporated into Italian Somaliland. • Dervish movement (Somali), a Somali Islamic nationalist movement founded by Muḥammad ibn 'Abdallāh Hassan in 1899, which resisted British, Italian, and Ethiopian colonial forces until its defeat in 1920. The following states, while independent as of 1895, were annexed by the British Empire roughly a decade after the Berlin Conference: • , a Boer republic founded by Dutch settlers. • (Transvaal), also a Boer republic By 1914, 90% of all the land that makes up Africa was under European control. • The Boer republics were conquered by the British in the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902. Libya was conquered by Italy in 1911, and Morocco was divided between the French and Spanish in 1912. • By 1914, the only modern nations on the continent of Africa that remained independent were Ethiopia and Liberia. == Historical Analysis ==

Historians have long marked the Berlin Conference as the formalisation of the Scramble for Africa. However, scholars have debated the lasting legal and economic impacts of the conference on the colonisation of Africa. Historians such as Sybil Crowe, Matthew Craven, and Simon Katzenellenbogen have sought to present a more nuanced view of the Berlin Conference. Historians also dispute whether the Berlin Conference had significant implications for the nature of sovereignty in international law. The historian Steven Press argues that in granting diplomatic recognition to the Congo, the Conference (briefly) legitimized the idea that political sovereignty was something that could be bought and sold, whether to European states or to wealthy individuals. Press traces this legal novelty to the purchase of Sarawak by James Brooke, and its 1863 recognition of statehood by Britain. Although European authorities began to disown their acceptance of this "Borneo precedent" by the 1890s, demands for diplomatic recognition by individuals and charter companies imitating Brooke's example quickly increased in the years following the Conference. The process by which European nations colonised territories in Africa (as established by the Berlin Conference) ignored factors including ethnic, linguistic, and cultural divides while creating new colony or protectorate borders. Rwanda represents a great example of the lasting impacts of ethnic partitioning as the major national ethnic groups, the Tutsi and the Hutu, were pitted against one another by Belgian colonisers. Therefore, what may outwardly appear solely as ethnic violence is also a politically motivated genocide tied to Rwanda's colonial history. Rwanda is not the only example. Across the continent of Africa, colonial borders halted the previously existing exchange of languages, histories, ideas, and goods. For instance, the nomadic pastoralist Maasai people were divided by the border that separates modern Kenya and Tanzania a result of European colonisation. ==See also==