Scramble for Africa
and
European Colonial Rule
Partitioned Africa
Congress of Berlin
• Modern African History – Congress of
Berlin, 1884-1885
• Britain, France, Germany, Portugal,
Belgium, Italy
• Great Political Event – Dividing Line?
– Emphasis on Moment of Political Change
– Early/Modern Africa – Pre-colonial/Colonial
Rethinking Africa:
Economic Development
• 1970s – Marxists – Economic Lens
• Economic Factors
– 1884 Inaccurate Dividing Point, Irrelevant
– Precapitalist/Capitalist
• Industrial Revolution – 18th c. Britain
– Industrialization’s impact on Africa
– Congress of Berlin – Formal Colonialism
– Earlier Date for Economic Change - 1807
African/European Trading Relations
c. 1800
• 1800 – 90% of export value – slaves
• 1807 – Britain abolished slave trade –
France and Holland followed
• “Legitimate Trade” – change in economic
relationship between Africa/Europe
• 1807 – Slave trade did not end
• Coexistence of trades after abolition
Portuguese: Key Actors
• Portuguese government resisted Britain’s
end of trade
• North versus South of the Equator
• Increase in volume: Mozambique/Angola
• Brazil’s independence (1822)
– Rejection of Portuguese treaties
– “Brazilians”
– Bight of Benin – 80,000 slaves per annum
19th Century:
Demand for New World Slaves
• New World plantation system growing
– US South – cotton
– Brazil – sugar and coffee
– Caribbean (Cuba) – sugar
• Abolition – US (1863), Cuba (1886), Brazil
(1888) – Vested interests
• Africa – Vested interests – Rulers and
elites, dependent on luxury goods/arms
Britain:
End of the Slave Trade
• Four Factors in Preventing End of Trade
– Geography
• Slaving regions’ proximity to equator
– Transportation/Communication
• Differences in naval technologies
• Inefficient communication systems
– West African Coastline
– Portuguese Government and “Brazilians”
Abolition of Slave Trade:
Statistics
• 1850s
– Slave trade as profitable as ever, even 45 years
after abolition
– British efforts at thwarting trade
• Freed 1:16 slaves
• First half 19th c. – 160,000 freed
– Britain and Gun-Boat Diplomacy
• Brazil capitulated – 1857
• 1860s – Trade in decline, largely over in West Africa
• 1870s – Trade largely over in East Africa
Why the dividing line:
1807?
• 1807 – Division of Precapitalist/Capitalist?
• “Legitimate Trade”
– Parallel Process
– Enormous cultural and economic changes
• Industrial Revolution –
–
–
–
–
European demand for raw materials - oil
Machinery, Candles, Soap
Peanut Oil – Upper Guinea Coast (Senegal)
Palm Oil – Lower Guinea Coast (Nigeria)
• Global Trade Networks
– Spices – Zanzibar
– Agricultural products (Mombasa, Malindi)
“Legitimate Trade:”
Social Change in Africa
• Emergence of New Classes – West Africa
• Rural Peasantry and Middle Class
– Emergence of Peasantry
• Peanut/Palm oils – anyone enter market – ordinary
people, real opportunities in large-scale trade
– Emergence of Middle Class
• Commercialization of Labor – locally and Africans who
could not produce for themselves
• Migrant laborers and environment
• Labor and kinship networks
• Emergence of New Classes – East Africa
– Small-scale shambas – production for markets
– Middle Men – Asian population
“Legitimate Trade:”
Change in African Imports
• Emergence of Classes – Change in Import
Demands
– No longer luxury goods alone
– Textiles, hard wares, salt, tobacco
• New mass market for new market of
consumers
• Emergence of a class-based society, and
consumer society
• Africans (1810-60) – Terms of Trade
Scramble for Africa
• Scramble for Africa
– Not a single moment in time, rather a process
– Congress of Berlin, 1884-1885
– Marks a political moment when formal
colonization begins
Scramble for Africa:
Partition
• 1860s – British government – committee
on viability/benefits of colonies around
world
• Conclusion: Too costly, not worth
expenditure – abandon colonies, outdated
• British dominance in production –
imperialism of free trade
• Time of free trade/laissez faire policies
Scramble for Africa:
Partition
• 1898 – 30 years later – Africa partitioned
by European powers
• President of France: “We have behaved
like madmen...led astray by people called
colonialists.”
• What had changed in attitude of European
powers – particularly the British – towards
colonialism?
What’s the Insanity?
• Insanity – Scramble for Africa
• Second largest continent – divided by
European powers in span of some twenty
years, 1875-1895
• What changed Europe’s attitudes towards
colonies, and Africa in particular?
• Europeans at the time: Scramble astonishing
event
• Many – mass insanity – everyone crazy at the
same time? Rational actors…
What’s the Insanity?
• Historiographical Debate – what is this?
– Different interpretations of an historical
moment or process
– Informed by broader trends in the field
– Informed by one’s own assumptions and
biases
– Historians speak to each other and are
constantly revising each others works
“New Imperialism”
• All five interpretations try to explain and
understand phenomenon of “New
Imperialism”
• End of 19th c – Europeans reversed attitude
towards formal colonies in the tropic
• Divided Africa, Pacific Basin, and SE Asia
• Interpretations: Interplay between objective
and subjective – positionality of author
Historical Interpretations:
Five to Consider
• Five Historical Interpretations:
– Joseph Schumpeter – irrationality
– William Langer and AJP Taylor – WWI and
diplomatic approach
– Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher – Africa
and the Victorians
– Marxist Interpretation
• J.A. Hobson, R. Hilferding, Vladmir Lenin
– Eric Hobsbawm – search for markets and
profitability
E.J. Hobsbawm
• Neo-Marxist, British Historian
– The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (1988)
– Also writes the Age of Revolution, Age of
Capital, and Age of Extremes
– British key players in Scramble
– Also global economic concerns and changes
E.J. Hobsbawm
• Argues:
– Britain first country go through Industrial
Revolution, 1780-1815
– Accepts Hobson’s idea of “underconsumptionism”
– Impoverishment of British working class
– Britain moves into world-trade vacuum, no
competition for international markets
– Free trade, or laissez-fair ideology, ruled, no
reason for colonies, 1860
– Britain didn’t need formal colonies
E.J. Hobsbawm
• Ideal situation over, 1870 – 3 Reasons:
– First, competition in the industrial world
• Other countries – US/Germany – emulate Britain
• Industrial espionage, pirating of British ideas
• Competing states, tariff barriers, Britain excluded, trade
walls going up all over world
– Second, Second Industrial Revolution
• First Industrial Revolution – Textiles, British dominate
• Second Industrial Revolution – chemicals/metals – US
and Germany
• Britain’s economic position eroded, 1870
E.J. Hobsbawm
• Third – Things begin to go wrong for the
British in Africa itself by 1870s
– British position as partners with those on the
periphery changes vis-à-vis partner status
– 1810-60, Terms of trade favored Africans
– Changes, cost of manufactured goods up, raw
material prices hit rock bottom in 1890s
– Africans accuse British of dishonesty
– Fluctuations in international prices
E.J. Hobsbawm
• Result:
– Traders demand more to keep markets open,
gov’t protect their interests
– Keep Africans in check, protection
– Establish formal colonies
– Protected markets – alternative to US and
German markets – needed this to survive
– Other countries, pre-emptive strikes when Britain
begins to establish formal footholds
– Not Hilferding’s cartels, but small merchants
setting off Scramble
“White Man’s Burden”
• Formal Empire – African’s ability to govern
• Colonial Justifications
– Africans inability to govern
– Humanitarian effort
• Rudyard Kipling
– European or “White Man’s” duty to bring peace
and administration or civilization where there had
been none
– Europeans the “humanitarian peacemakers”
– Only with intervention could Africans prosper
Introduction:
African Independence
• 1950s/1960s – Claims of “White Man’s
Burden” rejected as imperial rationale
• Propaganda to cloak greed/evils of colonial
system, and justify European presence
• Last decade – re-evaluation of complete
dismissal of “White Man’s Burden”
– Scholars – Some truth to it
– 19th c – In some places, like W. Africa, as well as
East, Central, and Southern, instability
– Some regions Africans welcomed Europeans
Missionaries and Africa
• Rise in Missionary Activity in Africa
– Lack of missionary interest, 18th century
– Nonconformist churches, 19th century
• East and Central Africa - Zanzibar
– David Livingstone – Scottish missionary, 1840s
– Published accounts, exploration and Royal
Geographic Society
– Richard Burton and John Speke – 1857, Nile
– Henry Morton Stanley – “Dr. Livingstone, I
presume?” (1871, Lake Tanganyika)
– Evils of slavery – dies 1873, 11 month trek,
Westminster Abbey, April 1974
– “Commerce, Christianity, and Civilization”
Markets and Christianity
• Scramble for Africa – about search for
markets and profits
• Time of European depression of 1870s
– Markets collapsing domestically
– Excessive supplies, desperate for market
• Europe and Africa
– Not for exploration, widen geographic knowledge
– Not primarily humanitarian, don’t overlook
importance of increasing violence/slave trade
Markets and Christianity
• Economy and Ideas: Christianity
– Conflict in interior, demands of Christian
missionaries, fell on receptive ears
• Explicit link between Christianity and trade
– David Livingstone, Africa’s most famous
missionary
• “Commerce, Christianity, Civilization,” 3Cs
• Livingstone: emphasized Christianity’s dynamic
force, role it would play in opening up Africa to
western trade/commerce
Markets and Christianity
• Most people – particularly Europe’s decisionmakers
– Motivated by underlying economic reasons
– Ideas like Christianity v. important in reinforcing
moves into the interior
– Particularly true, conversions linked to creating
peace and environments conducive to trade
– Every colony/region have own trajectories
– Changes take place in later 19th c., examined in
broader changes of larger world processes
Scramble for Africa
• 1890 – Africa under European control, what did
colonialists discover?
• Myths not precisely accurate
• Effective Occupation – Very expensive proposition
• Costs of Empire – European taxpayers
• Fiscal Problem – Make new colonies pay – exports and
tax revenue
Classification of Empires:
Colonial Administration
• Classify Empires by country administering
them
– French system – “assimilation”
– British system – “separate development”
– OR – “direct” versus “indirect” rule
• Administration approach – misleading
• Nature of the political economy
– Various types both between and within
colonies
Historical Change
• Historical change is often uneven
• Typical and important for study of Africa
• Unevenness not due to different
administrative systems
• Rather, due to emergence of different
economic systems, which the
administration reflects
• Results – very different patterns of life for
African people
Paths to Economic Development
• Four ways to generate tax revenue:
– Grant Concessions – Leopold II in Congo
Free State
– Use Migrant Laborers or Labor Reserve
Areas – work in distant places of employment
– Southern Africa and the mines
– Push local Africans into Peasant Production
for markets – Uganda and Senegal
– Bring European Settlers to create “real”
colonial situation – Kenya and Southern
Rhodesia
East Africa and Zanzibar
• Zanzibar on the eve of colonial rule
• Seyyid Said (1856) and Succession
– Divided Empire – Seyyid Thuwain (Oman), Seyyid
Majid (Zanzibar)
– Seyyid Majid – British naval protection (1861)
– Political vulnerability and lack of military force
• Threats from Thuwain, N. Arabs, and Seyyid Bargash
• British navy and instability…slave trade
East Africa and Zanzibar
• Zanzibar on the eve of colonial rule
– Sultan Barghash (1870-88)
– Fragility of empire
• Cholera epidemic – 10,000 in Stone Town
• Hurricane of 1872 – 85% of clove plantations
• British abolition of slavery
– Abolition of slave trade and slavery
•
•
•
•
1873 – abolition of trade by sea
1876 – abolition of trade by land
1897 – abolition in Unguja and Pemba
1907 – abolition in Kenya Coast
East Africa and Zanzibar
• Zanzibar and colonial rule in E. African context
• Germany – mainland of Tanganyika (until WWI)
• British Protectorate (1890) – Zanzibar and 6 mile
coastal strip
– British/German trade for islands in the Baltic Sea
• British colonial rule in Zanzibar
– Economically viable – agricultural production and
taxation
– Politically – Busaidi Sultanate (like Kabaka, Uganda)
– Bombardment of Stone Town (August, 1896),
succession crisis
– Destruction of Beit al-Sahel and Beit al-Hukm
– “House of Wonders” untouched
East Africa and Zanzibar
• British colonial rule
– “Divide and Rule”
– Colonial Institutions – categories of race and
ethnicity codified
– Executive Council – Arab and Asian representation
– Legal codes and African customary law
– Historic fluidity now reified
East Africa and Zanzibar
• British colonial rule
– Economy and free market principles
• Arab Indebtedness to Asian lenders. Threat of
insolvency and fear of agricultural collapse
• British agricultural subsidies failed.
• Marketing Board – Clove Growers Association (CGA) in
1928 – controlled prices and export (1937)
• Protection of Arab landlords at expense of Asians.
Forbid Asian land ownership of plantations
• Boycotts in India on demand side
• 1938 – “Heads of Agreement” – guaranteeing export to
Asians, but prices remained fixed
• NOT a free market – interference of state in economy,
put another way, economy embedded in institutions