Hence the Sub-Saharan.
With the exception of Portuguese possessions and Dutch South Africa, no territories of much significance were actually taken.
Why did it take so long to colonize Africa?
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Hence the Sub-Saharan.
With the exception of Portuguese possessions and Dutch South Africa, no territories of much significance were actually taken.
innonimatu
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Portuguese intentions in Africa varied quite a lot over the centuries. In the beginning (15-16th centuries) the interest was only in trade posts, with just a few forts built. Alliances were sought with local rulers, and the one with the kingdom of Kongo seemed to be successful. Missionaries and craftsmen were even sent there, and africans brought to Europe to be also trained as priests and craftsmen, but diseases killed many of the portuguese who moved into Kongo. The portuguese community there would soon be restricted to just a handful of traders.
For some reason no similar efforts seem to have been made further north, in the gulf of Guinea. Possibly because the natural environment north of the Congo river was much worse than the already harsh austral Africa. Even as late as the 19th century more than half the soldiers sent by the UK to Sierra Leone died within 6 months of arriving, from disease! It was no accident that the trading posts and forts built by europeans were located in the coast and whenever possible in islands.
The development of the americas, attempts to conquer a hinterland around Luanda to the south, and the rise of the slave trade caused the alliance with Kongo to collapse. By the second half of the 18th century there was a push to conquer territory further into the interior, with garrisons and missions established at location some 200-300km from the coast. But by the early 19th century, with the almost collapse of the portuguese kingdom (napoleonic wars/independence of Brazil/civil wars) these were so neglected that its local commanders became the ones paying taxes to the local rulers (actually, the portuguese traders did the paying, as the government couldn't care less about even paying wages to soldiers sent there).
The other local kingdom where the portuguese did some meddling in the 16th-17th centuries was Abyssinia. Not for the sake of trade (there wasn't anything worth the trouble) but for military (another front in the war over control of the Red Sea trade route) and religious motives. The very same motives ended the relation after about a century. But this was also, notably, one of the few places of Africa were diseases were not a big problem.
Finally, the other important early european intervention into Africa was Cape Town, where the dutch were the first to arrive in numbers and conquer a sizable portion of land. Again, it was one of the few places were diseases and the climate were not major barriers.
Why didn't other europeans try to settle? Well, the best places by the coast had already been occupied by the 18th century, and they weren't even worth the effort of conquering. The dutch did try to seize Angola, in addition to the Cape, but that was part of their strategy toward Brazil - defeat in one led to defeat in the other. The french built just a few bases as waystations and concentrated int the East and the Americas, and so did the UK.
GoodSarmatian
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You know the stories about european deseases spreading in the americas and wiping out large parts of the native population ?
With Africa it was kind of the opposite. Western Africa was particularly known as the White Man's Grave because during the 17th century more than half of the european colonists died during their first year after arrival from malaria, yellow fever and other indigenous deseases. Only in the late 19th century people figured out manyof these deseases were transmitted by mosquitoes, and how to prevent them from spreading.
Without the advent of modern medicine Africa would never have been colonized.
With Africa it was kind of the opposite. Western Africa was particularly known as the White Man's Grave because during the 17th century more than half of the european colonists died during their first year after arrival from malaria, yellow fever and other indigenous deseases. Only in the late 19th century people figured out manyof these deseases were transmitted by mosquitoes, and how to prevent them from spreading.
Without the advent of modern medicine Africa would never have been colonized.
sydhe
King of Kongs
Africa being where mankind originated, it is also where a lot of mankind's diseases originated.
Competition after the race for Africa began is an important factor. The land claims gobbled up the grabable basically on the presumption that, in case there were any desireable commodities in the interior, it would better to be the white nation controlling them as they exited to European manufactures rather than having to buy them from another nation's colony.
innonimatu
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Hah, I don't think that there was even that much reasoning involved! The african interior was dirty poor, and the resources to be had were not that desirable. There were some minerals, and some rich agricultural land (especially on the Zambeze basin, split between the the Monomotapa and later the Loki kingdoms), but the investment necessary to get the minerals to the coast was huge, and the export of perishable foodstuffs wasn't (obviously) done well into the 20th century. The only "cash crop" which might initially be considered suitable there was cotton, but there were far cheaper producers elsewhere in the world. In the coastal areas of the Gulf of Guinea there were other cash crops like cocoa, and in Kenya the british did impose coffee extensively but (again) these were not very profitable enterprises.
Ivory, wax, honey, slaves. By the mid-19th century slaves ceased to be a product. Rubber became one in the 1880s. Later (20th century) coffee, tea, cocoa and cotton, some gold, diamonds, iron, and a few other minerals. All of these couldn't finance the trouble of conquering those territories! The traders did try to get their respective states involved into the politics of the african interior, but what really moved european governments to take an interest there was nationalistic competition - a "colony size competition"...
But do not dismiss that "scramble for Africa" as irrational acts by european governments. For each government it was rational to compete, because the fact that these otherwise uninteresting lands were politically desirable for european governments (popular feelings were very much pro-colonial, and Europe was entering its democratic age) made them valuable - they could be, and were, used between governments as diplomatic tools, to secure alliances, loans, etc. War, or at least international competition, breeds its own twisted logic.
Good points, all. But let's not forget that it wasn't only policy and rational calculation that drove the desire to penetrate the interior and exploit it. There was also both the get-there-first-and-plant-a-flag motivations, which the terms of the Berlin Conference reinforced, and the ambitions of individual men seeking valor and wealth in braving the unknown and taming it. The expectation that country X might produce profits some day was good enough for an aspiring bwana to hire up a crew of packers and go jaunting about.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
The Berlin Conference didn't reinforce it, it happened because of that mentality.
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
Scramble for Africa was a lot shorter than the colonization of America, especially from 1880-1900.
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
that's when a lot of it happened.
It should also be noted that a lot of the colonizing in terms of staking territory did not happen at the initiative of governments, but of private "investors". Official colonies were only established in reaction to that when it became obvious they weren't able to cope with the associated problems on their own.
me said:
(emphasis added to clarify the topic)
You seem to be arguing that the European colonization of Africa didn't accelerate after the Berlin Conference of 1884. A simple comparison of before and after maps of Africa (respectively 1850s, 1883, and 1910) suggests to me that a lot of the land grabbing occurred after the Berlin Conference turned on the green light. I'm not trying to be pedantic, but the word "reinforce" necessarily means that the mentality in question was there beforehand. Surely, you're not arguing that the conference did not contribute to the way colonization played out.
I don't know that the Berlin Conference had anything to do with that mentality at all.
Not sure where you're coming from here. The Berlin Conference was called under a pretense of ending the slave trade, but only produced nonenforceable resolutions about slave trafficking. The effective measures agreed to by the conference centered on Articles 34 and 35, which obligated the participants to notify each other where they'd staked out claims so that they wouldn't go to war over conflicting claims and to ensure that any claims made were being administered in real life (they called it "effective occupation"). These are both powerful inducements to go out and grab what territories they could and make their claims stick among the locals. They are intended to be so.
In what way is that not a "get-there-first-and-plant-a-flag" mentality? What was the Berlin Conference trying to do but plant flags?
Mitigate the disagreements produced by an already-extant race to plant same by calling a conference which saw its purpose expand from a relatively limited bailiwick to formal and informal agreements that helped to neutralize a potential area of serious conflict?
innonimatu
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Actually, the Berlin Conference opposed the get-there-first-and-plant-a-flag terms of occupation, with the doctrine of effective occupation, which meant military conquest. By the time of the Berlin conference many of the "great feats" in exploring had already been done. European traders and explorers had been venturing not the interior long before the Berlin Conference, even despite the harshness of the terrain and the reluctance of the african rulers to facilitate transit. Every ruler sought to monopolize trade, and to that end he'd do his best to detain trading caravans until their merchandise was exhausted, and to prevent contact by the traders with neighboring rulers (who were his rivals). Europeans had reached all central african polities by the mid-19th century, advancing from Luanda and Benguela in the west, Mozambique and in the east, and the Cape in the south. And in the meanwhile the arab-swahili from Zanzibar were doing similar exploration into the interior.
But the first written diary detailing a crossing of Africa was actually made by africans, two african "pombeiros" (slaves/employees/partners, rather hard to establish their status in the african setting of the time), who crossed the continent in 1802-1811 (Pedro João Baptista and Amaro José). This diary, and others, were later certainly used (and left uncredited!) by Livingstone and other later european explorers. The arab/swahili traders from Zanzibar are also recorded as having crossed Africa long before europeans made it, in an expedition which departed from Zanzibar and reached Benguela in 1852.
Most of the work of mapping, topography, geology, etc, would me made after effective occupation of the terrain, in the early 20th century and as a consequence of the terms of the Berlin Conference. The effort involved in that was huge, but there was little glory to be had from that work!
Yes, traders dragged in the governments. But governments could not have been compelled to go in were it not for the nationalist competition over the acquisition of colonies. At least that's my belief: in the grand scheme of things the moneyed interests tied to colonial investments in Africa were not that influential.
By the way, there w3as also a rather interesting Brussels Conference in 1890, called with the same excuse. Its main conclusion was that all european powers agreed to cease selling weapons to the african polities. Thus accidentally (?) paving the way for easier conquest.
Convenient humanitarianism didn't start with the modern "humanitarian bombings"...
Innonimatu, a qualified agreement here to your first point. The Berlin Conference was necessitated because of those "great feats" and the increasingly less great explorations that built on those white trailblazers (or trailblazers for white knowledge). I think we're meaning different things by "planting a flag." I'm using it as a synonym for effective occupation. I apologize for the unclarity.
So, instead of saying "the Berlin Conference caused the mentality for African conquest" I should have said "reinforced." Sigh.
So, instead of saying "the Berlin Conference caused the mentality for African conquest" I should have said "reinforced." Sigh.
innonimatu
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They didn't actually stop selling weapons to the African polities, though - witness the firearms that Menelek mysteriously acquired not long before the Battle of Adwa.
Bound to happen!
Sometimes weaker countries get lucky and manage to play the big ones against each other. But it takes luck, diplomatic skill is not enough.
That's, um, not what I said at all.
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