Africa is a large continent, home to immense culture and history. Surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, it is the world's second largest and second most populous continent. It contains 54 countries and is extremely diverse in terms of ethnicity and language.
The borders of these countries were largely decided by European nations during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An early 20th century in what is known as the scramble for Africa. The Sahara is a defining feature of Africa, the largest desert in the world.
The Sahara's sheer size and magnitude acted as a major obstacle for communication, trade, and exchange of ideas. However, there is evidence of Roman expeditions and explorations who were able to move across the desert and into the interior of Africa, with the aim to secure sources of gold, salt, and spices. For centuries, Arabs also maintained trade relations with the vast empires of West Africa, such as the Ghana and Mali Empire, establishing trade routes that secured gold, ivory, and slaves.
The Portuguese began expeditions down the west coast of Africa in the 15th century, and history tells us of the profound effect that followed. During the 1480s, the explorer Diogo Co was the first to establish contact with the Congo Kingdom. Situated south of the Congo River, the Congo Kingdom was eager to make use of Portuguese teachers and craftsmen, and the Congo Kings allowed Catholic missionaries to work among their people. The Portuguese traded guns, cloth, and other European luxuries for slaves who were captured by the Congo in wars against rival kingdoms. By the 17th century, Portugal and other European powers began to settle along the coast of Africa.
Europeans would buy slaves in Africa, transport them to the Americas, and exchange them for valuable goods like sugar, coffee, and tobacco, which were then sold at premium prices in Europe. Arguably, between the 16th and 18th century, over 12 million Africans were enslaved and transported in harsh conditions to work on plantations in the Americas. In the south of Africa, the first European settlement was established by the Dutch East India Company.
where merchants used the location as a waypoint for ongoing voyages to the Dutch East Indies. They came into contact with the Khoikhoi, a nomadic indigenous population of southwestern Africa, comprising of hundreds of clans. Over time, this settlement, known as the Cape of Good Hope, grew in size, resulting in the Khoikhoi losing land and cattle to the Dutch, who adopted the name Boer, meaning farmer. Due to a shortage of labour, the Dutch imported slaves from Mozambique, Madagascar, and many Indonesian islands.
The Cape of Good Hope came under the control of the British during the Napoleonic Wars. The abolition of slavery ended slavery in the Cape in 1834. In 1835, the Boers embarked on the Great Trek, as the abolition of the slave trade resulted in financial catastrophe. As a result, Dutch citizens known as Voortrekkers, moved further inland into Africa.
They formed the Free Orange State and Transvaal, which was recognized by the British. In the north, France launched a war of conquest against Algeria in 1830, which would last until 1847. Meanwhile, in the United States, there was a movement to settle free-born blacks and freed slaves and transport them to Africa. Most whites, and later a small minority of blacks, believed that blacks would be better off in Africa. The American Colonization Society began transporting them to the closest point of Africa to establish a colony in 1822. By 1847, the settlers issued a Declaration of Independence and established the Independent Republic of Liberia. The construction of the Suez Canal in 1869 verified its importance as a route for trade with India and China, and in 1882, Egypt was occupied by British forces.
during the Anglo-Egyptian War, subsequently revealing the potential riches that Africa offered. There were several European explorers who explored the continent. Perhaps one of the most famous was David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary who attempted to convert the natives he encountered to Christianity and strove to find the source of the Nile.
Henry Malt Stanley was famous for his exploration of Central Africa. He worked for King Leopold II of Belgium and helped map out the Congo region. So why were there no major explorations into the interior of Africa before this? Well, there were limited seaworthy rivers, tropical diseases, hostile natives, and weapons were not as advanced as they were in the 19th century. During the 19th century, most European powers experienced a dramatic growth of productivity triggered by industrialization.
European countries overproduced goods and were consequently searching for new markets. Interest turned towards the acquisition of land in order to grow agricultural products for European markets. Europeans moved into the interior of Africa to extract raw materials such as rubber, palm oil, gold, copper, and diamonds. These natural resources made Africa a vital resource for the European economy.
Between 1884 and 1885, the Berlin Conference was called by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Fourteen representatives of fourteen European countries attended the conference, including Britain, Belgium, France, Portugal, and Italy. Notably, no African representatives were invited. The aim was to discuss how European countries reclaim colonial land in Africa and avoid war between them. Each country affirmed that they would bring civilization in the form of Christianity and trade to each region they occupied.
Although most of these African colonies were controlled by nations, the Berlin Conference allowed King Leopold II of Belgium to become the sole ruler of a vast area that is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The intent was to make it an area of free trade for all Europeans in Africa. However, in practice, Leopold kept out most European traders and granted concessions to various corporations to exploit the region's resources.
In 1908, it was revealed that under King Leopold's instructions, native people of the Congo were forced to farm wild rubber as a form of tax payment to the colonial government. Those unable to carry out these instructions had their hand or foot severed. Once news of these atrocities became known, King Leopold was stripped of his colony and the vast Congo region was ruled by the Belgian government.
Understandably, Europe held the technological advantage. Bands of just a few hundred men and barely a handful of machine guns proceeded to overwhelm and obliterate thousands of Africans. The machine gun was a revolutionary gun that could fire rapid shots at an unparalleled speed.
The effectiveness of the weapon was obvious in Sudan where a British force Armed with roughly 20 machine guns and a small number of gunboats, overpowered Sudanese forces and effectively opened the door for colonization. But the Europeans in their quest to carve up the continent would encounter resistance. By the early 1880s, Abyssinia, or modern-day Ethiopia, was in danger of invasion from the British, French, and Italians. Abyssinia's emperor made a decision to exploit European rivalries. After minor concessions to France in return for weapons, Italy grew nervous of the growing French interests in the country and offered the Emperor Italian weapons.
Throughout the 1880s, Abyssinia grew stronger and stronger, securing more modern weapons from the British and Russians. In 1889, Italy claimed Abyssinia as an Italian protectorate. The Emperor rejected this. Italy, craving the glory of victory, ordered its troops into battle.
In 1894, outnumbered, the Italians were defeated and in 1896 Abyssinia remained independent. The British encountered resistance in South Africa against the Boers. They had previously recognized the independence of the Boer republics, but the discovery of diamonds and the potential of a German-Boer alliance led to war. The Boers used guerrilla warfare and utilized their skills of marksmanship.
to hinder British advancement, but in the end British forces prevailed. Great Britain dominated the African continent with the control of Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria and the Gold Coast. The French occupied vast expanses of West Africa, the Germans controlled modern-day Tanzania as well as Namibia, the Italians controlled Somalia and Libya, whilst the Portuguese exerted full control over Angola.
and Mozambique. By 1914, 90% of Africa had been divided between seven European countries, with only Ethiopia, and the African-American state of Liberia remaining independent nations.