Introduction
The Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885 which is also referred to as the Congo Conference signified a powerful role in the regulation of European colonization as well as free trade in parts of Africa during the period of neo-imperialism. One of the outward goals of the conference was to implement regulations on the rampant colonization of Africa in order to prevent the military conflict between the colonizing states. It is to be noted that colonial powers went into what historians coined as the ‘Scramble for Africa’, where they decided to invade, occupy, divide and colonize the different parts of the African territory sometime in during the latter part of the 19th century towards the early 20th century. It was during this period that the European colonizers “partitioned Africa into spheres of influence, protectorates, colonies, and free-trade areas”. Accordingly, the Berlin Conference reflected the goal of each colonizer to acquire vast territories for reasons such as securing African regions for their natural resources, promoting the continuous flow of trade through foreign markets and the expansion of military and naval bases.
Historical Background of the Conference
The Berlin Conference that took place between November 1884 to February 1885 involved 14 countries, the majority of them were European nations that aimed to intensify the colonization activities in West Africa. However, during the early years before the conference was decided, the Europeans had already established a mutual trading relationship with the indigenous people of Africa. It was sometime during the mid-19th century that European nations started to view Africa as a valuable region to be explored for trading, and settlement. It was king Leopold II of Belgium who initially worked towards the creation of the International African Society, which was used for the establishment of a settlement area in the Congo region. It was these settlement efforts that literally inspired other European countries to race in colonizing many parts of Africa. The effort towards achieving diplomatic arrangement among different European colonizers resulted in the conceptualization of the Berlin Conference. The fourteen countries involved were Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway, Turkey, and the United States of America. The nations that controlled most parts of Colonial Africa such as France, Germany, Great Britain and Portugal played a significant role during the conference. As the different colonial powers placed over their dominance in the region, the continent became divided according to the influence of colonialist that lay claim on it. In the western part of Africa were the French, while the Eastern and Southern part of the continent were claimed by Great Britain. On the other hand, the Belgian’s interest focused on the vast region of Congo, while the Germans laid claim on four regions from each of the continents regions. The Portuguese settled in a small settlement area in the western part of Africa and two massive parts in southern portions of the continent. Accordingly, the colonial powers of Europe were concluded to have a common goal of settling in the African regions, that is to exploit and take advantage of the vast resources from the continent.
What is the General Act For?
The General Act of the Berlin Conference included the resolution to end slavery in order to gain acceptance from the public. The members of the European colonizers signed an agreement that prohibited slave trading in their respective regions. Consequently, the international prohibition of slave trading heightened the process of colonization in Africa and “the establishment and consolidation of artificial boundaries, amalgam territories, and the putting in place covertly or overtly assimilation programs” Further, in the General act, there was also the pronouncement of the Congo Free State after its confirmation as privately owned by the Congo Society. This confirmation was in line with king Leopold’s assurances about keeping the country accessible to all investors from the European regions. This part of the agreement once bestowed what today as the Democratic Republic of Congo as that of the private property of king Leopold. Included in this General Act is the essential definition as to the extent of each European power’s dominion. It was also during this agreement that the principle of effective occupation was conceptualized by the members of the agreement. The objective of the effective occupation agreement was to deter the different European powers from taking up and naming any colonies as their own.
According to many historians, the Berlin Conference proved to be an assessment of the European power’s resolve towards maintaining hegemony. The Conference was also thought to have a direct or indirect contribution towards the setting of these borders, while it supported the domination of the men, yet it overlooks the element that is vital in the development of colonial territory: “the metamorphosis of the land- and the territories- African, substituted for the colonial territory, managed for the colonial administration and the colonist”. For example, the Belgian territory which was proclaimed as the property of king Leopold II was ruthlessly exploited as the king ordered the mobilization of the Congolese to hunt animals such as the elephants or ivory, to gather rubber and to build better export routes. Communities that were not able to meet the required production output were annihilated.
The Principle of Effective Occupation
Included in the Conference of Berlin is the principle of effective communication where each of the colonial powers can exercise acquisition rights over a certain territory only when they have literally taken an act of possession or effective occupation in a certain region. Some of the manifestations of literal occupation was the existence of an agreement with the local leaders, and the ability of the colonialist to fly its country’s flag in the region. Another manifestation of occupation was when the colonial power was able to establish its administration in the region that can govern the locality with the military to keep peace and order, in addition to making use of the colony for economic purposes. The principle of effective communication was a vital foundation by which the European powers acquired their territorial dominion in parts of Africa. Moreover, it also served to determine the limitation of their particular foreign possessions, because the effective occupation functioned as a benchmark in dispute settlements of boundaries between the colonial territories. However, the Berlin Act has a restricted scope, so that it is limited only to the parts fronting the African coast, thereby allowing the European powers to later claim jurisdiction over the interior lands even in the absence of adequate demonstration of the effective occupation principle. Article 35 of the agreement stated that “the obligation to insure the establishment of authority in the regions occupied by them on the coasts of the African Continent sufficient to protect existing rights”. It was through this guideline that the only manner of recognizing the legitimacy of the territorial dominion war, 1) taking over or conquest, 2) cession or the existence of formal treaty, and 3) habitation or settlement. Further, it was also agreed during the conference that a European power that successfully occupied a portion of the African region, and has duly informed the other powers about the acquisition have an uncontested right over the land. It was therefore assumed that inaction or the silence on the part of other colonial powers meant that they consented on the claim, as stated in Article 34:
Any power which henceforth takes possession of a tract of land on the coasts
of the African continent outside of its present possessions, or which being
hitherto without such possession, shall acquire them, as well as the Power which
possesses a Protectorate there, shall accompany the respective act with a notification
thereof addressed to the other signatory powers of the act, in order to enable them,
if need be, to make good any claims of their own.
Despite the ideal objective of the principle of effective occupation, Germany and France highly contested its scope during the Berlin Conference of 1885. For Germany who just came to the African continent, it claimed that in terms of imposing colonial power in the region, none of the European states can exercise legal dominion except when that state has already implemented a strong political control over the territory. It is to be noted that Germany arrived later than most of the African colonizers, and it was not likely to acquire massive possessions. Therefore, it resorted to some tactics to satisfy its territorial interest by shaming some of the European powers to force them to relinquish their properties in an instance that they cannot implement a a strong political hold. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, had large territorial jurisdiction on the African continent and naturally aimed to maintain its power over them while incurring lower cost and reduced responsibilities. The UK was successful in defending its view, and the Berlin Conference went to substantial extents to show that the Europeans only need a restrained manner of responsibilities towards the claimed territory in the African region.
During the conference, the colonial powers signed a pledge of secrecy where the participants were expected to keep the Conference proceedings undisclosed. However, the main objective of the Berlin Conference were clear, that is to assure the continuity of “free trade and navigation on the Congo and the Niger, to suppress slavery and the slave trade, and to establish certain uniform rules with reference to future occupations on the African coast”. Accordingly, the Final Act of Berlin comprised of a declaration relative to 1) trade autonomy in the Congo; 2) slave trading, 3) a neutral stance in the Congo, and an act of navigation in this region, 4) an act of navigation for Niger, and 5) a pronouncement that introduced into the international relations some standard rules concerning occupation activities on the coast of Africa sometime in the future. Nevertheless, there were important matters that were not included during the conference such as concerns over sovereignty. Some of which are the territorial sovereignty of Great Britain in the southern part of Nigeria, the French’s in the north of Congo and the Congo Free State.
Based on the Berlin Conference, the European colonizers were only required to establish some forms of territorial base on the coast of the African region, and from there it was allowed to expand inwardly. What each colonizer need to establish is the administrative presence consummated within a reasonable length of time with the goal to effectively start occupying a certain region. During that time, the participants to the conference do not find it necessary to create a European hegemony, and this was exemplified when an amendment proposed by the Belgian government about what constitute an effective occupation. According to the proposal, the territorial acquisition should include the adherence to the provision for the administration of peace, but this was not included in the provision of the Berlin Conference. In fact, the Berlin Conference allowed the European colonizers to expand their territory in Africa without severe restrictions. To many historians, the conference resulted in the creation of guidelines that were too vague that their enforcement were almost impossible. For example, the word ‘occupation’ in the provision meant different things to different interpreters. While it generally referred as the literal occupation of land, it was also interpreted to mean “the seizure of land, but was a more generic term for the acquisition of sovereignty”. It is to be noted that a large portion of the African region was not physically occupied, but were ceded by the African leaders. A disturbing pronouncement by the colonizers was that they seek for the justification of their effort to colonize, not from the establishing agreements or treaties with the native inhabitants, but by “compliance with conditions recognized by the civilized world”.
Moreover, the Berlin Conference did not specifically deal with the interior part of Africa. This resulted in the hinterland theory which states that suggests that “a Power in occupation of coastal lands was entitled to claim the exclusive right to exercise political influence for an indefinite distance inland”. This theory proved to be problematic because of the irregular shape of the African continent; eventually, by virtue of the hinterland theory, France restricted the frontiers of Nigeria because they form part of the hinterland of the Algerian region. The vague provisions allowed the colonial powers to dominate the African territories, whether they were inhabited or not.
Consequences of the Berlin Conference
Accordingly, the unfair interpretations of the provisions of the Berlin conference and the absence of any representative from the African community indicated that the participants in the conference did not view the Africans as partners. Rather, the colonizers perceived the indigenous inhabitants of African and the continent itself as objects that are to be dominated and controlled. John Casson who was the representative to the US during the conference observed:
modern international law follows closely a line which leads to the recognition
of the right of native tribes to dispose freely of themselves and of their hereditary
territory. In conformity with this principle [his government] would gladly adhere
of the natives whose country is taken possession of, in all cases where they had
not provoked aggression.
As a consequence of the Berlin Conference, about 90 percent of the African continent were controlled by the European colonizers, with the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia that were able to maintain their freedom. One of the main purpose of the colonizers was to exploit the African region for its vast natural resources, thus of the major impact of the Berlin Conference was the massive exploitation of Africa’s natural resources. Moreover, the colonizers redefined the boundaries, such that the Europeans “eliminated all the original factors of integration and accentuated divisions”. Thus, the partition of the African region among the different European colonizers had a devastating impact in terms of ethnic stand point. Some of its repercussions included the tribal conflicts that were motivated by the Europeans. The African continent was divided which doomed the region for many decades of European rule. It was found that the European colonizers divided the African continent without regard to human geography. Thus, the tendency that one country was comprised of multiple ethnic groups that do not share the same culture and belief.
Moreover, the colonization of African resulted in better economic gains for the European colonizers, yet the same process leads to the devastation of the Africans. The Europeans made great economic progress from the exploitation of African resources, while they did very little in enriching the lives of the indigenous people. In contrast to the industrialization and development that was promised before the colonization, the Africans were not called to participate in the government, and no considerable effort was made to educate them. This has a negative impact to the Africans when they were finally handed their independence, as they were too poor and uneducated to be able to efficiently run their own government.
African Resistance
The African people were not called upon to participate when the powerful European countries agreed by virtue of the Berlin Conference to lay claim to the different African territories. Consequently, most historians described the colonization to have few a difficulties, largely because of the unmatched military prowess of the European countries who had been involved in many warfares in the past. For one, the majority of the European colonizers has already mastered the art of colonization and imperialism from previous exploitation of other regions such as in Asia and the Pacific region. This allowed the colonizers to work their way up in in their goal to conquer territories and “satisfy their greed for resources, prestige, and empire”.
The ease by which the European colonizers have expanded towards the majority of African territory was also attributed to the conflicting relationship among the different groups in the region. With the coming of the Europeans, those that were already in conflict remained to be in conflict, thus it was difficult for them to unite to fight a much stronger and fully equipped adversary. The absence of a common African identity helped the colonizers to proceed with their goal with less difficulty. For instance, the goal of one ethnic group to conquer another, often motivated them to join the colonizers for a stronger army.
One of the noted ethnic group that was able to resist colonization was Ethiopia, which remained to be free from the invasion of the European army. The Emperor of Ethiopia, Menelik II, commanded his army to fight against the Italian army led by General Oreste Baratieri. Another African leader who resisted the colonizers was Samory Toure, who was known for establishing the Madinka empire in West Africa. While he was defeated by the more stronger and tenacious French army, he remained to exemplify a pragmatic resistance for the way he fought his adversaries. He was known for his ingenuity in directing the manufacture of his own army’s firearms, repositioned his kingdom and even engaged in diplomatic talks with the French and the British leaders. He was able to come up with counter strategies against the attack of his adversaries, until he was captured by the French military. Other uprisings occurred as the Africans felt the difficulty of being under the rule of the colonizers who exploited them and the natural resources and did not promote the interest of the indigenous people. It was in 1890 when the ethnic groups in southern Tanganyika, headed by Macemba were ordered to place themselves under the subordination of the German leadership. Macemba’s reply revealed one of the great African responses:
I have listened to your words but can find no reason why I should obey you—I would
rather die first. I look for some reason why I should obey you and find not the
smallest. If it should be friendship that you desire, then I am ready for it, today and
always but not Not to be your subject, that I cannot be. If it should be war you desire,
then I am ready but never to be your subject. I do not fall at your feet, for you are God’s
creature just as I am. I am sultan here in my land. You are sultan there in yours. Yet
listen, I do not say to you that you should obey me; for I know that you are a free man.
As for me I will not come to you, and if you are strong enough, then come and fetch
me.
Sometime in 1906, another series of uprising were staged against the colonial powers when the Maji Maji rebellion was inspired in the vast regions of southern Tanganyika in response to the coercive labor policies of the Germans. This was an attempt to fight against the more powerful military strategies of the German military. The insurgents sprinkled what they thought as protective magical water into their bodies. This was known as maji-maji and was assumed to transform the bullets into water. This strategy was not effective in dodging the bullets, but it helped foster African unity. While there were thousands who were killed by the gunfire, it paved the way for Germans to re-consider their use of violence so as not to incite another mass revolt.
There were other forms of struggle against the colonial rulers of Africa, and in contrast to the initial revolts, were more successful. While the German troops were fighting against the Maji maji group, the British armies were also faced with an uprising from the Nigerians. The Africans used the holy war to stage a war against the non-believers of Islam and the peasants challenged the authority of the British authorities. Despite that, the majority of the revolts failed because of the more powerful European weaponry. It was only until the 20th century, when many Africans, especially the educated elites and masses found a collective political and nationalist grounds to fight against the colonizers.
Conclusion
The Berlin Conference that lasted from 1884 to 1885 marked the start of massive territorial expansion in the African region. This was when fourteen countries came up with an agreement on how to divide the African continent among themselves. While European countries started to explore the region for its natural resource, they came into an agreement on how best to secure their own interest without resorting to conflict with other colonial powers. The Berlin Conference inspired what many scholars referred to as the Scramble for Africa. While this conference was not the main element that initiated the scramble of the Europeans in the African region, it served to legitimize the colonizing activities of the different powers.
It is to be noted that the colonizers were only able to found settlement in the coastal regions of Africa. However, the pronouncement of the Berline Conference was interpreted to mean that they can go inward the territory. Included in the conference was the elimination of the slave trade, yet the members of the Berlin conference have other motives in wanting to become a colonizer in the massive land of Africa. In the name of industrialization and development, the majority of them aimed to acquire territories that they from where to extract raw materials and other resources. In addition to that, most of them were also seeking to open new markets for their products in their home country.
The colonization was not a difficult task for the European colonizers. For one, they were already familiar with certain colonization strategies with their previous colonizing experiences in some parts of Asia and the Pacific region. Nevertheless, they were also faced with some uprising, though the majority of which failed against the more powerful and technologically advanced military equipments of the Europeans.
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