The mad scramble for Africa

Why was imperialism developed in Africa?

Imperialism means one country’s domination of the political, economic and social life of another country. The imperialism of the 1800s was caused by three main factors: nationalism, religious fervor and feelings of racial superiority and finally the industrial revolution.
These three factors influenced in the appearance of imperialism in Africa, all the European powers entered in a great competition of Empires, all of them were looking to be the most powerful and strong one.
For these, all these powers had to control more lands and with that to gain new natural resources and raw materials to produce products and enforce their economy.
When the first European explorers were sent to Africa they immediately found out the African land’s richness. When this great news reached Europeans, a huge interest in Africa appeared and after some confirming reports about the land’s abundance of resources a mad scramble for the lands was set.
For the European benefit, Africa had weak governments and taking control of the territories was not a difficult job.
In 1885, 14 nations met in Germany and agree to partition, King Leopold II of Belgium called ``this magnificent African cake´´. By 1914 European nations controlled 90 percent of the continent. This foreign nations were so greed of power that they did not conformed with being a wealthy country with enough lands, resources and a good economy but wanted to transform in a global power better than any other empire and impose not only their rule over other territories but also their culture, way of thinking and religion. For the wealth and convenience of Europe, Africa was not prepared in any aspect to avoid European dominance over their lands and make them all their conquering processes easier. At the end Africa’s resources were completely exploded by the foreign powers, which grew richer and powerful, while them got weaker and poorer.

Now we are going to show you a video that sintetizes European interest in Africa and also concludes the positive and negative effects that the arrival of the foreign powers to Africa . It is a video that other students made for a project and we think that it would help you to gei a global idea of what our blog is about.

Leopold II: The King of Belgium (1865-1909) and the Congo river

The scandal for Africa began in the mid-1870's with the purpose to colonize the "Dark Continent" (Africa) . Much of the exploration and European interests were in the southern, northern, and eastern part of this continent. It was called the "Dark Continent" because of the large basin of rain forests surrounding the Congo River in the equatorial part of western Africa. This area was unexplored because traveling up the river by boat was just impossible to due with the massive systems of rapids that were 100 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1876 Leopold II employed Henry Stanley to acquire as much land in the Congo as he possibly could. The area that Stanley was able to get consisted of 905,000 square miles. This land was not intended to become a Belgian colony, but a private state, owned exclusively by Leopold II. That year, Leopold created the International African Association, an organization that strove for colonization and exploration of Africa.

Stanley made treaties with the natives living in the Congo that gave Leopold the ownership of the land. After it they did a congress in Berlin in 1885 for European and American representatives to discuss the dividing of Africa. With the treaties that Stanley had obtained, Leopold was able to claim the Congo legitimately. He named himself sovereign of the Congo Free State/Independent State of the Congo. Between 1879 and 1884, Leopold continued to finance Stanley's to exploration of the region. Because of resources such as rubber, ivory, copper, diamonds, and gold of the Congo, Leopold develop this area to export these goods. Major roads were built to import supplies and export the resources. Leopold did anything to gain wealth out of these areas including the use of forced labor.

Much of Europe fell upon these atrocities, which led to the end of Leopold's rule. In 1908 Belgium took the lands for itself as the Belgian Congo. Many of the hardships of the natives were reduced and living conditions were improved. The Congo became independent in 1960. In 1970, the name was changed to the Republic of Zaire by General Mobutu the President.

In conclusion the congo river was an important part of Africa in which Belgium gained a lot of benefits because of its natural resources. It was a really good territory full of materials to trade and for the new markets. For Africa, obviously, it was not good because they take all their benefits and the only way to grow as a country.

Suez Canal

A French entreprenew set up a company to build this Suez Canal they wanted to join the Mediterranean and red sea for having a shortcut between Europe and Asia.

This canal is located in Egypt. It was opened in 1869 and what it allows is water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa or carrying goods overland between the Mediterrane an and the Red Sea. The northern terminus is Port Said

In 1854, Ferdinand de Lesseps, former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of Suez. In 1856, the Suez Canal Company formed and granted the right to operate the canal for 99 years after completion of the work.

Construction began in April 1859. On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal opened in Egypt (101 miles across the Isthmus of Suez), thereby linking the Mediterranean and the Red seas and separating the Sinai from the rest of Egypt.

Upon conclusion, the canal was 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, 200 to 300 feet large at the surface and fewer than 500 ships navigated it in its first full year of operation.
It was an important connection with India.

Some Presidents of the Suez Canal company, before nationalisation were

Ferdinand De Lesseps, (1855 – 7 December 1894)
Jules Guichard (17 December 1892 – 17 July 1896) (acting for de Lesseps to 7 December 1894)
Auguste-Louis-Albéric, prince d'Arenberg (3 August 1896 – 1913)
Charles Jonnart (19 May 1913 – 1927)
Louis de Vogüé (4 April 1927 – 1 March 1948)
François Charles-Roux (4 April 1948 – 26 July 1956)

The French built the Suez Canal with Egyptian labour, and eventually, with Egyptian money.
The English built a rail line between Alexandria and Cairo, along with a telegraph, opening up an important route between Great Britain and India. With the railway came English merchants, clergymen and teachers, middle class girls looking for husbands and the famous world traveller Thomas J. Cook, who in 1860 organized his first tour to Egypt for thirty-two tourists.
During the 1800s, Mohammed Ali's grandson was ruling all Egypt. Ismail had been educated in France, travelled widely and dreamed that Cairo should rival Paris. He established a new area with straight streets and gave land to anyone who would build a building worth at least 30,000 francs within 18 months.

Because of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Europeans living in Egypt and rich Egyptians celebrated with balls, operas and races. One of the buildings erected at that time was the Cairo Opera House, an exact copy of La Scala of Milan. Eventually the money ran out and European bankers basically foreclosed on Egypt, capturing the country without a shot being fired. Much of the money used for buildings, roads, and the Suez Canal itself had been borrowed at lofty costs, and so Egypt fell even further under the influence, and now outright control of Europeans.

Port Said, a beautiful Egyptian city, was established in 1859 at the same time with the beginning of construction of the Suez Canal, which officially opened in 1869. The Port is situated on the Mediterranean Sea and is geographically isolated, situated on a low, sandy ground on the northwest of the Suez Canal and east of Lake Manzila.

Because of the building of the Canal, Port Said had years of property from fishing and from industries like chemicals, processed food, and cigarettes.

Port Said is also an important port both for exports of Egyptian products like cotton and rice, but also a fuelling (of fuel) station for ships that pass through the Suez Canal. The riches that began in the late 1800s saw development of houses with grand balconies on all floors, giving the city a better view.

We can conclude that this waterway became a vital shortcut between Europe and Asia and that it was especially valued by the British as an important link to India.
In 1875 Great Britain gained effective control to the canal when Egypt sold this waterway shares to the British in order to pay off its debts. That’s why during the next few years, British influence increased over Egypt and as a conclusion British forces put down a revolt led by a nationalist leader making Egypt became a British protectorate.

South Africa

South Africa

Dutch settlers came to Southern Africa in 1652 and established the port of Cape Town.
These Dutch settlers came to be known as the Afrikaners and they conquered all the lands around the Port, which were then called the Cape Colony.
Before the Suez Canal was constructed the quickest sea route to Asia form Europe was around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa so it made this region the major area for trading.
During the Napoleonic wars British seized the strategic value of the Cape Colony and conflicts with the Afrikaners began.
British people start having control over this area and they came to be known as the Boers.
Afrikaners rejected British rule reason why they moved northeast; movement that was then called the Great Trek. There they establish to independent republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
We can conclude that South Africa during that time was really important because it had something that was essential for European powers to have: a connection between Africa and Europe (before the Suez Canal being built) that facilitated them the transport of raw materials and trading products. At the end, this region suffered the domination and struggles involving the Afrikaners and the Boers, and also a lot of unfair systems and laws established by them, like for example slavery and racism.