THE PARTITION OF
AFRICA
Chapter 25 – Section 2
On The Eve Of The Scramble
• Little was known about Africa.
• Europeans sent explorers to Africa
for colonies.
• Between North, West, East, and
South Africa there were many
diverse cultures.
European Contacts Increase
• 1500s – 1600s Europeans traded
along the coasts of Africa.
• Deadly diseases and geography
problem.
• Slave trade ended in the early
1800s.
• 1787- British organized Sierra
Leone for free slaves.*
• Still slavery, in Middle East and
Asia, therefore the slave trade
continued.
• European settlers explored Africa
to map it out.*
Missionaries and Livingstone.
• Protestant and Catholic
missionaries followed the
explorers.
• Built schools and medical facilities
alongside churches.
• Urged Africans to forget their own
traditions and follow them.
• Dr. David Livingstone – best
known explorer/missionary.*
• Opposed to slave trade.
• Believed to end slavery he had to
open up Africa to Christianity and
trading.
• “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
The Great Scramble Begins
• King Leopold II hired journalist
Henry Stanley to explore the
Congo River basin.*
• Arrange trade treaties with African
leaders.
• His activities in the Congo set off
the scramble.
• Other European nations like
Britain, France, and Germany were
soon pressing rival claims to the
region.
The Berlin Conference
• Berlin conference – 1844.
• European power could not claim
any part of Africa unless it had set
up a government office there.
• Next 20 years European powers
partitioned almost the entire
continent.
Horrors In The Congo.
• Riches of the Congo – copper,
rubber, and ivory.
• Stories of people being tortured,
caused population to decline.*
• Eventually forcing Leopold to hand
over his colony to the Belgian
government.
• African inhabitations were given
little or no role in either the
government or economy of the
colonies.
Carving Up A Continent
• 1830- France invaded and
conquered Algeria in North Africa.
• Britain share of Africa was smaller,
and more scattered.
• Yet more heavily populated and
more natural resources.
• British gained control of Egypt.
• The Boer War – Britain gained the
Cape Colony from the Dutch in
1806.
• In the late 1800s, the discovery of
gold and diamonds in the Boer
republics set off the Boer War.*
• Lasted from 1899 to 1902, the
British won, but at a great cost.
“Our Place In The Sun”
• Other Europeans joined the
scramble to further their economic
growth and influence.
• The Portuguese got Angola and
Mozambique.
• Italy got Libya and attempted to
get the “horn” of Africa, but
ended in defeat.
• The newly united Germany empire
took lands in eastern and
southwestern Africa.
• “Our place in the sun.” – German
politician
Africans Fight Back
• The Algerians fought the French
for years.
• The British battled the Zulus.
• In east Africa Germany fought
wars against people like the Yao.
• The Maji-Maji Rebellion of 1905
was effective.
• Germans let thousands of local
people starve to death, triumphing
in the end.
Ethiopia Survives
• Successful resistance.
• In the late 1800s , a reforming
ruler, Menelik II, began to
modernize his country.
• Hired European experts to plan
modern roads, bridges, school
systems, and weapons.
• Had European officers to help train
his army, that way when Italy
invaded Ethiopia in 1896, Menelik
was ready.
• In this way Ethiopia alone among
African nations preserved its
independence.
Impact
• Some middle class Africans
admired western ways and
rejected their own culture.
• Others valued their traditions.
• Tried to condemn western
societies that upheld liberty and
equality for whites only.
• By the early 1900s, African leaders
were forging nationalist
movements to pursue selfdetermination and independence.
• By Sara Slusher