Modern World History
Chapter 11, Section 1
Scramble for Africa
Setting the Stage
• Imperialism – the seizure
of a country or territory by
a stronger power (mostly
by industrialized European
nations) in the 19th and
20th centuries to take
advantage of raw materials
and markets there which
had the effect of the
stronger nation
dominating the political,
economic, and social life of
the weaker nation
Africa Before European Domination
• Before European
domination of Africa, it
was divided politically, and
by ethnic and linguistic
groups and by religion (#1)
• Though Europeans had
contact with sub-Saharan
Africans as early as the
1450s, the Europeans only
held 10% of the continent
by 1880 as powerful
African armies kept them
out (#2)
Africa Before
European
Domination
• Europeans were kept out of
the interior of Africa due to
rivers that were not
navigable and the threat of
disease, until riverboats
helped them move inland
(#3)
• Africans controlled their own
trade networks in which
different groups specialized
in different products to trade
with others (#4)
Nations Compete for Overseas Empires
• Europeans who entered
the interior of Africa
were explorers,
missionaries or
humanitarians who
wanted to end the slave
trade
• Their stories of
adventure were spread
through travel books
and newspapers
increasing interest in
Africa (both #1)
The Congo
Sparks Interest
• A Christian missionary
from Scotland named
David Livingstone went
missing in central Africa
for several years but was
found by newspaper
reporter Henry Stanley
(#1)
• Stanley’s stories about
the Congo sparked King
Leopold of Belgium to
hire him to help his
nation obtain land there
(#2)
The Congo Sparks Interest
• Leopold claimed he wanted
the Congo to end the slave
trade and to promote
Christianity
• Instead, Leopold licensed
companies who profited off
of Africa labor to collect sap
from rubber trees, and 10
million Congolese died from
their mistreatment by them
(#3)
• If villagers didn’t bring the
quota of rubber required
they had to pay the rest in
severed hands
Forces Driving
Imperialism
• As European
industrialized nations
needed raw materials
and markets they
sought lands to control
in Africa and other
areas (#1)
Belief in European
Superiority
• Countries saw gaining
colonies as a source of
national pride and
competed with other
European nations to
gain as many colonies
as possible (#1)
Belief in European
Superiority
• Social Darwinism – use of
Darwin’s theories of evolution
and natural selection and
applying them to human society,
which led many Europeans to
have racist beliefs that they were
superior to other cultures
• Missionaries pushed for
European expansion as they
thought it would “civilize” these
people in foreign lands as they
converted them to Christianity
Factors Promoting Imperialism in Africa
• European technological
superiority – Maxim gun (world’s
first machine gun) allowed
Europeans to subdue native
people resisting with outdated
weapons (#1)
• Technology gives Europeans
means to control colonies (#2)
– steamboats, railroads, cables,
and steamships
– promotes trade and
communication both within
the colony and between the
colony and the home nation
Factors Promoting
Imperialism in Africa
• Conquering malaria –
the drug quinine allowed
Europeans to enter the
interior of Africa without
fear of the disease (#3)
• African disunity –
the variety of African
languages and cultures
along with internal conflicts
between them made
Africans unable to unite
against the threat of
Europeans (#4)
Division of Africa
• The scramble for Africa
began in full by 1880 with
the French now in West
Africa and diamonds and
gold discovered in South
Africa (#1)
• Berlin Conference – a
meeting of 14 European
nations in 1884-1885 that
set rules for the dividing
of Africa into colonies so
that they could avoid war
between each other
• Only Liberia and Ethiopia
were the free nations by
1914
Demand for Raw
Materials Shapes
Colonies
• Africa provided raw
materials and resources like
tin, copper, diamonds, and
gold, but did not buy
European goods (#1)
• Europeans set up cash crop
plantations to grow
peanuts, palm oil, cocoa,
and rubber, which
displaced food crops grown
by farmers to feed their
families (#2)
Three Groups Clash
Over South Africa
• Africans, Dutch and British
competed for control of South
Africa for about 100 years (#1)
• Shaka – a Zulu chief who by
1816 had used highly
disciplined warriors to create
a large centralized state in
South Africa
• Shaka’s successors tried to
keep his kingdom (trying to
fight guns with spears) but
valiantly lost a war and their
land to the British in 1879 (#2)
Boers and British
Settle in the Cape
• Boers – the earliest
Europeans to settle South
Africa were these Dutch
farmers who took land from
the Africans and later clashed
with the British over control
of this region (#1)
• In the 1830s several
thousand Boers began to
move north to escape the
British, but instead began
fighting with the Africans
land whose land they were
taking (#2)
The Boer War
• In the 1860s-1880s diamonds
and gold were discovered in
South Africa, and outsiders
flooded there and started a
rebellion that the Boers blamed
on the British
• Boer War – war beginning in
1899 between the Boers and
British for control of South Africa
that was eventually won by the
British
• It was seen as the first modern
“total war” for its brutal attacks
on civilians
• After Boers lost their land was
merged in 1910 into the British
controlled Union of South Africa