Scramble for Africa

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“	It was economics that determined that Europe should invest in Africa and control the continent’s raw materials and labor. It was racism which confirmed the decision that the form of control should be direct colonial rule.	„
	~ Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

The Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa and the Partition of Africa, was a series of European conquests and genocides of indigenous peoples across the African continent. During the scramble, several atrocities have been committed by European nations, such as King Leopold II of Belgium's tyranny over the Congo Free State and the Herero and Namaqua Genocide perpetrated by Imperial German colonial forces. By 1914, Ethiopia and Liberia became the only African nations to remain independent, though Ethiopia would later be occupied by Benito Mussolini's troops before and during World War II. After the end of World War II and the establishment of the United Nations, Europeans gradually began to leave Africa overtime and grand their colonies independence.

Background

Prior to the scramble, Europeans already had economic interests on the African continent and traded with African kingdoms for natural resources as well as slaves, which kickstarted the Atlantic Slave Trade. After the slave trade was abolished, British explorers discovered the source of the Nile river in 1858, which would lead to the successful colonization of much of the continent.

In 1884, as European colonial powers were already invading and annexing portions of Africa, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck arranged the Berlin Conference to prevent war between the European powers. The conference formalized the General Act with representatives of the British Empire, France, Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, Russia, Sweden-Norway, and the Ottoman Empire to establish territorial claims within the continent and end slavery.

Atrocities

United Kingdom

“	I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible.	„
	~ Cecil Rhodes.

As the British began settling in South Africa, they clashed with the local Afrikaner people living there, starting the Boer Wars. During the wars, the British murdered civilians and put them into concentration camps.

In 1897, the British army under the command of Admiral Harry Rawson orchestrated the Benin Expedition, during which the British soldiers massacred hundreds of civilians, captured the king and burned the capital city to the ground before annexing it into colonial Nigeria.

During the administration of Cecil Rhodes, native South Africans were ethnically cleansed from their lands and several laws were passed that systematically barred blacks from the right to vote and control their lands. In Rhodesia, Nedbele women were commonly raped by white settlers and police officers.

France

“	By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830. A long shadow of genocidal hatred persisted, provoking a French author to protest in 1882 that in Algeria, "we hear it repeated every day that we must expel the native and if necessary destroy him." As a French statistical journal urged five years late, "the system of extermination must give way to a policy of penetration."	„
	~ Ben Kiernan; Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur.

During the Pacification of Algeria, French soldiers began a series of genocidal campaigns against the indigenous tribes of Algeria, resulting in the deaths of 825,000 Algerians.

Germany

“	I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if this was not possible by tactical measures, have to be expelled from the country. This will be possible if the water-holes from Grootfontein to Gobabis are occupied. The constant movement of our troops will enable us to find the small groups of this nation who have moved backwards and destroy them gradually.	„
	~ Lothar von Trotha.

After a series of rebellions, such as the Herero wars and the Maji-Maji rebellion, German soldiers under the orders of General Lothar von Trotha orchestrated a genocide against the Herero and Namaqua people of Namibia between 1904 and 1908, where the soldiers systematically starved their victims and forced them into concentration camps in order to make way for German settlers. 175,000 people were estimated to be killed by von Trotha's troops.

Belgium

“	He hadn’t made his rubber quota for the day so the Belgian-appointed overseers had cut off his daughter’s hand and foot. Her name was Boali. She was five years old. Then they killed her. But they weren’t finished. Then they killed his wife too. And because that didn’t seem quite cruel enough, quite strong enough to make their case, they cannibalized both Boali and her mother. And they presented Nsala with the tokens, the leftovers from the once living body of his darling child whom he so loved. His life was destroyed. They had partially destroyed it anyway by forcing his servitude but this act finished it for him. All of this filth had occurred because one man, one man who lived thousands of miles across the sea, one man who couldn’t get rich enough, had decreed that this land was his and that these people should serve his own greed. Leopold had not given any thought to the idea that these African children, these men and women, were our fully human brothers, created equally by the same Hand that had created his own lineage of European Royalty.	„
	~ A photographer documenting King Leopold II's atrocities.

Under the reign of King Leopold II, Belgian forces enslaved local Congolese citizens to collect rubber. Many of the Congolese slaves died from disease, while others were brutally murdered and raped by Belgian soldiers and the Force Publique. It is estimated that a total of 15,000,000 people died under King Leopold's rule. This brutality would end when the atrocities were exposed and King Leopold was forced to transfer ownership of his colony to the Belgian parliament in 1908.

Italy

After Italian colonial forces succeeded in conquering Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, they tried to invade Ethiopia, resulting in the First Italo-Abyssinian War of 1895, to which the Ethiopians were successful in driving the Italians out. 40 years later, under the orders of Benito Mussolini, Italian soldiers engaged in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, to which they were successful in winning the war and annexing Ethiopia.

Portugal

Due to a series of attacks on settlements by various local tribes in Angola, Portuguese forces waged war against the Kwanhama and Dembos tribes and raided their villages before finally defeating them.

Spain

After the successful annexation of Western Sahara, a series of rebellions by local Sahrawi tribes took place against Spanish soldiers. In retaliation, the Spanish, with the help of the French, succeeded in crushing the Harakat Tahrir movement and kidnapped their leader, Muhammed Bassiri.

Legacy

Due to the influence of European colonialism and intergenerational trauma, many African societies have been devastated as a result of the destruction of their culture as well as suffering from third world poverty and lack of education. In addition, the artificially-drawn national borders have caused severe strife and oppression among thousands of ethnic groups throughout the continent and civil wars are more frequent in Africa than any other continent, due to differences in ethnicity and religion as well as territorial disputes and economic interests. Most people outside Africa have also been taught that the landmass was a "dark continent" that lacked any advanced civilizations and that indigenous Africans lacked the capacity to develop any technological progress, based off ignorant stereotypes and propaganda perpetuated by the western media, despite the evidence to the contrary, as European explorers have often discovered centralized kingdoms and city-states throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.