Scramble for Africa
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"European manufacturers dream night and day of Africa, of a lake in the Saharan desert, of a railroad to the Soudan. They anxiously follow the progress of Livingston, Stanley, Du Chaillu; they listen open-mouthed to the marvelous tales of these brave travelers. What unknown wonders are contained in the “dark continent”! Fields are sown with elephants’ teeth, rivers of cocoanut oil are dotted with gold, millions of backsides, as bare as the faces of Dufaure and Girardin, are awaiting cotton goods to teach them decency, and bottles of schnaps and bibles from which they may learn the virtues of civilization." --The Right to Be Lazy (1883) by Paul Lafargue |
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The Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa, was the proliferation of conflicting European claims to African territory during the New Imperialism period, between the 1880s and World War I in 1914.
The last fifth of the 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" of control through military influence and economic dominance to that of direct rule. Attempts to mediate imperial competition, such as the Berlin Conference (1884 - 1885) between Britain, France and Germany, failed to establish definitively the competing powers' claims.
See also
- Chronology of colonialism
- Civilizing mission
- Decolonisation of Africa
- Economic history of Africa
- French colonial empire
- Historiography of the British Empire
- Impact and evaluation of colonialism and colonisation
- International relations (1814–1919)
- List of French possessions and colonies
- List of former sovereign states#Pre-colonial Africa
- Scientific racism
- White African
