The Scramble for Africa

1884–1914 CE — Africa, European empires

Today: Africa (partitioned at a conference in Berlin)

At a conference in Berlin, European powers agreed rules for dividing a continent among themselves; no African was present. Within thirty years almost all of Africa was under European control, borders drawn through kingdoms and language groups with rulers and lines on maps. Machine guns, quinine against malaria, and steamships made it possible; a belief in a civilizing mission made it sayable. Many of those arbitrary borders are still the borders of African states today, and some of their wars.

Worth knowing: King Leopold II of Belgium held the Congo as personal private property — not a colony of Belgium but his own estate — and the forced rubber quotas imposed there killed millions before an international outcry forced him to hand it over.

Pattern: Imperial overstretch — A state's commitments outrun the resources and logistics needed to hold them; the margin fails first.

Entry 201 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.