The Scramble for

Africa before European Domination • Many ethnic groups and languages. • Europeans couldn’t navigate African rivers until the invention of the steamboat. • “Africa was uncharted and unexplored which is why it was known as the • Dark Continent” • Africans controlled their own trade networks. • “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”-Scottish

Forces Driving Imperialism

• The Industrial Revolution created a need for raw materials and new markets.

Division of Africa

• Discovery of diamonds (1867) & gold (1886) in led to strong interest by Europeans who “scrambled” to obtain in Africa. • : DeBeers Diamond Company.

Belief in European Superiority

• Nationalism: Large empires were a measure of a countries greatness. • : Belief that one race is superior to others. • Social Darwinism: “survival of the fittest”. • “Westernize” or “Civilize” the peoples of foreign lands.

• Africans were not unified; they had different languages & cultures. • Internal fighting over land, water & trade rights helped Europeans gain control of Africa. European Superiority in Technology • Europeans’ technological superiority due to the Industrial Revolution. • Maxim gun: 1884-first automatic machine gun. • Steam engine allowed easy travel on rivers. • Railroad, cables, & steamships helped control colonies. • The drug, quinine, protected Europeans from .

Berlin Conference (1884 – 1885)

• Established Rules to divide up Africa • European nations could claim land in Africa by notifying other nations of its claim and showing it could control the area. • No African rulers were invited to attend these meetings. • Goal: to keep European countries from fighting each other.

Death in the

• obtained land in the valley. • King Leopold II forced Africans to collect sap from rubber plants. • 10 million died in brutal human rights violations. Death in the Congo

• King Leopold was a figure head of tiny Belgium. Belgium had no colonies-& he had no power at home. He wanted a rich . He had journalist Henry Stanley (the one who found Dr. Livingstone) get local clan chiefs to sign more than 450 treaties turning over their lands and labor of their people to Stanley. The chiefs had no idea what they were signing in exchange for cloth, trinkets, & alcohol. Human Rights Violations

• Leopold was granted one million square miles of the resource rich during the . This is 80 times larger than Belgium. Leopold only allowed the natives to trade with Belgium. The natives hunted elephants for their tusks & gathered sap from wild rubber vines growing in the rain forest. This involved the hard labor of many men who were often away from their families for long periods. Death in the Congo

• When the Congo people refused to continue working under poor conditions, Leopold forcibly took natives & made them slaves. Following the invention of the inflatable tire, a rubber boom started. Leopold’s agents held wives & children of men as hostages until the men returned with their quota of rubber. The natives fled into the wilderness & set the vines on fire. Death in the Congo

• Leopold’s private army, searched the forests for rebels & killed them. To prove they had succeeded, soldiers were ordered to cut off & bring back the right hand of every rebel they killed. Often, soldiers cut off the hands of living persons, even children, to satisfy the quota set by their officers. This terror campaign succeeded in getting workers back to collecting rubber. Profits soared. Human Rights Violation

• Edmund Morel, a young British shipping clerk was sent to the Congo to supervise shipping. He uncovered the “secret society of murderers” who forced natives to collect rubber at gunpoint. His report led to an investigation & the Congo was turned over to the Belgian government. But rich in copper, diamonds, oil, uranium, & rubber, the Congo did not receive its independence until 1960

Epitaph (tomb inscription)

• King Leopold’s Congo Free State was an economic, environmental, cultural, & human disaster for the Congo people. An estimated 8-10 million people died during Leopold’s rule.

“Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host, Hear how the demons chuckle & yell Cutting his hands off, down in HELL!!!” Zulus fight the British

• Zulu chief, Shaka, created large centralized state with disciplined warriors and good military organization. • Using spears and shields against British guns, the Zulus almost defeated the British. • July 1879, the Zulus lost the Battle of Ulundi & their kingdom. • The Zulu nation fell to British control. Boers vs. British

• Dutch settled Cape of Good Hope in 1652. • Dutch settlers were called Boers (farmers). • Boers (Afrikaners) took over Africans’ land & made large farms. • 1800’s: British took over the Cape . • Great Trek: Boers moved north to escape British. Boer War-South African War

• British vs. Boers • Boers used commando raids and guerrilla tactics (hit and run). • British burned Boer farms & imprisoned women & children in disease-filled concentration camps. South Africa

• 1910, Britain won the war & South Africa gained self-rule as a dominion of the British Empire (allowed to govern its own domestic affairs). • Constitutional government gave power to whites & denied the black majority its rights. This is the beginning of apartheid, or complete, legal separation of the races.

Britain’s Empire

• Under Queen Victoria, 1/5th of the planet was owned by the British. • “The sun never sets on the British Empire”.