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Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 met on 15 November 1884 and, after an adjournment, concluded on 26 February 1885 with the signature of a General Act[1] regulating European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period.

This article is about the conference from 1884 to 1885. For other uses, see Berlin Conference (disambiguation).

The conference was organized by Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, at the request of Leopold II of Belgium.[2] The General Act of Berlin can be seen as the formalisation of the Scramble for Africa that was already in full swing.[3] Some scholars, however, warn against an overemphasis on its role in the colonial partitioning of Africa, and draw attention to bilateral agreements concluded before and after the conference.[4][5][6] According to a 2024 study, the conference only set the borders for the Congo region (those borders were later revised).[7] The study finds that "most of Africa’s borders were not initially formed until after the 1884–85 Berlin Conference... most did not take their final form until over two decades later."[7]


The conference contributed to ushering in a period of heightened colonial activity by European powers, once made the point that the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 was responsible for "the old carve-up of Africa". Other writers have also laid the blame in "the partition of Africa" on the doors of the Berlin Conference. But Wm. Roger Louis holds a contrary view, although he conceded that "the Berlin Act did have a relevance to the course of the partition" of Africa. Of the fourteen countries being represented, seven of them – Austria-Hungary, Russia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden-Norway, the Ottoman Empire, and the United States – came home without any formal possessions in Africa.

Partly to gain public acceptance,[5] the conference resolved to end slavery by African and Islamic powers. Thus, an international prohibition of the slave trade throughout their respected spheres was signed by the European members. In his novella Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad sarcastically referred to one of the participants at the conference, the International Association of the Congo (also called "International Congo Society"), as "the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs".[19][20] The first name of this Society had been the "International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of Central Africa".

[18]

The properties occupied by Belgian King Leopold's International Congo Society, the name used in the General Act, were confirmed as the Society's. On 1 August 1885, a few months after the closure of the Berlin Conference, Leopold's Vice-Administrator General in the Congo, , announced that the territory was henceforth called "the Congo Free State", a name that in fact was not in use at the time of the conference and does not appear in the General Act.[10][4][6] The Belgian official Law Gazette later stated that from that same 1 August 1885 onwards, Leopold II was to be considered Sovereign of the new state, again an issue never discussed, let alone decided, at the Berlin Conference.[21][22]

Francis de Winton

The 14 signatory powers would have throughout the Congo Basin as well as Lake Malawi and east of it in an area south of 5° N.

free trade

The and Congo rivers were made free for ship traffic.

Niger

The Principle of Effective Occupation (based on effective occupation, see below) was introduced to prevent powers from setting up colonies in name only.

Any fresh act of taking possession of any portion of the African coast would have to be notified by the power taking possession, or assuming a , to the other signatory powers.

protectorate

Definition of regions in which each European power had an exclusive right to pursue the legal ownership of land

Portugal–Britain: The Portuguese government presented a project, known as the "", or the "Rose-Coloured Map", in which the colonies of Angola and Mozambique were united by co-option of the intervening territory (the land later became Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi). All of the countries attending the conference, except for Britain, endorsed Portugal's ambitions, and just over five years later, in 1890, the British government issued an ultimatum that demanded the Portuguese withdraw from the disputed area.

Pink Map

France–Britain: A line running from in Niger to Maroua, on the northeastern coast of Lake Chad, determined which part belonged to whom. France would own territory to the north of the line, and Britain would own territory to the south of it. The basin of the Nile would be British, with the French taking the basin of Lake Chad. Furthermore, between the 11th and 15th degrees north in latitude, the border would pass between Ouaddaï, which would be French, and Darfur in Sudan, which would be British. In reality, a no man's land 200 km wide was put in place between the 21st and 23rd meridians east.

Say

France–Germany: The area to the north of a line, formed by the intersection of the and Miltou, was designated to be French, and the area to the south would be German, later called German Cameroon.

14th meridian east

Britain–Germany: The separation came in the form of a line passing through , on the Benue, Dekoa, going up to the extremity of Lake Chad.

Yola

France–Italy: Italy was to own what lies north of a line from the intersection of the and the 17th meridian east to the intersection of the 15th parallel north and the 21st meridian east.

Tropic of Cancer

 , involved in colonial conflicts with Spain and France, which conquered the nation in the early 20th century.

Morocco

 , founded with the support of the United States for freed slaves to return to Africa.

Liberia

 , which fended off Italian invasion from Eritrea in the First Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895–1896 but fell to Italian occupation in 1936 defeat during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War

Ethiopian Empire

Majeerteen Sultanate, founded in the early 18th century, it was annexed by Italy in the 20th century.

Sultanate of Hobyo, carved out of the former Majeerteen Sultanate, which ruled northern Somalia until the 20th century, when it was incorporated into Italian Somaliland.

Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90

Impact of Western European colonialism and colonisation

(2014). The Scramble for Africa. London: Longman, 1974, 4th edn. ISBN 0-582-36881-2.

Chamberlain, Muriel E.

Craven, M. 2015. "Between law and history: the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 and the logic of free trade." 3, 31–59.

London Review of International Law

Crowe, Sybil E. (1942). The Berlin West African Conference, 1884–1885. New York: Longmans, Green.  0-8371-3287-8 (1981, New ed. edition).

ISBN

Förster, Stig, Wolfgang Justin Mommsen, and Ronald Edward Robinson, eds. Bismarck, Europe and Africa: The Berlin Africa conference 1884–1885 and the onset of partition (Oxford University Press, 1988) ; 30 topical chapters by experts.

online

(1999). King Leopold's Ghost. ISBN 0-395-75924-2.

Hochschild, Adam

Katzenellenbogen, S. 1996. It didn't happen at Berlin: Politics, economics and ignorance in the setting of Africa's colonial boundaries. In Nugent, P. and Asiwaju, A. I. (Eds.), African boundaries: Barriers, conduits and opportunities. pp. 21–34. London: Pinter.

Petringa, Maria (2006). Brazza, A Life for Africa.  978-1-4259-1198-0.

ISBN

Lorin, Amaury, and de Gemeaux, Christine, eds., L'Europe coloniale et le grand tournant de la Conférence de Berlin (1884–1885), Paris, Le Manuscrit, coll. "Carrefours d'empires", 2013, 380 p.

Craven, Matthew. The invention of a tradition: Westlake, the Berlin Conference and the historicisation of international law (Klosterman, 2012).

Leon, Daniel De (1886). "". Political Science Quarterly 1(1).

The Conference at Berlin on the West-African Question

Förster, Susanne, et al. "Negotiating German colonial heritage in Berlin's Afrikanisches Viertel." International Journal of Heritage Studies 22.7 (2016): 515–529.

Frankema, Ewout, Jeffrey G. Williamson, and P. J. Woltjer. "An economic rationale for the West African scramble? The commercial transition and the commodity price boom of 1835–1885." Journal of Economic History (2018): 231–267.

online

Harlow, Barbara, and Mia Carter, eds. Archives of Empire: Volume 2. The Scramble for Africa (Duke University Press, 2020).

Mulligan, William. "The Anti-slave Trade Campaign in Europe, 1888–90." in A Global History of Anti-slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2013). 149–170 .

online

Nuzzo, Luigi (2012), , EGO – European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History. Retrieved 25 March 2021 (pdf).

Colonial Law

. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972) –

Rodney, Walter

Shepperson, George. "The Centennial of the West African Conference of Berlin, 1884–1885." Phylon 46#1 (1985), pp. 37–48.

online

Vanthemsche, Guy. Belgium and the Congo, 1885–1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2012). 289 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-19421-1

Waller, Bruce. Bismarck at the crossroads: the reorientation of German foreign policy after the Congress of Berlin, 1878–1880 (1974)

online

Yao, Joanne (2022). "". International Organization.

The Power of Geographical Imaginaries in the European International Order: Colonialism, the 1884–85 Berlin Conference, and Model International Organizations

BBC In Our Time

"The Berlin Conference"

. South African History Online.

General Act of the Berlin Conference