Scramble for Africa

Read this article to learn how the economic imperatives of industrialization led European nations to expand their imperial control into Africa. It features a "causes" section that discusses the impetus for each colonizing power's desire to partition a whole continent.

Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa, also called the Partition of Africa, or the Conquest of Africa, was the invasion, annexation, division, and colonization of most of Africa by seven Western European powers during a short period known as New Imperialism (between 1881 and 1914). The 10 percent of Africa that was under formal European control in 1870 increased to almost 90 percent by 1914, with only Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and Liberia remaining independent, though Ethiopia would later be invaded and occupied by Italy from 1936 to 1941. The Egba United Government, a government of the Egba people, was legally recognized by the British as independent until being annexed into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914.

The Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonization and trade in Africa, is usually accepted as the beginning. There were considerable political rivalries among the European empires in the last quarter of the 19th century. Africa was partitioned without wars between European nations. The later years of the 19th century saw a transition from "informal imperialism" - military influence and economic dominance - to direct rule.

Areas of Africa controlled by European colonial powers in 1913 (Belgian (yellow), British (red), French (blue), German (turquoise), Italian (green), Portuguese (purple), and Spanish (pink) Empires)

Source: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa
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