The Changing Balance of Power in 19th-Cen. Africa

Historiographical Questions

• Why did the relationship between Europeans and Africans shift towards colonialism in the middle of the 19th century?

• How significant were local African factors?

Africa in the 19th Century• Trade patterns (with Europeans) well

established—400 years

• Coastal communities well acquainted with individual Europeans and European culture (unlike other areas)

• Post-1807 crackdown on the Atlantic Slave Trade dramatically changed the nature of trade, but could not immediately end three centuries of practice

• 19th cen. had particular Islamic significance

Trade and Political Authority

• Trade could provide a base for strong centralized authority, but it also had potential to create new elites

• Where political authority was built on control of trade, legitimacy required continued trade (and prosperity)

• In some cases, entrepreneurs could parlay wealth into political status, undercutting existing systems of lineage and aristocracy

• New wealth (and new ideas) could threaten previously held values

Foreshadowing Colonial Incursion: Kingdom of Kongo/Angola

• Initial Portuguese contact included Catholic priests

• Sense of similarity between Portuguese and Konglese

• By c. 1500, key government leaders had converted to Catholicism

• King of Kongo viewed King of Portugal as ally—seized French ships who tried to trade “illegally”

• Religious conversion produced social/political dissent, weakened monarchy, promoted factionalism

• Portuguese began to try to influence court politics and succession

• King of Kongo lost even more legitimacy, civil war began to disrupt trade

• Portuguese agent took on more and more political power, Portugal eventually claimed the region as a colony

Another Example of Local Factors: The Gold Coast

• By the mid-18th century, British had gained control of the coast from the Portuguese and the Dutch

• Asante Kingdom (inland) grew wealthy and powerful through trade with the coast

• Fante groups along the coast sought protection from Asante from the British

• In 1817, the British representative declared the Fante to be “under British protection”

• This met with violent opposition from the Asante, and was renounced in 1828

• British influence grew, and missions and missionaries arrived

• Although the British government sought to disentangle itself from alliances with the Fante, the Fante themselves formed the Fante Confederation to demand British intervention to protect them from Asante encroachment

• By 1874, the British had formalized its claim to the Gold Coast, which they defined to include both the Fante and Asante

Religious Revival• Millenarian significance

to 19th cen. in Islam• Rise of jihad states in

West African interior—aimed at overthrowing nominally Muslim governments (1st half of the century)—Sokoto Caliphate most prominent example

• Mahdist movements (2nd half of the century)

Explaining the “Scramble for Africa”

Explanatory Factors to Consider

• Missions• Abolitionism• “Legitimate Commerce”• Settler Colonies• Communications and Transportation Technology• Medical Technology• Military Technology• Intra-European Politics

Missions to Africa

• London Missionary Society founded 1795

• Non-Conformist Protestant missions enjoyed broad public support

• Churches/missions a major force in the abolitionist movement

“Man-on-the-Spot”

• Initially, traders—but missionaries were some of the most influential “men”

• Supplied governments and the public with information about African geography and cultures

Impact of Abolitionism

• British ban on the slave trade (1807) increases British power (in particular, naval power)

• Turns much of the supply of slaves inward, driving social activists in Europe to demand intervention to end slavery in Africa

• Creates class of “recaptives”• Drives the rise of “legitimate commerce”

Recaptives

• Removed by British from “illegal” slave ships

• Settled in Sierra Leone, some sent to Nigeria as missionaries

• Samuel Ajayi Crowther

“Legitimate Commerce”

• Redirection of slaves into plantation agriculture

• Products included cocoa and palm oil

• Tied African farmers and merchants into world markets

• Enticed European chartered companies

Settler Colonies

• Possible primarily in “Mediterranean” climates, although Portuguese settled on coasts of Angola and Mozambique in the 16th and 17th centuries

• Algeria claimed by France from 1830, settlement extensive but restricted primarily to coast.

• Cape Colony settled by Dutch in 1652, taken over by Britain in 1806—Britain undertook a campaign of settlement

• Early settler colonies experienced many of the same exploitative dynamics as later empires, but also witnessed distinctive types of cooperation between Europeans and Africans

Communications and Travel

• 1850s-1860s: steamships became an efficient mode of shipping and travel

• 1869: opening of Suez Canal

• 1870s-80s: telegraph cables laid connecting Africa with Europe

Advances in Medicine

• Quinine prophylaxis came into use in the 1840s

• Bleedings and purges fell out of favor as remedies for fever

• Theories of sanitation began to develop

Military Technology

• Industrial techniques transformed the production of guns

• Repeating guns introduced in the 1870s

• 1884: Maxim gun revolutionizes firepower

Intra-European Politics

• Increasing industrial rivalries, especially between Britain and Germany

• Shift away from “free trade”

• Hardening racial attitudes

1884 Berlin Conference

• Recognized Leopold’s “International Association”

• Partition of African territory largely theoretical

• Imperial claims required “effective occupation”