2.3 Colonization of Africa

• The scramble for and partition of Africa
• The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 and its significance
• Key players in the colonization of Africa
• Economic, political, social and strategic reasons for colonization
• Why colonialism was unfair to Africans
• Justification for ending colonization and the rise of nationalism

• discuss the significance of the Berlin conference in relation to scramble for and partition of Africa
• evaluate how key players determined the colonization of Africa
• discern the extent to which different reasons influenced colonisation of Africa
• justify why it was inevitable to end colonialization of Africa to promote a sense of nationalism
• appreciate the justification of the end of colonization of Africa to promote a sense of nationalism

“How did Otto von Bismarck fast-track the process towards the scramble for and partition of Africa?”

“Why was colonialism unfair to Africans?”

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1. The scramble and the Berlin Conference
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   How Europe went from coastal trading posts to claiming an entire continent in thirty years, and what was agreed at Berlin.
2. The key players and how they shaped colonization
   40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
   The individuals, companies and states that determined how Africa was colonised - and those who resisted.
3. Why Africa was colonised, and why it had to end
   40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
   Weighing the economic, political, social and strategic causes, the injustice of colonial rule, and the case for independence.
4. Africa before the scramble
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   What was actually there in 1870 - states, trade, cities and law - and why "opening up Africa" is a phrase to distrust.
5. Bismarck and the Berlin Conference
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   Why the German Chancellor called a conference about a continent Germany barely touched, and how that fast-tracked the partition.
6. Effective occupation and the race it started
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   The rule that a claim must be backed by real control, and how it turned paper claims into a scramble on the ground.
7. The economic engine of colonisation
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   What industrial Europe needed, how colonies were organised to supply it, and why African railways still run to the sea.
8. How colonisation was actually carried out
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   Treaties, chartered companies, force, divide and rule, and government through invented chiefs.
9. African responses to colonisation
   40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
   Resistance, negotiation, accommodation and alliance - and why judging African rulers requires knowing what they knew.
10. Why colonialism was unfair to Africans
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    The specific injustices - land, labour, tax, racial law, exclusion and cultural suppression - and how each is answered in the 2010 Constitution.