Berlin Conference Research Paper ⋆ Research Paper Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

This sample Berlin Conference Research Paper is published for educational and informational purposes only. Free research papers are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a high quality research paper on history topics at affordable price please use custom research paper writing services.

Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of the Berlin West African Conference of 1884–1885 was not to partition control of Africa amongst the European powers. Officially, the conference merely established free trade areas on the Congo basin and set rules for new occupations of Africa’s coast, but in the periphery, representatives during the conference (not at the conference) negotiated territories.

The Berlin West African Conference of 1884–1885 was the result of a joint initiative of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) and French Prime Minister Jules Ferry (1832–1893), undertaken in response to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 26 February 1884, by which Britain recognized Portuguese sovereignty over the entire mouth of the Congo River. France and Germany were opposed to this unilateral action, and they invited Great Britain and Portugal to take part in an international conference to be held in Berlin. The conference was to deal with freedom of trade in the basin and mouth of the Congo, with freedom of navigation on the Congo and the Niger, and with defining the formalities to be observed when taking possession of new territories on the African coast. After Britain and Portugal agreed to participate, other countries were also invited to attend, beginning with those having interests in the regions concerned—the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and the United States. The International Congo Association, although a non-state actor with ostensibly humanitarian aims, but in reality an instrument for Belgian King Leopold II’s imperialist ambitions and a check on colonialist activities that could threaten Belgium’s neutrality, was also present. The remaining nations were invited purely for show, or, as the letter of invitation more elegantly put it, “to ensure general agreement on the conference resolutions.” These countries were Austria- Hungary, Sweden-Norway, Denmark, Italy, Turkey, and Russia. The invitations went out in October and the conference opened on 15 November 1884.

The Conference

Already during the opening session the British representative, Edward Malet, made it clear that Britain considered the Niger as its exclusive sphere of influence and therefore refused to discuss it on a par with the Congo. With Britain indisputably the paramount power on the Niger, the others agreed, and thus in actual practice the Berlin West African Conference became the Berlin Congo Conference, the name by which it is now generally known. Two important points remained to be dealt with: determining the size of that part of the Congo area where free trade would be the rule, and the formalities for new occupations on the African coasts.

The general feeling of the conference was that the free-trade area should be as large as possible. The result was that two free-trade zones were approved. The first was defined as “the basin of the Congo and its tributaries” and stretched from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes in the Great Rift Valley of east central Africa. On the coast the northern boundary was fixed at 2°302 south, while the mouth of the Loge River was adopted as the southern limit. This coastal outlet was therefore fairly narrow, but immediately behind it the region fanned out broadly to the north as well as to the south. To the east of it lay the other free trade area, termed the eastern maritime zone, which stretched from the Great Lakes to the Indian Ocean. Its northern coastal boundary was fixed at 5° north and its southern boundary at the mouth of the Zambezi River. The two free-trade territories, the Congo basin and the eastern zone, were jointly referred to as the conventional Congo basin.

The last item on the agenda was the formalities for new occupations. This point is the most important historically, because it has given root to the theory that at the Berlin Conference Africa was divided up by the European powers. This is not true. As the invitation letter indicated, the conference was only to deal with new occupations, not already existing ones, and only with the African coasts, not with the interior. These restrictions are quite understandable. About the interior Europeans and Americans knew next to nothing, and in order to deal with the already existing claims, they would have had to make an inventory of all the regions concerned and all the powers involved. When one delegate suggested doing that, the French ambassador observed that that would be “tantamount to a partition of Africa,” which was not within the competence of the conference. Therefore it was decided, that the conference should stick to the text of the letter of invitation and only deal with new occupations on the African coasts. Therefore in the General Act of the Conference it was declared that any signatory of the Act that was taking possession of a new coastal region or setting up a protectorate over it had to notify the other signatories of its actions and to exercise a measure of effective authority. In light of the fact that scarcely any coastal parts remained unoccupied, however, in practice this proviso meant virtually nothing.

Implications of the Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference has often been described as the conference at which the Europeans divided up Africa. The first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, for example, wrote, “The original carve-up of Africa was arranged at the Berlin Conference.” Many textbooks, too, have expressed this mistaken point of view. Africa was not divided at Berlin, and the subject was not even on the agenda; indeed, the idea of a partition of Africa was explicitly rejected by the conference.

There was, however, some partitioning going on in Berlin, not at the conference but in the corridors. That was an altogether different business, one not of principles and international law but of negotiating and horse-trading. That was not a matter of conference diplomacy, meaning multilateral diplomacy, but of bilateral diplomacy, and though it took place during the conference, it did not take place at the conference. The Congo Free State founded by Leopold II of Belgium, for example, was seeking recognition and acceptance of its borders. Some of that business had already been done before the conference opened, but the most important bilateral treaties between the Free State and the Western powers were signed in Berlin. The result of this was the creation of one of the biggest European colonies in Africa, the Congo Free State, which would later become the Belgian Congo.

Bibliography:

Crowe, S.E. (1942). The Berlin West African Conference, 1884–1885. London: Longmans.
De Courcel, G. (1935). The influence of the Berlin Conference of 1885 on international rights. Paris: Les Editions internationales.
Forster, S., Mommsen, W. J., & Robinson, R. (Eds.). (1988). Bismarck, Europe and Africa: The Berlin African Conference, 1884–1885, and the onset of partition. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
Gavin, R. J., & Betley, J. A. (Eds.). (1973). The scramble for Africa: Documents on the Berlin West African Conference and related subjects, 1884–1885. Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press.
Keith, A. B. (1919). The Belgian Congo and the Berlin Act. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press.
Nkrumah, K., (1967) Challenge of the Congo. New York: International Publishers.
Stengers, J. (1953). Regarding the Berlin Act, or How a legend is born. Zaire, 8, 839–844.
Wesseling, H. L. (1996). Divide and rule. The partition of Africa, 1880–1914. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

See also:

Free research papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom research paper on any topic and get your high quality paper at affordable price.