The Berlin Conference

28.1: The Berlin Conference

28.1.1: European Exploration of Africa

At the beginning of the 19th century, European knowledge of geography of Sub-Saharan Africa was still rather limited; it was left to 19th-century European explorers (including those searching for the famed source of the Nile) to discover detail such as the continent’s geological makeup.

Learning Objective

Explain why Europeans were interested in obtaining land in Africa

Key Points

  • The geography of North Africa has been reasonably well-known since classical antiquity in Greco-Roman geography.
  • Major exploration by Europeans, particularly of the coastal territories of African, began in the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, led by Portuguese explorers, most notably Prince Henry, known as the Navigator.
  • From the 15th-19th century, little exploration of the interior of Africa was done by Europeans. Focus on Africa was limited to the transatlantic slave trade.
  • Starting in the early 19th century, European land holdings in Africa began to shift and increase.
  • In the mid-19th century, Protestant missions were carrying on active missionary work, most famously by David Livingstone.
  • In November 1855, Livingstone became the first European to see the famous Victoria Falls, named after the Queen of the United Kingdom.
  • Henry Morton Stanley, who had in 1871 succeeded in finding and supporting Livingstone (originating the famous line “Dr. Livingstone, I presume”), led one of the most memorable of all exploring expeditions in Africa, circumnavigating Victoria Nyanza (Lake Victoria) and Lake Tanganyika.

Key Terms

Henry Morton Stanley
A Welsh-American journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, he reportedly asked, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” He is also known for his search for the source of the Nile, his work in and development of the Congo Basin region in association with King Leopold II of the Belgians, and commanding the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition.
David Livingstone
A Scottish congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa, one of the most popular national heroes of the late-19th-century in Victorian Britain. He had a mythical status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: Protestant missionary martyr, working-class “rags-to-riches” inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial and colonial expansion.
pygmy
A member of an ethnic group whose average height is unusually short; anthropologists define it as a population with average height for adult men of less than 150 cm (4 feet 11 inches).

Early Exploration of Africa

The geography of North Africa has been reasonably well-known since classical antiquity in Greco-Roman geography. The exploration of Sub-Saharan Africa begins with the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, pioneered by posts along the coast during active colonization of the New World. Exploration of the interior of Africa was thus mostly left to the Arab slave traders, who in tandem with the Muslim conquest of the Sudan established far-reaching networks and supported the economy of a number of Sahelian kingdoms during the 15th to 18th centuries.

Portuguese explorer Prince Henry, known as the Navigator, was the first European to methodically explore Africa and the oceanic route to the Indies. From his residence in the Algarve region of southern Portugal, he directed successive expeditions to circumnavigate Africa and reach India. In 1420, Henry sent an expedition to secure the uninhabited but strategic island of Madeira. In 1425, he tried to secure the Canary Islands as well, but these were already under firm Castilian control. In 1431, another Portuguese expedition reached and annexed the Azores.

Portuguese presence in Africa soon interfered with existing Arab trade interests. By 1583, the Portuguese established themselves in Zanzibar and on the Swahili coast. The Kingdom of Congo was converted to Christianity in 1495, its king taking the name of João I. The Portuguese also established trade interests in the Kingdom of Mutapa in the 16th century, and in 1629 placed a puppet ruler on the throne.

Beginning in the 17th century, the Netherlands began exploring and colonizing Africa. While the Dutch were waging a long war of independence against Spain, Portugal united with Spain from 1580 to 1640. As a result, the growing colonial ambitions of the Netherlands were mostly directed against Portugal. For this purpose, two Dutch companies were founded: the West Indies Company, with power over all the Atlantic Ocean, and the East Indies Company, with power over the Indian Ocean.

Almost at the same time as the Dutch, other European powers attempted to create their own outposts for the African slave trade. As early as 1530, English merchant adventurers started trading in West Africa, coming into conflict with Portuguese troops. In 1581, Francis Drake reached the Cape of Good Hope. In 1663, the English built Fort James in Gambia. One year later, another English colonial expedition attempted to settle southern Madagascar, resulting in the death of most of the colonists. The English forts on the West African coast were eventually taken by the Dutch.

In 1626, the French Compagnie de l’Occident was created. This company expelled the Dutch from Senegal, making it the first French domain in Africa. France also set sights on Madagascar, the island used since 1527 as a stop in travels to India.

Overall, European exploration of Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries was very limited. Instead they focused on the slave trade, which only required coastal bases and items to trade. The real exploration of the African interior would start well into the 19th century.

 

19th Century Exploration

Although the Napoleonic Wars distracted the attention of Europe from exploratory work in Africa, those wars nevertheless exercised great influence on the future of the continent, both in Egypt and South Africa. The occupation of Egypt (1798–1803), first by France and then by Great Britain, resulted in an effort by the Ottoman Empire to regain direct control over that country. In 1811, Mehemet Ali established an almost independent state, and from 1820 onward established Egyptian rule over the eastern Sudan. In South Africa, the struggle with Napoleon caused the United Kingdom to take possession of the Dutch settlements at the Cape. In 1814, Cape Colony, continuously occupied by British troops since 1806, was formally ceded to the British crown.

Meanwhile, considerable changes had been made in other parts of the continent. The occupation of Algiers by France in 1830 put an end to the piracy of the Barbary states. Egyptian authority continued to expand southward, with the consequent additions to knowledge of the Nile. The city of Zanzibar, on the island of that name, rapidly attained importance. Accounts of a vast inland sea and the discovery of the snow-clad mountains of Kilimanjaro in 1840–1848 stimulated European desire for further knowledge about Africa.

In the mid-19th century, Protestant missions were carrying on active work on the Guinea coast, in South Africa, and in the Zanzibar dominions. Missionaries visited little-known regions and peoples, and in many instances became explorers and pioneers of trade and empire. David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary, had been engaged since 1840 in work north of the Orange River. In 1849, Livingstone crossed the Kalahari Desert from south to north and reached Lake Ngami. Between 1851 and 1856, he traversed the continent from west to east, discovering the great waterways of the upper Zambezi River. In November 1855, Livingstone became the first European to see the famous Victoria Falls, named after the Queen of the United Kingdom. From 1858 to 1864, the lower Zambezi, the Shire River, and Lake Nyasa were explored by Livingstone. Nyasa was first reached by the confidential slave of António da Silva Porto, a Portuguese trader established at Bié in Angola who crossed Africa during 1853–1856 from Benguella to the mouth of the Rovuma. A prime goal for explorers was to locate the source of the River Nile. Expeditions by Burton and Speke (1857–1858) and Speke and Grant (1863) located Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. It was eventually proved to be the latter from which the Nile flowed.

Henry Morton Stanley, who had in 1871 succeeded in finding and supporting Livingstone (originating the famous line “Dr. Livingstone, I presume”), started again for Zanzibar in 1874. In one of the most memorable exploring expeditions in Africa, Stanley circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza (Lake Victoria) and Lake Tanganyika. Striking farther inland to the Lualaba, he followed that river down to the Atlantic Ocean—which he reached in August 1877—and proved it to be the Congo.

In 1895, the British South Africa Company hired the American scout Frederick Russell Burnham to look for minerals and ways to improve river navigation in the central and southern Africa region. Burnham oversaw and led the Northern Territories British South Africa Exploration Company expedition that first found major copper deposits north of the Zambezi in North-Eastern Rhodesia. Along the Kafue River, Burnham saw many similarities to copper deposits he had worked in the United States and encountered native peoples wearing copper bracelets. Copper rapidly became the primary export of Central Africa and remains essential to the economy today.

Explorers were also active in other parts of the continent. Southern Morocco, the Sahara, and the Sudan were traversed in many directions between 1860 and 1875 by Georg Schweinfurth and Gustav Nachtigal. These travelers not only added considerably to geographical knowledge, but obtained invaluable information concerning the people, languages, and natural history of the countries in which they sojourned. Among the discoveries of Schweinfurth was one that confirmed Greek legends of the existence beyond Egypt of a “pygmy race.” But the first western discoverer of the pygmies of Central Africa was Paul Du Chaillu, who found them in the Ogowe district of the west coast in 1865, five years before Schweinfurth’s first meeting with them. Du Chaillu had previously, through journeys in the Gabon region between 1855 and 1859, confirmed existence of the gorilla, previously thought to be a legend by Europeans.

 

A map showing the routes of European explorers in Africa, depicted as red lines, numbered to correspond with the explorer.

European Exploration of Africa: Routes of European explorers in Africa to 1853.

Attributions