European Trading Interests in Africa before Partition

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, events took place which changed the face of Africa and which can only be understood by tracing their origin and development outside Africa. In 1879, more than 90 percent of the continent was ruled by Africans. By 1900, all but a tiny fraction of it was being governed by European powers. By about 1914, the lives of almost all Africans were being deeply affected by the changes brought about by these foreign rulers. The European powers partitioned Africa among themselves with such haste, like players in a rough game, that the process has been called ‘the scramble for Africa’. The motives for this partition, the reason why the European powers acted as they did, and when they did, are a part of European history rather than African history, and it is to these European affairs that we must now turn our attention.

We have to remember, first of all, that throughout the first sixty-five years of the nineteenth century, the only great powers in western Europe were Britain and France. Germany and Italy did not yet exist as separate and unified states. Of the lesser powers, Holland and Denmark actually abandoned their African possessions (trading posts on the Gold Coast) during the nineteenth century, leaving only Portugal as a minor competitor with France and Britain.