Explain what the “scramble for Africa” was and then discuss the nature of the colonial political systems that were established on the African continent in its aftermath.
The Scramble for Africa is one of the best examples of colonization in world history. Europe managed to colonize the entire African continent in a period of roughly twenty five years, spanning from 1875 to 1900. The Berlin Conference of 1884 was a meeting between European nations to create new borders and thereby create new nations to peacefully divide Africa among them for colonization. The conference was convened by Portugal but led by Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the newly united Germany. The resulting agreement, the General Act of the 1885 Conference of Berlin, banned the slave trade in name (though not in reality, especially in the Belgian-controlled Congo Free State) but otherwise encouraged European nations to aggressively colonize and exploit Africa's human and natural resources or to lose their claims under the Principle of Effectivity, which allowed signatories of the agreement to jump each other's claims if the claims were not being fully exploited.
The quest for power by European nations was only one of the driving forces for this race for colonization. The geographical location and the natural resources to be exploited in certain regions of the continent were important factors in the race for land. Another factor that contributed to the colonization of Africa was the end of the slave trade. The need for new capitalism to exist between Europe and Africa after the call for the abolition of slavery became great. European traders were searching for new avenues for making money, as well as new ways to exploit of the natives of Africa, due to their perceived weakness as a people, made the quest for occupation relentless by European nations. Political, economical and social ambitions all led Europe to partition Africa into separate colonies and the race to see what country...