Gunpowder and Colonial Campaigns in Africa

by

Tim Stapleton

• LAST REVIEWED: 19 July 2023
• LAST MODIFIED: 29 May 2014
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0069

Introduction

By around 1880, European colonial intrusion in Africa consisted of a series of coastal enclaves and settlements in the Cape in the far south and Algeria in the far north. Up to that point, Europeans had been kept out of most of the interior of Africa by deadly tropical diseases for which they had little immunity and powerful African states. Most Africans lived in independent societies that ranged from highly centralized kingdoms to decentralized “stateless” groups. This changed rapidly from around 1880 to 1914 when, in a process called “the Scramble for Africa,” European powers conquered all of Africa except for Ethiopia, which defended itself from Italian invasion, and Liberia, which was a settlement of freed slaves from the United States. On the European side, important factors which facilitated this process included superior firepower from new magazine-fed rifles and machine guns, extreme racism, and nationalistic competition. Since they had planned the conquest at the 1884 Berlin Conference, the European powers did not fight each other over parts of Africa. On the African side, rulers did not perceive the European invasion as a common threat and reacted separately, some cooperating and others resisting. While the initial colonial conquest was often achieved by privately owned chartered companies with commercial interests in a particular area, financial problems meant that the respective European governments took over the colonies within a few years. Over the years, various theories have sought to explain this dramatic conquest, including Hobson 1902, which sees it as related to the rise of greedy ultrarich businessmen; Lenin 1963, which claims it represented the last stage of the capitalist system which was beginning to tear itself apart; Robinson and Gallagher 1961, which explains it in terms of European powers trying to secure points of strategic important; and Hopkins 1973 (all cited under General Overviews), which demonstrates that the European desire to secure sources of raw materials related to industry motived the scramble for West Africa. In Southern Africa, the discovery of valuable minerals, diamonds in the late 1860s and gold in the 1880s, prompted the British to secure the interior, which led to a series of wars and eventually the creation of the self-governing and white settler–dominated Union of South Africa in 1910.

General Overviews

There are a number of broad overviews of European colonial conquest in Africa. Hobson 1902 offers a contemporary view, Robinson and Gallagher 1961 explain colonialism in strategic terms, Lenin 1963 places colonialism within a Marxist framework, Hopkins 1973 looks specifically at West Africa, Farwell 1985 focuses on the British role, Boahen 1990 offers a broad synthesis of the scholarship up to that time, Pakenham 1991 presents an epic narrative, and Vandervort 1998 emphasizes the military aspects of the conquest by condensing the relevant literature.

• Boahen, A. Adu, ed. General History of Africa, VII: Africa under Colonial Domination, 1880–1935. London: James Currey, 1990.

  NNNA broad but detailed overview which constitutes part of a much larger chronicle of African history assembled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

• Farwell, Byron. Queen Victoria’s Little Wars. London: W.W. Norton, 1985.

  NNNOriginally published in 1973, this book presents a concise overview of Britain’s colonial wars during the mid- to late 19th century, many of which happened in Africa.

• Hobson, John. Imperialism: A Study. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1902.

  NNNThe first attempt to explain the Scramble for Africa, published when it was still happening. A British social reformer, Hobson saw the new imperialism of his time as resulting from the decline of wholesome small-scale capitalism and the rise of greedy magnates like Cecil Rhodes.

• Hopkins, A. G. An Economic History of West Africa. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973.

  NNNA scholarly and highly regarded study that sees the conquest of West Africa as rooted in the economic depression of the 1870s, which made European merchants want to cut their costs by undermining African intermediaries in the old coastal trade and gaining direct control over the sources of raw materials.

• Lenin, V. I. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1963.

  NNNFirst published in 1917, Lenin’s pamphlet should be seen within the context of the First World War and his revolutionary agenda. He regarded the Scramble for Africa as evidence that the capitalist system was pulling itself apart in the search for new areas to invest surplus capital.

• Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent, 1876–1912. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

  NNNA popular history told in epic style.

• Robinson, Ronald, and John Gallagher. Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism. London: Macmillan, 1961.

  NNNRejecting Lenin’s economic approach, these British historians saw the Scramble as happening because of the desire by European powers to secure points of strategic importance such as the Cape and the Suez Canal, which resulted in a domino effect of similar territorial seizures.

• Vandervort, Bruce. Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830–1914. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

  NNNA scholarly yet accessible overview of the European military conquest of Africa.