The second historical series covers the Scramble for Africa between 1884 through to the beginning of World War I. With Justin Podur and David Power.
Scramble for Africa 1: Pre-Scramble Africa – the Slave Trade and the Gold Coast
A new Civilizations series on the Scramble for Africa. We begin our series on this decisive event in world history with a multi-episode survey of pre-colonial Africa. In this episode we talk about the devastation wrought by the European slave trade and focus on Africa’s West Coast (then known as the Gold Coast) before the scramble. There’s also a bit of debating Afrocentrism (you can imagine who takes which side of the debate).
Scramble for Africa 2: Africa resists the slave trade
Take a tour with us of a few of the African kingdoms that tried to resist the slave trade – before, in some cases, giving in. King Affonse of Kongo, Queen Nzinga of Matamba, Agaja of Dahomey (and others from that kingdom), the Asante in the west, and then east we have Abyssinia, the Bachwezi, and in the south we talk about Shaka Zulu and about the Merina kingdom in Madagascar. A short debate about the European and Arab slave trades, and then some notes about nutrition in Africa before colonialism (spoiler: Africans ate much better before the Europeans colonized them, which involved stealing their food).
Scramble for Africa 3: Theories of Imperialism
Our third instalment before we really dig into the actual scramble for Africa is to give you a flavor for how we’re interpreting what we read. Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism as an explanation for WWI, but much of what he wrote was about Africa; WEB Du Bois wrote an essay with the same intent and a similar argument, called The African Roots of the War; and of course Walter Rodney returns to our discussion to prepare us to get into the history. Dave makes some critiques of Lenin (and Hobson) citing Fieldhouse, and concludes the episode with his own multicausal interpretation for the scramble, which was how he taught it in high school.
Scramble for Africa 4: Britain Takes Egypt with Finance (and War), 1882
In 1882 at the battle of Tel el Kabir, Garnet Wolesley (who had suppressed the Riel Resistance in 1870) defeated the Egyptian nationalists led by al-Arabi. This was the final blow in a long imperialist campaign to take Egypt from the ambitious modernizers that had ruled it from the 1820s. The epic financial swindle involved are far too little known, but luckily they were chronicled in amazing detail by Theodore Rothstein, in a 1910 book called Egypt’s Ruin, with an introduction by Wilfred Scawen Blunt. Rothstein and Blunt are interesting characters themselves, but the story they tell has many resonances and should be carefully attended to by anyone who’s ever wondered what the IMF, World Bank, and US military are up to today… our 4th instalment in the Scramble for Africa series.
Scramble for Africa 5: How Menelik Kept Ethiopia Independent at the Battle of Adwa, 1896
Fifth instalment in our Scramble for Africa series is the story of Abyssinia (aka Ethiopia), which managed to maintain its independence during the Scramble for Africa despite all the efforts of the would-be Italian colonizers (who would be back in the 20th century, but not during the Scramble). We focus on the rulers of Abyssinia but we get into the colonizer’s intrigues too, concluding with the decisive battle of Adwa, at which an African victory threw off European racial science so badly that Europe had to “whiten” the Ethiopian King Menelik II and the Ethiopians in their race theories.
Scramble for Africa 6: Sudan – the fall of Gordon and the rise and fall of the Mahdi
The British imperialists take Sudan. First, they send Gordon, acting in the name of the Khedive of Egypt. That doesn’t go so well. The next expedition culminates in the brutal battle of Omdurman in 1898, the quintessential colonial military mismatch and the demonstration for the colonial use of the machine gun. We tell Gordon’s story in detail, and tell the story of the Mahdi and his successor the Khalifa, also in some detail, trying to get at least a little bit beyond what his British enemies (and captives) said about him.
Scramble for Africa 7: The Continent Carved Up at the Berlin Conference 1884
After six episodes of preparation we are ready to talk about the famous Berlin Conference of 1884 where Africa was actually carved up. Along the way you meet some of the most legendary villains – Stanley and Leopold (though you still haven’t met Rhodes), also Livingstone and Brazza. We end in Berlin itself and at the Berlin Conference 1884.
Scramble for Africa 8: Belgium Steals Congo
This one is about the precolonial African powers in the Congo – Zanzibar’s representative Tippu Tip, Msiri of Katanga, and a few others (but mainly these two). We talk about their rise in the context of growing European power, and their eventual fall to Belgium – although as you’ll see it wasn’t exactly Belgium, but Leopold II and his British and German allies that made the theft of Congo possible. Another key piece – the centre of the board – falls in the Scramble for Africa.
Scramble for Africa 9a: South Africa pt1 – Frontier Wars and Settler-Colonialism
The wealthiest and most powerful state in Africa is South Africa, and its fate has been pivotal to the whole continent. This was no less true during the Scramble for Africa, which is why this series will have multiple episodes on South Africa. In this one, the so called “frontier wars” between the Europeans and the Xhosa; the Cattle Killing Movement; how the Cape Colony fell into British hands, the Boers and the British Empire, the Dutch East India Company, Canada and other analogies…
The main reference for the five episodes of Scramble for South Africa is Bernard Magubane. 1991. The Making of a Racist State: British Imperialism and the Union of South Africa 1875-1910. Africa World Press. We also use Pakenham (The Scramble for Africa) and of course Rodney (How Europe Underdeveloped Africa).
Scramble for Africa 9b: South Africa pt2 – The Zulus from Shaka to Cetshwayo
Part 2 of our series on the Scramble in South Africa takes us back to the Zulu modernizer, Shaka, in the early 19th century, all the way to the end of the Anglo-Zulu War between the British imperialists and the Zulus ruled by Cetshwayo. The land theft and swindling you’ve come to expect from the Scramble for Africa combine here with some sharpening of white supremacist ideology, a lot of which it turns out was developed specifically to find a theory of how and why the British Empire should settle and rule South Africa.
Scramble for Africa 9c: South Africa pt3 – The Boers before the War
Continuing the history of the Scramble for South Africa, we talk about the Boers, the Dutch settlers and their attacks on the Africans and then on the British conflicts with them, up to the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley that might just be the event that set off the entire scramble. South Africa’s unbelievable mineral wealth and what it did to British imperial minds; who’s responsible for apartheid; and more, in this episode.
Scramble for Africa 9d: South Africa pt4 – The Hubris of Cecil Rhodes
The Scramble for Africa cannot be encapsulated in the career of any single imperialist, but if it could, that imperialist would be Cecil Rhodes. From the Rhodes Scholarship to the falling statues, Rhodes’s impact is still ubiquitous today. We look at the words and deeds of the exemplar of the Scramble, from his beginnings to the Jameson Raid which made the Boer War inevitable.
Scramble for Africa 9e: South Africa pt5 – The Boer War 1899-1902
Our fifth and concluding episode on the Scramble in South Africa is on the (Second) Boer War from 1899-1902. We talk about how it started and why, the military details, the concentration camps, the struggle to keep it a “White Man’s War” for fear of a Lincoln showing up, and the implications (it’s clear who won the war, but who won the peace?) As for who lost the peace, the answer is clear – the Africans. How it all happened, in this episode.
Scramble for Africa 10: Saving souls and stealing cattle – the British take Uganda and Kenya
From the Imperial British East Africa Company to the British East Africa Protectorate, we trace the missionary mischief that led to the British taking Uganda and the many wars (called “expeditions”) that led to the British taking Kenya. In the process you’ll meet Mwanga of Buganda, Kabarega of Bunyoro, and the treacherously assassinated Arap Samoei of the Nandi.
REFERENCES:
Kenneth Ingham. 1968. A History of East Africa. Longman’s.
A.T. Matson. 1972. Nandi Resistance to British Rule 1890-1906. East African Publishing House.
Robert M. Maxon. 1989. Conflict and Accommodation in Western Kenya: The Gusii and the British, 1907-1963. Associated University Presses.
H.S.K. Mwaniki. 1973. The Living History of Embu and Mbeere to 1906.
Henry A. Mwanzi. 1977. A History of the Kipsigis. East African Literature Bureau.
Bethwell Ogot, ed. 1974. Zamani: A Survey of East African History. East African Publishing House.
UPCOMING: West Africa, France’s Scramble, Germany’s Scramble, Portugal/Italy/Spain in the Scramble, and the Conclusion which sets up WWI…
And we continue our world history in the 2oth century courses: World War Civ, covering World War 1, World War 2, and the Cold War.
Scramble for Africa 11: Theodore Herzl, the Uganda Plan, and the Zionist Scramble for East Africa
At the first Zionist Congress in 1897, delegates agreed to pursue the colonization of Palestine. But at the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903, Theodor Herzl presented a proposal for a colony in East Africa – he presented it as a mere stepping stone to Zion, but it caused bitter divisions among the delegates. We tell the little-known story of the British negotiations with the Zionist movement for a colony in Africa, centering on the founder himself, Theodore Herzl (not to be confused with a contemporary Viennese colonialist utopian named Theodore Hertzka, whose novel also became the basis for a failed African colonization scheme…). Our last stop in the British Scramble for East Africa (West Africa’s next).
Main Readings:
Robert Weisbord, 1968. African Zion: the attempt to establish a Jewish colony in the East Africa Protectorate, 1903-1905.
Jacques Kornberg, 1993. Theodore Herzl: From Assimilation to Zionism.
Scramble for Africa 12: The British Scramble for West Africa
We start this episode with a few minutes of reading reviews – from fans and not-fans! Perhaps this will inspire you to review us too. Then we’re on to the British Scrambling for West Africa. Some of the Africans who fought back, of course, notably Bai Bureh and Yaa Asentewaa. Lord Lugard’s ideas of the Dual Mandate and the debate on indirect rule. The trickery and wars that led to the consolidation of Nigeria into a British colony. Some tales near the end of the incredible missing imperial records — too many to be coincidental.
Scramble for Africa 12b: The British Sack Benin in 1897
Using Dan Hicks’s 2020 book The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution, Justin tells the story of how the British destroyed Benin, stole their stuff, and put it in museums. It’s part of the story of the British Scramble for West Africa, but we give it its own episode to show you Hicks’s research.
Scramble for Africa 13: France in the Scramble – the Algeria Precedent and Abdelkader’s Resistance
We talked about France’s colonization of Algeria back in Civilizations Episode 15 (in August 2020). We revisit it now, as France’s entry point into the Scramble for Africa. Algeria was France’s template for colonizing Africa and many of the dynamics of France’s African colonial crimes can be seen developing in Algeria. We end up focusing quite a bit on Abd el Kader’s Resistance to colonization. And the depopulation of Algeria under colonialism: between 1830-1872, the country’s population went from 3 milion to 2.125 million, by one estimate.
Among others, we’re using Olivier le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser, Exterminer: Sur le Guerre et l’Etat Colonial.
After a bit of comparing and contrasting French colonialism with the British type, Dave tells us about the French Foreign Legion; Then we’re on to a key piece in France’s Scramble for Africa, the theft of Tunis from the Bey, Muhammad Sadok. In the process, the French colonizers insisted they were saving Sadok Bey from a threat from local tribes. He insisted he didn’t need the help, but in the end, Tunisia became a French protectorate.
Scramble for Africa 15: France Seizes West Africa
In this episode France seizes the territories of the Tukolors (overthrowing Sultan Ahmadu), battles Samori Toure, and fights a long war with King Benanzin of Dahomey. Some observations about the differences between France’s notions of colonialism and those of the British, in whose footsteps the French colonizers hoped to follow. Among other things, we’re reading Pigaud and Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency.
Scramble for Africa 16: Female Caligula DESTROYS Madagascar!
Clickbait title aside, this episode continues to follow the French as they Scramble for Africa. In this case, how France managed to steal the enormous island of Madagascar from its powerful African rulers. We of necessity do tell the story of Queen Ranavalona, but also the outrageous deeds of the French military, the dastardly things they said, and some of the rebellions of the Malagasy that started straight away and continued until independence, including the menelamba movement aka the Rising of the Red Shawls.
Readings:
Keith Laidler, 2005. FEMALE CALIGULA: RANAVALONA, THE MAD QUEEN OF MADAGASCAR.
Stephen Ellis. 1985. The Rising of the Red Shawls: A Revolt in Madagascar 1895-1899.
Scramble 17: Brazza, Fashoda, and Cesaire’s Discours – France in the Scramble concluded
We start with a quick history of France’s theft of Congo-Brazzaville, centering on Brazza himself and ending with the Toque-Gaud Trial. Then on to the nearly early start of WWI – the Fashoda Crisis between Britain and France. Finally, we give the floor to Aime Cesaire to give us some commentary on what French colonialism in Africa meant and how to understand the specifics of France’s colonial crimes.
Readings: A bit of Thomas Pakenham’s Scramble for Africa and a whole lot of Aime Cesaire’s Discourse on Colonialism.
We begin the story of Germany in the Scramble for Africa with the question: was Germany really as bad as their enemies say they were? (spoiler: worse) We talk about Bismarck’s reluctance to own colonies, about why he started to change his mind as Germany caught a growing colonial fever; we talk about the harrowing career of Karl Peters, and then talk about the Germans in East Africa – the war on Mkwawa and the Hehe; the Maji Maji rebellion; and some short notes on Rwanda and Burundi under German control. The Herero and Nama genocides in Namibia will follow in the next episodes.
Main reading for Germany in the Scramble is Kaiser’s Holocaust – 2011 book by Casper Erichsen and David Olusoga
Scramble for Africa 19: Germany (pt2) genocides the Herero, 1904
The devastating story of the Herero genocide, complete with von Trotha’s extermination order, Samuel Maharero’s resistance, the battle at the Waterberg, and the concentration camps at Swakopmund and elsewhere. We’re using Erichsen and Olusoga 2011, The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism.
Scramble for Africa 20: Germany (pt3) genocides the Nama, 1908
In September 1904 several Nama scouts slipped away from the Germans after the battle of Waterberg and the genocide of the Herero, to warn their leader, Hendrik Witbooi, of what the Germans were capable of. Hendrik Witbooi then called all the Nama leaders to war, a war where they used guerrilla tactics to confound the Germans and drive the German leader, von Trotha, home in defeat. But while they exhausted the German colonizers, they exhausted themselves as well and German missionaries were able to draw the survivors to surrender on false promises of good treatment, after which they were sent first to concentration camps and then to – perhaps – the world’s first death camp, on Shark Island. Our concluding episode on the Germans in the Scramble – on the Nama genocide.
Scramble for Africa 21: mini-scramblers Portugal, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark…
The biggest player in the Scramble for Africa was England. Second place to France, third to Germany. But there were many other European powers at the Berlin Conference in 1884 and the plunder of Africa was shared among even the smallest of European countries. Who and how, in this episode of the Scramble for Africa.
Some reading: Lauesen, Riding the Wave: Sweden’s Integration into the Imperialist World System (2021). E.D. Morel, Red Rubber; Mark Twain, King Leopold’s Soliloquy; Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost.
Scramble for Oceania 1: The theft of Australia
At the same time that the European empires were scrambling for Africa, they held a scramble in the Pacific. For the British Empire the base was Australia, and we begin with the scramble for Australia, the story of the theft of (another) continent beginning in 1788. Always was, always will be, aboriginal land.
Sources – Robert Hughes, the Fatal Shore; Gammage, The Biggest Estate on Earth; Pascoe, Dark Emu.
Scramble for Oceania 2: The Land Wars of New Zealand
We take advantage of some new scholarship of New Zealand history (Keenan, Wars Without End; Belch, New Zealand Wars; Simons, Soldiers, Scouts and Spies) to give you a hopefully fresh look at the 19th century scramble for colonies in New Zealand, which took the form of British wars against the Maori. Also featured – comparisons between New Zealand and Canada, and the idea that Parihaka may be considered a failure of nonviolence.
Scramble for Oceania 3: Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia
At the peak of global colonialism no island however small was exempted from European greed. We conclude our Scramble for Oceania series with the scrambles for the many islands in the Pacific. Many of these are still colonies today, given names like “special overseas territory” to hide the fact. ALSO: I’m trying to do loudness normalization so hopefully the listening experience is improved.