Berlin Conference

During the 1870s and early 1880s European nations such as Great Britain,
France, and Germany began looking to Africa for natural resources for their
growing industrial sectors as well as a potential market for the goods these
factories produced. As a result, these governments sought to safeguard their
commercial interests in Africa and began sending scouts to the continent to
secure treaties from indigenous peoples or their supposed representatives. The
countries that participated were:
 Great Britain desired a Cape-to-Cairo collection of colonies and almost
succeeded through their control of Egypt, Sudan (Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan), Uganda, Kenya (British East Africa), South Africa, and Zambia,
Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), and Botswana. The British also controlled Nigeria
and Ghana (Gold Coast).
 France took much of western Africa, from Mauritania to Chad (French
West Africa) and Gabon and the Republic of Congo (French Equatorial
Africa).
 Belgium and King Leopold II controlled the Democratic Republic of
Congo (Belgian Congo).
 Portugal took Mozambique in the east and Angola in the west.
 Italy's holdings were Somalia (Italian Somaliland) and a portion of
Ethiopia.
 Germany took Namibia (German Southwest Africa) and Tanzania
(German East Africa).
 Spain claimed the smallest territory - Equatorial Guinea (Rio Muni).

The Conference ended in the issuing of a General Act, which codified the
principle of closer co-operation between the colonial powers. The most
important provisions of the Act were the abolition of the slave trade throughout
each power's respective sphere of influence and the maintaining of the Congo
Free State as a place open to European investment.