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The 19 century m'zuŋ u scramble for Africa
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"Veni, Vidi, Vici"

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion [...] but
rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact;
non-Westerners never do,”

"The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order"” p.51, 62
Penguin Books
Samuel P. Huntington (1997).

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The Events leading upto the 'Scramble'

An economic rationale for the African scramble

" The supply of African slaves to American plantations reached an all-time high in the late
18th century (Klein 1999). After anti-slave trade legislation finally shut down the Atlantic

slave exports, commodity exports filled the gap. This so-called 'commercial transition'
was completed in West Africa before it hit East Africa (Austen 1987, Law 2002). It was a

game-changer, since it put a halt to the continuous drain of scarce labour and paved the
way for the expansion of land-intensive forms of tropical agriculture, engaging

smallholders, communal farms, and estates.

The establishment of colonial rule over the African interior (c. 1880-1900) reinforced
Africa's commodity export growth. Colonial control facilitated the construction of

railways, induced large inflows of European investment, and forced profound changes in
the operation of labour and land markets (Frankema and van Waijenburg 2012). That is,
colonial regimes abolished slavery, but they replaced it with other forced labour

schemes. The scramble pushed African exports to new heights, but without the
preceding era of commercialisation the African scramble probably would never have

taken place.

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Africa's commercial transition was inextricably connected to the rising demand for

industrial inputs from the industrialising core in the North Atlantic. Revolutions in
transportation (railways, steamships), a move towards liberal trade policies in Europe,

and increasing rates of GDP growth enhanced demand for (new) manufactures, raw
materials and tropical cash crops. African producers responded to this demand by
increasing exports of vegetable oils (palm oil, groundnuts), gum, ivory, gold, hides and

skins. Palm oil, a key export, was highly valued as a lubricant for machinery and an
ingredient in food and soap. During and after the scramble, the range of commodity