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

exports broadened to include raw materials like rubber, cotton, and copper, as well as

cash crops such as cocoa, coffee, tea and tobacco. The lion's share of these
commodities went directly to manufacturing firms and consumers in Europe. Meanwhile,
technological innovations also reduced the costs of colonial occupation. These included

the Maxim gun, the steamship, the railway and quinine, the latter lowering the health
risks to Europeans in the disease-ridden interior of the 'dark continent'.

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There was a prolonged rise in the net barter terms of trade for sub-Saharan Africa from
the 1790s to the 1880s, a commodity price boom that was especially pronounced in the

four decades between 1845 and 1885. Figure 1 shows that this secular price boom
peaked exactly at the date of the Berlin conference (1884-5), when diplomats negotiated

how to carve up Africa among the European imperialists. The terms of trade tripled in
just four decades. While the terms of trade for commodity exporters were rising

everywhere in what was once called the Third World, nowhere was the boom greater than
for Africa. Furthermore, the scramble started right at the moment when African exports

reached their highest exchange value.

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The share of West African exports in French imperial trade was much larger than it was

in British imperial trade. Around the mid-19th century, about two-thirds of French imperial
trade was with Africa, the largest part of it with North Africa (e.g. Algeria), but a
substantial share was also with West Africa. British imperial trade was dominated by

India, and this distinction is consistent with the chronology of the scramble. The French
set a chain reaction in motion by moving into the West African interior to survey the

possibilities of a railway connection between the major trading hubs of the middle Niger
delta (Gao, Timbuktu) and their trading enclaves along the Senegalese coast. The British

responded by securing the lower Niger delta. After less than two decades, virtually the
entire continent was divided among a handful of European powers.”

"An Economic Rationale for the African Scramble." 63
VoxEU.Org (blog), (July 2015)
Frankema, Ewout, Jeffrey Williamson, and Pieter Woltjer.

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“ To recapture the primary developments that account for Europe's increased
involvement in Africa, we review the role of Christianity, medicinal and technological

advances, and the lure of capitalist gains.