Scramble for Africa

“ Here arises the call of duty and obligation to colored men. Other people may, if they choose, forget the homes of their sires; for almost every European nation is now reaping the fruits of a thousand years' civilization. Every one of them can spare thousands and even millions of their sons to build up civilization in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, or Victoria. But Africa is the victim of her heterogeneous idolatries. Africa is wasting away beneath the accretions of civil and moral miseries. Darkness covers the land, and gross darkness the people. ”

“ It is recognized that a spark may cause a conflagration through negro Africa. On the other hand, the colonial burden of the European governments grows heavy; the trade advantages of holding Africa might be equally gained without the expense and trouble of administration; it is mutual jealousy, not great success, [vi] which holds the European powers in Africa. ”

“ The Allies do not propose an unconditional return of the former African possessions of Germany, but they contemplate an over-ruling international régime in Africa between the Sahara and the Zambesi, restraining armament, reorganising native education, and giving absolute equality of trade to all the nations in the League. ”

“ While commerce has carried books and maps to other portions of the globe, she has sent kidnappers, with guns and cutlasses into Africa. We have not preached the Gospel of peace to her princes; we have incited them to make war upon each other, to fill our markets with slaves. While knowledge, like a mighty pillar of fire, has guided the European nations still onward, and onward, a dark cloud has settled more and more gloomily over benighted Africa. The lessons of time, the experience of ages, from which we have learned so much, are entirely lost to this vast continent. ”

“ Is the United Kingdom, at this crisis, when the enormous power of our adversary has shut the door of commerce against us in every direction where his influence and dictates command, to abandon Africa, so abundant and versatile in its natural productions and resources, to contingencies, and to the grasp of other nations? Forbid it, humanity, and forbid it, wise policy! ”

“ Inasmuch as the Congo Free State starts with the sanction of all the leading powers of civilization, it assumes a dignity, at its very inception, which attaches to no other African dynasty. It is, or ought to be, beyond those jealousies which have torn, and are tearing, other possessions in Africa to pieces, and retarding their colonization and development. ”

“ Let it not be imagined that these dealings of justice with men are at an end. What could atone for giving up the coasts of a whole continent to be ravaged by the slave-ships of France, Spain, and Portugal? What compensation for this vicious and deadly scourge has Africa yet received? The cruising, suffering, sickness, deaths and expenses of nearly half a century have not remedied the crime of signing these treaties. ”

“ Almost as urgent is the need for some definite statement about Africa. General Smuts has warned not only the Empire, but the whole world of the gigantic threat to civilization that lies in the present division of Africa between various keenly competitive European Powers, any one of which will be free to misuse the great natural resources at its disposal and to arm millions of black soldiers for aggression. ”

“ Every vestige of civilization was driven from the coast, the interior placed under fearful apprehensions, the entire social system deranged, the progress of improvement suspended, and permanent establishments abandoned. With the entire white world against her, is it not clear why Africa, in the last twelve centuries, has not kept pace with the civilization of the age? ”

“ And, inasmuch as the Arab marauders (whose murderous devastations are now depopulating Africa) are subject to no law, and under no responsible rule, it devolves on the Powers of Europe to secure their suppression throughout all territories over which they have any control. This meeting would, therefore, urge upon Her Majesty’s Government, in concert with those Powers who now claim either territorial possession or territorial influence in Africa, to adopt such measures as shall secure the extinction of the devastating slave trade which is now carried on by those enemies of the human race. ”

“ And, meantime, what of these African peoples, whose interests are at stake, who have no one to represent them at the council boards of the European States and who are threatened with grave and ever-increasing dangers? The difficulties of securing international sanction for a right policy in tropical Africa are great enough in all conscience. ”

“ The indictment of Africa against Europe is grave. For four hundred years white Europe was the chief support of that trade in human beings which first and last robbed black Africa of a hundred million human beings, transformed the face of her social life, overthrew organized government, distorted ancient industry, and snuffed out the lights of cultural development. Today instead of removing laborers from Africa to distant slavery, industry built on a new slavery approaches Africa to deprive the natives of their land, to force them to toil, and to reap all the profit for the white world. ”

“ I feel deeply the wrongs which have been perpetrated upon poor, suffering, abused, down-trodden, defenceless Africa. Her country has been the foraging field for the violent, the cruel and bloody-minded for centuries. ”

“ I remark that the abject state of Africa is a most real and touching appeal to any heart for sympathy and aid. It is an appeal, however, which comes with a double force to every civilized man who has negro blood flowing in his veins.
Africa lies low and is wretched. She is the maimed and crippled arm of humanity. Her great powers are wasted. Dislocation and anguish have reached every joint. ”

“ This inalienable right depends on a system of rules and principles which Africans have helped forge over decades through their leadership in institutions like the United Nations and the African Union.
And yet too often African nations have been treated as instruments of other nations’ progress rather than the authors of their own. Time and again they have been told to pick a side in great power contests that feel far removed from daily struggles of their people.
The United States will not dictate Africa’s choices. ”

“ We strongly condemn the cupidity of those nations of the world who, by open aggression or secret schemes, have seized the territories and inexhaustible natural wealth of Africa, and we place on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures and possession of the vast continent of our forefathers. ”

“ That we may expect, and that we shall have difficulties, sore difficulties yet to contend against, in our progress to maturity, is certain: and, as the political happiness or wretchedness of ourselves and our children, and of generations yet unborn, is in our hands, nay more, the redemption of Africa from the deep degradation, superstition, and idolatry in which she has so long been involved, it becomes us to lay our shoulders to the wheel, and manfully resist every obstacle which may oppose our progress in the great work which lies before us. ”

“ Though thirty centuries have elapsed since Phœnicia first began to nibble at the continent, it was not until 1884 that the mad rush began which ended in Africa's being apportioned among themselves by half a dozen European nations with as little scruple as a gang of boys would divide a stolen pie. ”

“ Four territories are, so to speak, in the melting pot of political speculation—British Gambia, French Congo, Belgian Congo, and the Portuguese colonies of East and West Africa. None of the Powers in control of these territories desire to add another foot of tropical Africa to the burden they carry already. Great Britain has a full share of responsibilities in the African continent. France, Belgium and Portugal, even if they desired to enlarge their tropical dependencies, have not yet established a case for expansion. ”

“ A false step—and the path is narrow—and the crown itself will become as a vassal to those in the North who rule intelligently, but with a purpose and a power that brooks no resistance. We can eliminate these independencies, therefore, as they exist only on sufferance, and the fact remains that the government of Africa is accomplished at long range by those who have a purpose of their own to serve. That purpose is to increase the trade of the world, with the hope that their share may be the larger. ”

“ Whether England could proceed in the face of these two powers would simply depend on how it was done. As a mere political move such an occupation of the interior might at once excite alarm and jealousy. But wearing the aspect of a serious mission for the good of Africa, instigated not by the Foreign Office but by the people of England, it is impossible to believe that the step could either be misunderstood or opposed. It is time the nations looked upon Africa as something more than a chess-board. ”

“ It is in their power to work such good to Africa—and such incalculable harm! Can they not make up their minds that their strength shall be used for noble ends? Africa demands at their hands, justice, and understanding sympathy—not ill-informed sentiment. ”

“ A mere elimination of Germany from Africa will not solve that difficulty. What we have to eliminate is not this nation or that, but the system of national shoving and elbowing, the treatment of Africa as the board for a game of beggar-my-neighbour-and-damn-the-niggers, in which a few syndicates, masquerading as national interests, snatch a profit to the infinite loss of all mankind. We want a lowering of barriers and a unification of interests, we want an international control of these disputed regions, to override nationalist exploitation. The whole world wants it. ”

“ Moreover, these men are to have strong moral proclivities, equal to the deep penetration and the unyielding tenacity of their minds. No greater curse could be entailed upon Africa than the sudden appearance upon her shores of a mighty host of heartless black buccaneers, (for such indeed they would prove themselves,) men sharpened up by letters and training, filled with, feverish greed, with hearts utterly alien from moral good and human well-being, and only regarding Africa as a convenient gold-field from which to extract emolument and treasure to carry off to foreign quarters. ”

“ These came at first like the Arabs to trade, and afterwards began to plant great fields of cotton and tobacco, which will not grow in their own lands. But they found the dark-skinned Africans were still ignorant, and afraid of people of other races. They were always fighting among themselves, and no one could settle among them until there was peace and safety. At last the European nations made agreements with the chiefs, so that now in nearly every part of Africa there is a European governor to prevent wars and fighting. ”

“ If they have extirpated Christianity from the soil of North Africa, and planted, instead of this tree of fair and pure fruit, the more glaring and showy plant of Islamism, they have, at the same time, endeavoured to raise Africa to their own level of demi-civilization. Whilst we condemn their slave-traffic as we condemn our own, we must do justice to the efforts which they have made, by the spread of their creed and the diffusion of their commerce, during a series of ten or twelve centuries, for promoting the civilization of Africa. ”

“ For twelve centuries the problem "how shall Africa be redeemed?" has been unsolved, although earnestly sought for by the civil and religious powers of Europe; but in every instance it has been in vain, and the cloud of her wretchedness blackened on each failure. Mysterious and inscrutable are the ways of Providence to accomplish her restoration, lift her from the jaws of death, bind her as a jewel to the throne of righteousness, and give her a place among the civilized nations of mankind. ”

“ Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict. The West has often approached Africa as a patron or a source of resources rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. ”

“ In no form does the African project seem to me at all a hopeful one. The habitable portions of Africa are, I take it, pretty well staked out among the European Powers, so that an elaborate and costly international arrangement would be necessary before the requisite territory would be available. But supposing this difficulty overcome, would the United States be justified in simply dumping its coloured population in Africa, and then washing its hands of them? ”

“ At the same time African minorities in various parts of the continent launched independence movements under the slogan of self-determination, drove out the European occupiers, organized political states and declared that Africa must be governed by and for Africans.
Much of Africa, at the time, was organized along tribal lines, which cut across the boundaries drawn by the European imperialists between their colonial territories. The resulting chaos temporarily removed Africa from any meaningful role in the planet-wide contest for pelf and power. Africans are politically sovereign. ”

“ Science, commerce, and philanthropy have enlisted by the side of religion in the task of opening up Africa. The chief outlets of the slave-trade have at length, it is hoped, been closed, thanks mainly to the efforts of England, and the hearty co-operation of the government of Portugal, Egypt and Zanzibar. ”