Africa and Europe

From Partition to Independence or Dependence?

Amadu Sesay, Amadu Sesay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136858536
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Volkswirtschaftslehre
• Subtopic: Entwicklungsökonomie

It is now over 100 years since the Berlin Conference of 1884 which started the 'Scramble for Africa' whereby the various European powers carved up the African Continent between themselves. During the last century the relationship between Africa and Europe has changed dramatically – from a colonial to a post-colonial relationship, with, more recently, new patterns emerging as the Communist bloc has developed increasingly strong links with some countries and as the EEC as an institution has got more involved. First published in 1986, this book explores how the relationship between Africa and Europe has changed over the last hundred years, assesses the current state of relations and discusses how the relationship may develop in the future.

CHAPTER 1

AFRICA AND EUROPE: PRELUDE TO THE PARTITION

Sola Akinrinade and Toyin Falola

A. EARLIEST CONTACTS AND THE SLAVE TRADE

The domination of parts of Africa by certain European countries pre-dated the 1880s. The Romans were the earliest significant European conquerors of African peoples. The Roman contact was in the form of military adventure, manifested in the attempt to subjugate the famous African-based Empire of Carthage. The enterprising Carthaginians had, through hard work and ruthless suppression of rivals, succeeded in establishing a commercial and industrially viable state, with an equally viable agricultural base. By the third century BC, the rising state of the Romans, which had of necessity accepted a subordinate position hitherto placed on it by treaties with Carthage, demonstrated its military power by challenging Carthage. The first of the clashes was the First Punic war of 264-241 BC, which resulted in a serious defeat for Carthage. Rome again triumphed over Carthage despite the military genius of Hannibal, the Carthaginian leader, during the Second Punic War, 218-202 BC. Carthage was finally destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. Roman rule in North Africa later extended to Egypt in the first century BC. In the process of Roman rule in North Africa, many North Africans rose to positions of eminence in the Roman Empire. Such included Septimus Severus, who had the distinction of being the first North African-born Roman Emperor. It was also his son, Caracalla, who issued the Caracalla Edict of 212, which gave Roman citizenship to free men all over the Roman world. The most famous, however, was Augustine, the fifth century Bishop of the North African city of Hippo.

Roman control over North Africa, however, began to witness a steady decline from the third century. This decline had, by the fifth century, allowed a group of European barbarians, the Vandals, to take over control of the western regions of North Africa without encountering many problems. The Vandals never succeeded in establishing an integrated administration. After about a century of Roman rule, the eastern Romans (the Byzantines) easily conquered and took over control of the North African state during the reign of Justinian in the mid-sixth century. The Byzantines equally found it difficult to consolidate the once extensive Roman holdings in North Africa into a single entity, neither could they secure the loyalty of the indigenous population.

The advent of the Muslim Arab invasions in the seventh century swept away traces of Roman rule in North Africa. Europeans gradually lost interest in Africa for some time. The re-awakening of European interest came with the activities of Portuguese mariners. The kingdom of Portugal had earlier conquered the North African kingdom of Morocco. In the military crew that won the victory over Morocco was Prince Henry, better known as Henry the Navigator. It was this man who, after observing the commercial position of North Africa, decided to divert the gold trade from the Atlantic coast towards Portugal. He then embarked on a voyage to discover a route to the Atlantic coast of Africa. Portuguese activities in Africa eventually extended to several parts of the continent, including the kingdom of Congo; the Gold Coast, where the fort known as Sao Jorge da Mina was built in spite of opposition from the Akan-speaking people in the area; the areas of present-day Angola, Mozambique and Benin. Many people were converted to Christianity by the Portuguese, especially in the Congo, where their king, Nzinga Kuwu, changed his name to Joao I after his baptism. Also, Mbemba Nzinga, one of Nzinga Kuwu's successors, changed his name to, and was better known as, Affonso I. It was Affonso I who made Christianity the state religion.¹

Other European nations did not delay too long in following Portuguese steps in the newly-discovered African coasts. Spain and France were involved. Early clashes between Spain and Portugal led to the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, an agreement sanctified by various papal bulls.² But France expressed dissatisfaction with the arrangement, and it was rectified later. Thereafter, France penetrated into West Africa, establishing a base in Senegal. The Gold Coast area was a scene of active trade competition among rival European powers. The Dutch, after losing territories in Brazil to the Portuguese, sought bases in West Africa which would serve as a source of slave supply and they also conquered Portuguese territories in Angola. The British joined the race in the 1660s, with the foundation of the Company of Royal Adventurers to Africa. The company was succeeded in 1672 by the Royal African Company, which was replaced in 1750 by the Company of Merchants Trading in Africa. At various times other European countries had forts in the Gold Coast; such included the Swedes, the Danes and Brandenburgers. By the early eighteenth century there were about twenty-five major trading bases and an almost equal number of minor ones. These were later reduced to two, with the Dutch and the British as the principal occupiers. The eighteenth century European wars finally saw Britain as the major commercial force along the coastline.

The coming of these Europeans to various parts of Africa was occasioned by commercial motives. The whole idea behind the voyages of exploration that preceded the coming of the Europeans was to find an alternative sea route to India and to obtain luxury goods at the lowest possible price. The African land itself was not without its own goods which appealed to the Europeans. Such goods as gold, ivory, grain, spices and sugar were in high demand in Europe and even in India. Strategic points on the African coast, especially the West African coastline, were given such names as Grain Coast, Gold Coast, Ivory Coast, and so on. Side by side with these articles were exported slaves, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century the slave trade had begun to overshadow all other trades.

The continued maintenance of European positions on the African coastline was occasioned by the fact that the forts also served as suppliers of African slaves to the western world. The era of European slavery and slave trade in Africa was a major phase in Afro-European relations prior to partition. The slave trade which has been referred to as ‘the most iniquitous of transactions in human history’³ existed on a rather low scale before the Europeans came, and, contrary to the much vaunted propaganda that slavery was an integral part of the African society, not every society had a place for slaves; this was especially the case among the Masai, who were mainly interested in capturing cattle.⁴ The emergence of Europeans on the scene marked a new phase in the African slave trade.

The beginning of European interest in African slave trade is often traced to 1441, when Gonzalves, one of the Portuguese explorers, captured a small groups of Africans and carted them away to Lisbon. Later, more and more Africans were taken to Portugal. Prince Henry's plan for the earlier set of Africans was to educate and use them to further ‘civilise’ their brethren back home in Africa. But his hope was not realised. By 1460, when Henry died, more than eight hundred Africans were exported to Portugal annually and were sold on arrival at the Lisbon dock as slaves. Henry did not approve of this trade, but after his death successive kings and princes supported it. Portugal maintained a lead in the West African slave trade throughout the fifteenth and for most of the sixteenth century, that is until other European nations began to pose determined opposition. Britain joined, first, through the activities of individuals like William Hawkins and Captain Windham, and later through chartered companies. Other countries joined and soon the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch, the Danes, the Germans, Swedes, Spaniards and the British were all involved in the trade in African slaves.

It should be realised, however, that the initial emphasis of trade was on gold, not on slaves. The ‘discovery’ of America in 1492 for the Spanish government by Christopher Columbus brought about drastic changes. When mineral deposits were found in Mexico and Peru, the aboriginal Red Indians were found incapable of, and insufficient for, working there. Recourse was made to the African slaves in Europe. The Spaniards then made an arrangement with the Portuguese, and an annual average of about 13,000 slaves was exported to Spanish holdings in the Americas. The development of interest by the French and the British in American possessions towards the end of the sixteenth century led to the sending out of explorers and the founding by the French of some colonies in North America. British colonies in North America were established in about the second decade of the seventeenth century. These British colonies were predominantly agricultural, and the consequent demand for labour boosted the supply of slaves, which up to then had been left in the hands of the Portuguese. With more mines being opened by the Spaniards and more plantations cultivated by the French and the British, the demand for slaves increased. Between 1530 and 1600 the annual average was 13,000 slaves. This figure rose to 27,500 per annum throughout the seventeenth century and soared to an annual average of 70,000 in the eighteenth century. In the 1830s it was running at an all time high of 135,000 slaves per annum.⁵

The slave trade continued for almost three centuries, with an attitude of callous indifference until the conscience of religious and humanitarian groups was roused against it. But it was not until 1807 that the trade was declared illegal by the British Parliament. Even then, much remained to be done to wipe out this transatlantic trade. It was the humanitarian and philanthropic organisations, personified by such men as Granville Sharpe, William Wilberforce, Henry Curton, Charles Grant and Thomas Clarkson, that raised the agitation for abolition to an unprecedented height. They were actually involved in the Supreme Court judgement given by Justice Mansfield in 1772 which made slavery illegal on British soil and declared all slaves who set foot on English soil as emancipated. Again, their efforts in Britain and America aided the foundation of the colonies of Sierra Leone and Liberia, which acted as dumping grounds for liberated slaves. But the abolition of the slave trade could not be wholly attributed to the humanitarian factor. In fact, the arguments of the humanitarians themselves were drawn from the social and economic views prevalent at the time among scholars and politicians, that it would pay Britain better if the slave trade was abolished.

Such ideological and economic considerations were preached in the eighteenth century, when the doctrine of equality, fraternity and liberty of men became popularised. Montesquieu, the French political idealist, had preached the idea that bondage negates divine law. The American war of independence had advanced this view further and had asserted that all men were born equal. These political ideas had dominated the thinking of policy and decision-makers in France and Britain, and towards the end of the eighteenth century both countries were considering the possibility of setting free the slaves in bondage. The arguments advanced by a new wave of economists were also in favour of abolition. These men, including Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, criticised the false logic on which the old mercantilist idea that supported the slave trade was based. They advocated free trade, perfect competition and the distribution of wealth according to natural laws. Besides, there was also the industrial revolution which had started in Britain in the eighteenth century. The revolution transformed production by replacing labour with machinery, which meant an increasingly low need for slave labour on the farm and in the industries. It was then considered more economically wise to leave the would-be slaves on their lands in Africa to be taught how to produce large quantities of cotton, coffee, ground-nuts and palm oil for the market, whilst they would be encouraged to consume European-made goods. This appeared a valid reasoning to the politicians and economic advisers, and it was therefore no wonder that the cry for the abolition of the slave trade came from Britain.

The 1772 Mansfield judgement is generally regarded as the first effort to suppress the slave trade. However, it was only a judicial victory; it did not end the trade in slaves. The British Parliament legislated in 1807 that the slave trade was illegal for British subjects and extended this to cover the whole of the British Empire in 1833, having already attached the death penalty to the offence in 1824. Naval squadrons were set up and were empowered to search British ships on the Atlantic Ocean, free the captives and to punish any British citizen caught trading in slaves. But the fact that other countries participated in the trade ensured a continuance of the business, and African middlemen still persisted in marching captives to the coast. British efforts aimed at pressurising other European nations to stop the trade yielded results, as France outlawed the trade in 1818, and Brazil followed in 1825. But when the trade continued, Britain then sought the authority to search foreign ships to ascertain that they had no slaves aboard. This authority was granted by Spain and Portugal in 1817, Sweden in 1824, France in 1833, the United States in 1862 and the Netherlands in 1878. In addition, Britain signed a number of treaties that guaranteed the abolition with several European nations, including France in 1833, Spain in 1835, Portugal in 1842 and the United States in 1862. These efforts yielded some positive results, as about 130,000 slaves were released. However, during the same period (i.e. 1825-1865) up to 1.8 million slaves were exported. It was thus apparent that the steps would at best only reduce the number of slaves exported, not eradicate the trade itself.

The abolitionists changed tactics and adopted a positive policy towards abolition which was styled ‘Christianity, Commerce and Colonisation’. It was an acceptance of the fact that the trade could be stopped only if attacked at the roots and that this could be done only through the provision of an alternative way of life that would render the slave trade less lucrative. It was also admitted that managing the long African coastline and policing the large number of communities would not be an easy task. This was the reasoning behind the founding of Sierra Leone by the abolitionists.

The Sierrra Leone colony was founded in 1787, handed over to the British Government in 1806 and made a Crown Colony in 1807. Liberia was founded by the American Colonisation Society in 1822, and a group of negroes who chose to leave the United States was deposited there. These two early colonial strongholds nurtured a breed of Africans who later went back to their homelands, especially southern Nigeria and Ghana, as the first generation of elites. They pioneered the development of western education, preached the gospel to the people and became vanguards for the European colonisation of Africa. Missionary societies were also established, notably the Baptist Missionary Society founded in 1792, the Church Missionary Society (1799), the British and Foreign Bible Society (1803) and the Methodist, to preach the gospel to Africans in their homelands. Later, it was found necessary to know more about the African hinterland; voyages of exploration were then sponsored into the African interior.

The final step in the abolition was the introduction of an alternative way of earning a living. This led to the promotion of ‘legitimate trade’. Raw materials, especially palm oil, cotton, ground-nuts, coffee, etc., were cultivated on a large scale for external markets. This business eventually replaced the slave trade. In exchange, the Europeans brought their products, including clothes, cutlasses, knives, beer, matches, etc., for the Africans.

In spite of the negative impact of the slave trade, there were still pockets of resistance to the abolition of this obnoxious traffic. Apart from the Europeans who were involved and who naturally found abolition measures unpalatable, there were also elements of African resistance. This is because the majority of the African coastal kingdoms, even more than the European states, stood to be ruined by the suppression. Their economies were intricately intertwined with the slave trade, whilst the war lords became used to the act of catching and selling slaves.

Other reasons account for the African resistance to the suppression of the trade. First, the alternative offered to the slave trade ‘legitimate trade’ - was not immediately lucrative. None of the new cash products could bring in ready income as much as slaves. Cotton, upon which so many people based their hopes, did not flourish along the coast and was costly to produce. Secondly, African chiefs and elites who had benefited from the slave trade found it difficult to appreciate the British efforts to abolish the trade. In Bonny, for example, the British government so mismanaged the situation that the Bonny chief was antagonistic to the British authority there. Representatives of the British had negotiated four treaties with King Pepple of Bonny and had promised compensation in return for Bonny's abolition of the slave trade. However, in the end, Britain neither ratified the treaties nor paid any compensation to Pepple. When Pepple tried to force it to pay, he was quickly deported in 1854. But, finding that no one could efficiently hold Bonny together like him, Pepple was brought back in 1861. But the Bonny kingdom had by then been destroyed. Various other treaties were signed with coastal kings by the British but again the British never kept their own side of the bargain.

Thus, the abolition notwithstanding, the damage had already been done. First, there was vast depopulation of African territories and untold human suffering. The actual figure involved cannot be ascertained; many slaves died on the march to the coast and many more died on the voyage across the Atlantic - all of whom were never accoun...