The Berlin Conference

The European 'Scramble for African' began in earnest following the Berlin Conference. European tensions over claims would ultimately contribute to the outbreak of war in 1914. Participants negotiated their claims to African territory in Berlin as well as a framework for negotiating future claims in Africa. However, the nations and people of the African continent were not represented at the Berlin Conference, nor were they to be included in any future negotiations on how their traditional lands and kingdoms were divided and parcelled by the colonising European empires. Perhaps their only benefit arose from the conference agreeing to end slavery by African and Islamic powers.