Consequences of European exploration

1Why this matters

Stanley reached the mouth of the Congo in 1877. Seven years later, European diplomats gathered in Berlin to agree the rules for dividing Africa. That short gap is the most important fact about the consequences of exploration: the knowledge gathered by explorers became a tool for colonial conquest. Some consequences were welcomed by some Africans at the time, and many were harmful. This lesson helps you weigh them.

2Consequences often described as positive

• Knowledge and maps. The courses of the Niger, Nile, Zambezi and Congo were recorded, and much was written about Africa's peoples, plants and animals. Some of this writing, such as Barth's, preserves history that would otherwise be lost.
• Campaigns against the slave trade. Livingstone's reports of slave caravans shocked the British public. Under British pressure, the Sultan of Zanzibar closed the island's slave market in 1873.
• Missions, schools and hospitals. Missionaries followed the explorers and opened schools and clinics, bringing literacy and Western medicine to some communities.
• New trade routes and goods, for example by steamboat on the Niger.

3Harmful consequences

• The road to colonisation. Explorers' reports of fertile land, minerals and navigable rivers stirred European governments and businesses. Their maps showed where to go.
• Treaties that took away sovereignty. Some explorers became agents of empire. Stanley signed hundreds of treaties with Congo rulers for Leopold II, and the German Carl Peters did the same in East Africa in 1884. Rulers often did not know they were signing away their land.
• The Berlin Conference (1884–1885), where European powers set the rules for claiming African territory, followed directly.
• Harmful stereotypes. Books such as Stanley's Through the Dark Continent (1878) portrayed Africa as "dark" and "savage", ignoring its states, trade and learning. These images were used to justify conquest.
• Violence. Some expeditions fought their way through communities; Stanley's journeys in particular left a trail of clashes.
• Loss of African names and cultures. European names such as Lake Victoria, Lake Albert and Victoria Falls replaced African ones on world maps, and missionaries often attacked African religions and customs.
• Hardship for porters, many of whom died of disease, hunger and overwork on the journeys.

4The case of Rwanda

Götzen's crossing of Rwanda in 1894 gave Germany a basis for its claim to the kingdom, and Kandt's residency in Kigali from 1907 put colonial administration on the ground. You will study what followed in the unit on German and Belgian colonisation of Rwanda.

Worked example: weighing consequences

Question: "European exploration benefited Africa." Discuss.

There is some evidence for the statement. Exploration produced maps and records, publicised the slave trade and helped close the Zanzibar slave market in 1873, and opened the way for schools and clinics. However, these benefits were limited to a few places and came with heavy costs. Within a decade of Stanley's last great journey, explorers' treaties and maps were used at the Berlin Conference to divide Africa. Exploration also spread racist images of Africa that justified conquest, and it replaced African names with European ones. On balance, exploration served European interests far more than African ones, because its main long-term result was colonisation.

Practice

Solution. Explorers reported on resources and routes, which encouraged European governments and companies to take an interest. They produced maps used to plan occupation, and some signed treaties with African rulers that were used as legal claims. These claims were recognised at the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885.

Solution. Reports of the slave trade, especially Livingstone's, built pressure that helped close the Zanzibar slave market in 1873.

Solution. It suggested Africa had no history, knowledge or organised societies, when in fact it had kingdoms, cities, trade networks and centres of learning such as Timbuktu. The phrase reflected European ignorance and prejudice, not African reality.

Solution. Götzen's crossing in 1894 supported Germany's claim to Rwanda, and Richard Kandt's arrival as Resident in 1907 began German administration from Kigali.