OAC World Issues
Unit 1
Documents

This page contains several of the documents and handouts used in Unit 1. Simply scroll down to the document required. To print, highlight the document first, and print only the highlighted section, or cut and paste it into a word processing document.

Mapping Assignment Spreadsheet

#	Country	GNP ($US)	#	Country	GNP ($US)
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35	.	.	36	.	.
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61	.	.	62	.	.
63	.	.	64	.	.
65	.	.	66	.	.
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71	.	.	72	.	.
73	.	.	74	.	.
75	.	.	76	.	.
77	.	.	78	.	.
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81	.	.	82	.	.
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85	.	.	86	.	.
87	.	.	88	.	.
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91	.	.	92	.	.
93	.	.	94	.	.
95	.	.	96	.	.
97	.	.	98	.	.
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101	.	.	102	.	.
103	.	.	104	.	.
105	.	.	106	.	.
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153	.	.	154	.	.
155	.	.	156	.	.
157	.	.	.	.	.

Statistics Reading - "Nothing Certain in People Figures"
According to one United Nations projection . . .

Colonialism - "Colonial Carve Up"
     On November 15th, 1884, a conference on Africa began in Berlin, Germany. It was attended by all the European Powers, as well as the United States. The host of the Conference was Prince Otto von Bismarck, the "Iron" Chancellor, under whose leadership Germany became a united and powerful country.
     Bismarck opened the conference in his official residence where the delegates sat around a table shaped like a horseshoe, overlooking a beautiful garden. Except for a huge wall map of the continent, there was nothing else African in the setting of the conference. Not a single African delegate attended. At the time of the conference, and for many years afterwards, most Europeans viewed Africans as primitive, and Africa as severely backward and in need of colonization.
     Before the meeting started Bismarck set down a three-part agenda:

To help "civilize" Africa's native people and improve their standard of living.
     The purpose of this list was mostly to put a public relations gloss over the real and less noble motive for calling the conference.
     The European delegates were really interested in obtaining extensive benefits from their existing and future colonies in Africa. Those who did not have colonies were anxious to get them.
     Germany did not have a colony until 1884, the year of the Conference. United as a country only in 1870, it was a latecomer to the "scramble for colonies." Also, Bismarck was concerned about the cost of maintaining colonies and was uncertain about their economic value for Germany. On the other hand, he did not like see Germany excluded from the carving up of Africa. By organizing the conference, Bismarck served notice to the European colonial powers - France and Britain - that Germany too wanted some of the spoils. After more than three months of talks, the conference ended on February 26th, 1885, when all the European members signed the Berlin Act.
     The agreements reached included those covering freedom of trade in the Congo basin and free navigation on the Congo and Niger Rivers. But, most importantly, the conference set the stage for the partition of Africa among the European powers. The Berlin Act said that any power which acquired territory on the coast of Africa should notify all other signatory powers, and maintain effective authority over such territories. What this meant was that a European power agreed to inform other European powers after, not before, it acquired new colonies. Clearly, this encouraged further colonization, although it did not prevent further disputes among the colonizing powers.
     The division of Africa had already started before the Berlin Conference. France had seized Algeria as early as 1830, Senegal in the 1860s, and invaded Tunisia in 1883. The British had established their control of South Africa in about 1804; in the west, they controlled the Gold Coast (Ghana) which they declared to be their colony in 1874. Nevertheless, by 1870, only about 10% of Africa was under colonial rule. From then on European control began to expand rapidly.
     What the Berlin Conference did was to formalize and advance the process of European colonization and partition of Africa. There were some specific negotiations by the delegates over the location and size of their colonial holdings. The conference recognized the so-called Congo Free State under King Leopold of the Belgians (some years later, the territory expanded and became the Belgian Congo).
     In East Africa, agreements between Britain and Germany in 1886 and 1890 recognized Zanzibar, Uganda, and Kenya as belonging to the British, and Tanganyika as German. Between 1880 and 1890 more than 26 million square kilometers of territory came under the control of European powers. By the year 1890, roughly 90% of the continent had been grabbed.
     As the Europeans carved up Africa, they drew boundaries between their territories. And the siting of the borders sometimes were the result of purely personal whims. For example, Germany's King Frederick asked that the boundary between Kenya and Tanganyika be drawn in such a way as to allow his country to have Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain. Frederick had made his request to Britain's Queen Victoria (his mother-in-law); she consented. On the other hand, Portugal's African colonies in Angola and Mozambique are a good example of the workings of colonial rivalries. Portugal was not a powerful country, however she was encouraged by the Brattish to seize these colonies in order to prevent the French from expanding further in Africa.
     In the actual drawing of boundaries, no Africans were ever consulted and no attention was paid to African interests. In many instances, rival ethnic groups were thrown together in one colony; in other cases, colonial boundaries cut across ancient homelands and separated members of the same ethnic group.
     Africa today is still experiencing the consequences of the Berlin Conference and colonial partition.

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