In the winter of 1884 – 85, down the Unter den Linden, at the request of a German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, came the leading figures of Europe and some United States delegates, to the Berlin Conference on Afrika. It was a summit that was to have a far reaching impact on Europe and its relationship with Afrika. Already by this time European nations had robbed Afrika of much of its youthful labour in the slave trade.

The horrible exploitation had been laid to rest in the middle of the century, with the British Afrikan Squadron patrolling the Atlantic coasts of Afrika and America to prohibit the movement of slaving ships. Emancipation had occurred everywhere except Brazil by the time of the conference. The enslaved Afrikans would be freed in 1888 in that country. New forms of exploitation of Afrika had been found and with the decline in the slave trade, the old European traders had discovered that settlerism and colonisation could add greatly to their wealth if they simply exploited the material bounty of the continent. Afrikan leaders were not involved in this decision. Europe would simply declare its stakes over Afrika. Thus, the Berlin Conference was the first European conference called for the purpose of deciding the fate of an entire continent.

This had not happened in the case of Asia, or of the America’s. But because of the immense size of Afrika and the numerous European national interests as residuals of the slave trading activities, the conference was conceived as a way to avoid the pitfalls of an internecine battle between European powers over Afrika. Slavery had demonstrated the futility of European nations fighting against each other to control their interests, and the ” asiento” had served as a useful tool in establishing protocols between the nations (to be continued in due course).