Africa was chopped into States artificially created by accidents of European competition. Analyze.

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Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Africa's states were largely artificial products of European rivalry, drawn on maps after the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 that split peoples and forced unions, though strategy and African agency also shaped them. Lugard's 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria, which led towards the Biafran war, shows the cost.

**Introduction**

Lord Salisbury admitted in 1890 that the powers were "giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other" without knowing where they lay. By 1914 seven European powers had partitioned Africa, sparing only Ethiopia and Liberia.

**How European Rivalry Drew Africa's Borders**

SKETCH: flow | From Rivalry to Artificial States
- European rivalry
- Berlin Conference 1884-85
- Effective occupation race
- Treaty lines on maps
- Split and forced peoples

1. **Diplomacy without Africans**: The Berlin Conference seated no African, and its "effective occupation" rule froze frontiers wherever rival expeditions met.
2. **Bargained corridors**: The Caprivi Strip (1890) gave Germany access to the Zambezi, and the Gambia survives as an enclave inside Senegal from an Anglo-French split of one valley.
3. **Divided and forced peoples**: The Somali were split among five territories, feeding the Ogaden War of 1977-78, while Lugard's 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria set up the Biafran war of 1967-70.

**Where the Accident Thesis Falls Short**

1. **Calculated, not accidental**: Lines were often drawn to secure rivers, ports and railways, and Robinson and Gallagher link the scramble to deliberate responses to crises such as Egypt in 1882.
2. **African agency**: Menelik II's victory at Adwa (1896) fixed Ethiopia's frontiers, and polities such as Morocco and Lesotho survived intact.
3. **African endorsement**: The OAU's Cairo resolution of 1964 chose to keep the colonial borders rather than risk redrawing them.

**Conclusion**

Africa's states were largely artificial products of European competition, though strategy, resistance and African choice also shaped them. From Biafra to South Sudan in 2011, the lesson is that legitimacy must be built inside inherited borders through inclusive nation-building.

Africa was chopped into States artificially created by accidents of European competition. Analyze.

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