Berlin West Africa Conference: 130 Years Later

"IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF the several plenipotentiaries have signed the present General Act and have affixed thereto their seals.
DONE at Berlin, the 26th day of February, 1885."

So concluded a three month long conference 130 years ago today.

Below, is a summary of that Conference as it appears in the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

"Berlin West Africa Conference, a series of negotiations (Nov. 15, 1884–Feb. 26, 1885) at Berlin, in which the major European nations met to decide all questions connected with the Congo River basin in Central Africa.

The conference, proposed by Portugal in pursuance of its special claim to control of the Congo estuary, was necessitated by the jealousy and suspicion with which the great European powers viewed one another’s attempts at colonial expansion in Africa. The general act of the Conference of Berlin declared the Congo River basin to be neutral (a fact that in no way deterred the Allies from extending the war into that area in World War I); guaranteed freedom for trade and shipping for all states in the basin; forbade slave trading; and rejected Portugal’s claims to the Congo River estuary—thereby making possible the founding of the independent Congo Free State, to which Great Britain, France, and Germany had already agreed in principle."

Another useful site for further details is: Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 to Divide Africa.

The consequences of this Conference are still being felt today and the debate continues.