Berlin Conference

The 1884–1885 meeting in Berlin where European powers established rules for claiming territory in Africa. It accelerated the partition of the continent without African participation.

Congo Crisis: A diplomatic dispute over competing European claims and commercial access in the Congo basin. The crisis supplied the immediate dispute the conference sought to settle.
General Act of the Berlin Conference: The 1885 treaty that recorded the conference's agreements on African commerce, navigation, and territorial claims. Its articles contained the conference's operative rules.
Partition of Africa: The division of most African territory among European colonial powers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The conference helped turn competitive claims into a continent-wide partition.
Ethiopian Empire: A sovereign state in the Horn of Africa that resisted European colonization and defeated Italy at Adwa in 1896. Its survival contrasts with the colonial partition that followed the conference.
Leopold II of Belgium: King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, who pursued a personal colonial project in the Congo basin. His Congo ambitions intensified the rivalry addressed at Berlin.
Effective occupation: A principle requiring a state to establish authority on the ground to validate certain colonial claims. The act made effective occupation a standard for claims along the African coast.
Colonialism in Africa: The establishment and rule of foreign empires across African territories, especially during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The conference became a landmark in the expansion of European colonial rule.
Adwa: The 1896 battle in which Ethiopian forces defeated an Italian invasion. The victory demonstrated African resistance could defeat a European colonial campaign.
Otto von Bismarck: Prussian and German statesman who unified Germany and served as its chancellor from 1871 to 1890. He convened the conference while seeking to manage European competition.
Congo River: A major Central African river system flowing westward to the Atlantic Ocean. The act guaranteed navigation on this river amid competition for its basin.

Linked from 50 pages