Berlin Conference

For three long months, 14 countries from westerly Europe and the United States accompanied the Berlin Conference. This main(prenominal) crowd is also known as Congo Conference or Berlin atomic number 74 Africa Conference. The countries that attended include Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway, Turkey, and US.Interesting enough, non a single expanse of Africa attended even though the league was merely about the division of land on the African untainted. The major players at this company were the great and mighty countries of France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal. This conference that started on November 15, 1884 and ended on February 26, 1885 was called for by Portugal and nonionized by Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of Germany and parson of Prussia.The original goal of this lengthy conference was to agree that the Congo River and Niger River mouths and basins are deaf(p) and are open to free merchandise. beforehand the conference, 80% of Africa remained to be traditionally and topically ruled. The Europeans only controlled the coastal areas. This all changed because nance Leopold II wanted glory for Portugal and organized a secret mission to gain Congo drop off State. King Leopold and new(prenominal) countries wanted to take advantage of its gold, timber, land, timber, and lug power.When France discovered King Leopold IIs scheme, she got mad which eventually resulted in this conference. The lowest result of this conference culminated in the universal Act of BerlinConference. This document prohibited internationalist slave trade, made Congo Free State a private airscrew of Congo Society (although Leopold still uses it as his private property), permit free trade in Congo Basin and Lake Niassa, and have free ship traffic on the Niger and Congo river.A new map of the African continent was created. It divided the vast continent into 50 geometric countries with no regards for cultural and linguistic boundaries of the native Africans. The only countries remain free are Ethiopia and Liberia (USs country to return slaves to their homeland. All in all, the Berlin Conference caused Africans to lose their autonomy and ushered in heightened colonial activity.