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2 Early modern period 3 The Scramble for Africa 4 See also: 5 External Links: |
North Africa in particular experienced colonization from Europe and Asia Minor in the early historical period.
The city of Carthage was established in what is now Tunisia by Phoenician colonists, becoming a major power in the Mediterranean by the 4th century BC. Over time the city changed hands, falling to the Romanss after the Third Punic War, where it served as the capital city of the Romans' African province. Gothic Vandals briefly established a kingdom there in the 5th century, which shortly thereafter fell to the Romans again, this time the Byzantines. The Ancient Egyptian civilization also fell under the sway of the Greeks, later passing to the Romans. The whole of Roman/Byzantine North Africa eventually fell to the Arabs in the 7th century, who brought the Islamic religion and Arabic language (see History of Islam).
(Insert post-7th century, pre-1880 information here.)
Established empires, notably Britain, Portugal and France, had already expropriated vast areas of Africa and Asia, and emerging imperial powers like Italy and Germany had done likewise on a smaller scale. With the dismissal of the aging Chancellor Bismarck by Kaiser Wilhelm II, the relatively orderly colonisation became a frantic scramble. The 1885 Congress of Berlin, initiated by Bismarck to establish international guidelines for the acquisition of African territory, formalized this "New Imperialism". Between the Franco-Prussian War and the Great War, Europe added almost 9 million square miles — one-fifth of the land area of the globe — to its overseas colonial possessions. Ancient Colonization
Early modern period
The Scramble for Africa
Main article: Scramble for Africa