objectives of the Berlin conference
- To set or lay down the rules of the partition.
- To eliminate conflict among European nations over their expansion into Africa.
- To define any area effectively occupied by each nation to avoid interference.
- To sort out different European views on the slave trade and its abolition.
- Establishment of authority in regions under occupation.
- To safeguard native African interests.
- To protect traders, scientists, explorers and Christian missionaries from local attacks.
- To guarantee religious tolerance.
- To guarantee free trade.
- To draw the borders of regions under occupation on a map.
terms of the Berlin Act.
- Any state laying claim to any part of Africa had to inform other interested parties. The claims had to be discussed and ratified if they were justifiable.
- All signatories had to declare their spheres of influence I.E. an area under each nation’s occupation.
- Effective occupation had to be established in an area once the area was declared a sphere of influence.
- Any power acquiring territory in Africa had to undertake stamping out of slave trade and safeguard African interests.
- The River Congo and River Niger basins were left free for any interested power to navigate.
- If a European power claimed a certain part of the African coast, the land in the interior or behind the coastal possession became the coastal claimant’s sphere of influence.
- Any country that wished to declare a protectorate in Africa had to show that its authority in the region was firm enough to protect existing European rights and guarantee free trade.