Togo - West Africa - page 853

The legendary Sundiata Keita, founder of the Empire of Mali in the 13th century, included a clause pro-
hibiting slavery in his Charter of Kurukanfuga.
For all their progress, the European powers were largely confined to pockets of territory
on the coast, among them the French enclave of Dakar (Senegal), and the British ports of
Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Lagos (Nigeria). Portugal, no longer a major force, retained
some territory, notably Bissau, capital of today's Guinea-Bissau. The relentless European
pursuit of territory nonetheless continued, with brutal military expeditions into the interior
increasingly the norm. Minor treaties were made with local chiefs, but the lives of ordin-
ary West Africans were more often determined by unspoken understandings between
European powers.
Bury the Chains: The First International Human Rights Movement, by Adam Hochschild, is masterly in its treatment
of the British campaign to abolish slavery in the 18th century.
The Scramble for Africa
Europe's wholesale colonisation of Africa was triggered in 1879 by King Leopold of Bel-
gium's claim to the Congo. The feeding frenzy that followed saw Africa parcelled out
among the European powers. Africans had no say in the matter.
Togo and parts of Cameroon fell under German rule, Portugal held fast to Guinea-Bis-
sau and Cape Verde, Britain staked its claim to The Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast
(Ghana) and Nigeria, while the Sahel (and Morocco and much of Cameroon) was the pre-
serve of the French. These claims, at once military realities and colonial fantasies, as
many Africans had not seen a European from the country to whom his or her land now
supposedly belonged, were confirmed at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85. The final ad-
justments to the colonial map were made after Germany's defeat in WWI: Togo went to
the French and Cameroon was divided between France and Britain.
Introducing 'civilisation' to the 'natives' officially replaced trade as the raison d'être of
the colonial mission, but the primary aim of European governments was to exploit the
colonies for raw materials. In West Africa, gem and gold mining was developed, but the
once gold-rich region disappointed the occupiers. Consequently, labour-intensive planta-
tions were established, and cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, rubber, cotton and ground-
nuts (peanuts) came to dominate the economies of the fledgling colonies. Such infrastruc-
ture as was built in West Africa (the Dakar-Bamako rail line, for example) was designed
primarily to benefit the colonial economy. Little or no attempt was made to improve living