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Did the Berlin Conference Actually Divide Africa? - Beyond the Myth of the 1884 Africa Partition | Sleepy Facts About History
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The familiar image of the 1884 Berlin Conference features European diplomats gathered around a map, drawing the borders that would divide a continent. It is a powerful image, but it obscures a more complicated and revealing history. The delegates in Bismarck’s residence did not carve up Africa in a single sitting. Instead, they drafted a set of diplomatic rules—most notably the principle of effective occupation—that would legitimize decades of separate, violent, and piecemeal conquests…
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