Rogue Empires : Contracts and Conmen in Europe’s Scramble for Africa

Rogue Empires takes a new look at the origins and consequences of a key moment in European History: the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. Drawing on archival research conducted in ten countries and three languages, the book argues that the flood of rogue empires in Africa came about due to a short-lived European obsession with events happening far away, in Southeast Asia. European investors there had recently promoted an idea of buying empires through "private" purchases of sovereignty: full control over a place's resources and people, with neither monitoring by third parties, nor any accountability to a nation, nor, in most cases, the awareness of affected indigenous peoples. Once this idea made its way back around the world to European capitals, it inspired a number of important figures, notably German chancellor Otto von Bismarck and British Prime Minister William Gladstone, to support a string of copycat ventures in Sub-Saharan Africa.-- Provided by publisher In the 1880s, Europeans descended on Africa and grabbed vast swaths of the continent, using documents, not guns, as their weapon of choice. Rogue Empires follows a paper trail of questionable contracts to discover the confidence men whose actions touched off the Scramble for Africa. Many of them were would-be kings who sought to establish their own autonomous empires across the African continent--often at odds with traditional European governments which competed for control. From 1882 to 1885, independent European businessmen and firms (many of doubtful legitimacy) produced hundreds of deeds purporting to buy political rights from indigenous African leaders whose understanding of these agreements was usually deemed irrelevant. A system of privately governed empires, some spanning hundreds of thousands of square miles, promptly sprang up in the heart of Africa. Steven Press traces the notion of empire by purchase to an unlikely place: the Southeast Asian island of Borneo, where the English adventurer James Brooke bought his own kingdom in the 1840s. Brooke's example inspired imitators in Africa, as speculators exploited a loophole in international law in order to assert sovereignty and legal ownership of lands which they then plundered for profit. The success of these experiments in governance attracted notice in European capitals. Press shows how the whole dubious enterprise came to a head at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, when King Leopold of Belgium and the German Chancellor Bismarck embraced rogue empires as legal precedents for new colonial agendas in the Congo, Namibia, and Cameroon. ''Rogue Empires takes a new look at the origins and consequences of a key moment in European History: the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. Drawing on archival research conducted in ten countries and three languages, the book argues that the flood of rogue empires in Africa came about due to a short-lived European obsession with events happening far away, in Southeast Asia. European investors there had recently promoted an idea of buying empires through "private" purchases of sovereignty: full control over a place's resources and people, with neither monitoring by third parties, nor any accountability to a nation, nor, in most cases, the awareness of affected indigenous peoples. Once this idea made its way back around the world to European capitals, it inspired a number of important figures, notably German chancellor Otto von Bismarck and British Prime Minister William Gladstone, to support a string of copycat ventures in Sub-Saharan Africa.''-- Site de l'éditeur

In the 1880s Europeans grabbed vast swaths of the African continent, using documents, not guns, as their weapon of choice. Steven Press follows a paper trail of questionable contracts to discover the confidence men who exploited a loophole in international law to assert sovereignty over lands, and whose actions touched off the Scramble for Africa.

Contents Introduction 1. The Man Who Bought a Country 2. The Emergence of an Idea 3. King Leopold’s Borneo 4. Bismarck’s Borneo 5. The Berlin Conference Epilogue Notes Acknowledgments Index The man who bought a country -- The emergence of an idea -- King Leopold's Borneo -- Bismarck's Borneo -- Epilogue: "A great act of folly