Response to the Berlin Conference

My group represented Britain, and I would say that we did pretty well considering the circumstances. Portugal took the land in Southern Africa that we initially planned to claim, but we were still able to find good fertile land that also had some raw materials and resources. I think looking back we could have done better by planning a back up solution, and could have taken land such as that near the Suez Canal to help extend our power.

In our class's Berlin Conference I think it was Portugal who did the best. They got land that was good for farming, had many resources, and was convenient for trading. I think that Italy did the worst in our class. While it is possible that they got the most land, their land in just desert with no benfits.

One thing I learned from this experience is how little regard the Europeans had for the Africans. While we doing this project all we thought of was how to get the land that would benefit ourselves the most, the existence of the people who have lived in this land for centuries did not cross our minds. Because of the divisions made by the Europeans, bad blood exists today between tribes. By entering and ripping apart Africa they did more damage than they could have possibly imagined, because they just seemed to believe that the land was rightfully theirs.