The Treaty of Lome and Togoland's Partition

Episode 108 of The Berlin Conference takes us to the coast of West Africa, where the German colony of Togoland became a testing ground for the principle of 'effective occupation' that Bismarck's diplomats had scribbled onto the General Act of the Berlin Conference. We follow the career of Gustav Nachtigal, the explorer turned imperial commissioner who signed the Treaty of Lome with local chiefs in 1884, and trace how that single document triggered a chain of treaties, boundary commissions, and armed patrols that carved the Ewe people's homeland into German and French spheres. We examine the peculiar land tenure systems of the Aneho and the Mina traders who had long dominated Atlantic commerce, and ask whether the conference's paper rules had any real meaning on the ground. Lucas and Luna also explore the bizarre episode of the 'Togo gunboats' — five small river vessels that Germany rushed to assemble in Hamburg and ship to Lome in pieces, reassembling them on the beach to assert control over the lagoon network. The episode concludes with a reflection on how the Berlin Conference's legacy looked from the perspective of a single African community caught between two European empires. #GustavNachtigal #Togoland #TreatyOfLome #BerlinConference #EffectiveOccupation #EwePeople #Aneho #MinaTraders #GermanColonialEmpire #ScrambleForAfrica #WestAfrica #TogoGunboats #GermanProtectorate #1884 #AfricanResistance #History #FexingoHistory #ColonialHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo