Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was an Italian-born French naval officer and explorer whose expeditions in central Africa helped establish French colonial rule north of the Congo River. Presenting himself as an alternative to the more violent methods associated with some European rivals, he negotiated treaties with local rulers and founded the station that developed into Brazzaville, although the colonial system that followed remained coercive and exploitative.

Brazza negotiated treaties on the north bank of the Congo River and founded the station that became Brazzaville. His agreements allowed France to counter Leopold II’s claims and establish French Congo during the early Scramble.

In Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912, Henry Morton Stanley’s work for Leopold II, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza’s French treaties and Otto von Bismarck’s Berlin Conference illustrate how claims made on paper were converted into colonies, protectorates and concessionary states.