The role and importance of Africa to the British soon changed though do to imperial competition with France and Germany. Germany under the aggressive policies of Bismarck set out to take a leading role in Africa and catch up to other European powers such as Britain and France in terms of empire by gaining new control over territory and expanding their spheres of influence. Other important factors made Africa the hot spot for British and European expansion including the discovery of gold in the Transvaal and diamonds in the Orange Free State, the palm oil industry in Nigeria, scientific discoveries such as the way to treat mala

The British role in Africa only began with the scramble for Africa. British influence would continue to grow until the African colonies began to gain their independence in the middle and second half of the 20th century.

Britain is content to be rid of the Afrikaners for the time being and lets political issues rest in southern Africa until they grant representative government to the cape colony in the 1870’s and there is British interests in unifying all of southern Africa. These desires become more intense when the opportunity arises because of the economic difficulties the Transvaal and the Orange Free State were experiencing and because of a new Zulu threat. Lord Carnarvon was the Colonial secretary under Disreli in the 1870’s and he pushed for unification and in 1877 he was able to convince the Transvaal and the Orange Free State to be annexed in return for aide against the Zulu threat.

Britain’s attitude toward African expansion doesn’t really change in the last two decades of the 19th century from its long held overall view of keeping Africa on a shoestring. It’s actions change radically though because of newly discovered economic opportunities and a need to respond to the actions other European powers. Although economic influence and foreign pressure created a reason for British expansion in the last two decades it is key to look at the small ways the British built a foundation for expansion starting in the 1850’s and 1860’s. For example David Livingston’s exploration in Africa and the resulting publicity in the Victorian media opened England’s eyes in regards to Africa. He was most effective in creating interest by awakening Victorian morality concerning the still active slave trade occurring in east Africa. David Livingston had caught the public attention with his accounts of his explorations and his reminder that a slave trade on the east coast was still taking a great many slaves across the Indian Ocean to the Arab world. When he said that he was going back to Africa to make an open road for commerce and for Christianity he meant that unless a natural alternative was provided the slave trade was bound to go on (Lloyd, p. 182). Livingston was an icon to remind the British of Africa but his role alone did not fully set the foundation for later British growth in Africa. African expansion hadn’t particularly been considered by because it wasn’t viable do to high mortality rates caused by malaria and other tropical diseases and the lack of geographic knowledge of the African hinterland. These piece of the foundation started to come together though in the 1850’s and 1860’s to combined with Livingston’s publicizing of Africa to build the base that would support the rapid expansion the would develop in the 1880’s and 1890’s.

The issue of Britain absorbing Uganda and Kenya came from the foreign minister Lord Salisbury who had a sincere yet somewhat implausible belief that the Germans would swallow up Uganda which is the wellspring of the Nile from there new colony of German East Africa and would create a massive water works and cut off the river decimating Egypt and making the Suez Canal worthless (Lloyd, p. 238). Salisbury spent much of his time hyping this idea and in the process found McKinnon and his British East Africa Company. The British East Africa Company seemed like the perfect way to establish a British presence in the regions of Uganda and Kenya. It also helped to solve the crisis occurring in Zanzibar.

Along with Egypt, Britain soon came to similar situations in Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya. The British had been present in Nigeria since the middle of the 19th century with many small companies involved in the palm oil and coco industries in 1879 these small companies were merged together through the leadership of George Goldie producing The Royal Niger Company. As other European powers began to encroach in on the area controlled by The Royal Niger Company Goldie requ

Some topics in this essay:
Africa African, Africa Company, Orange Free, Colony Britain’s, Cape Colony, Germany France, British Empire, Togoland Cameroons, Buganda Kingdom, Africa British, cape colony, orange free, european powers, slave trade, transvaal orange free, buganda kingdom, africa company, transvaal orange, 19th century, east africa, scramble africa, british east africa, royal niger company, east africa company, cape colony british,