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

Britain’s early presence in Africa was exclusive to Sierra Leone, Gambia, The Gold Coast and The Cape Colony. They gained control of these areas in the late 18th or early 19th centuries. It is not until the 1860’s that Britain and other European powers began to assert themselves in terms of gaining African territory making treaties. The scramble for Africa really has its beginnings in the late 1860’s but does not began to fully take off until the 1880’s when Britain, Germany, France, and to a smaller degree Italy begin to stake their claims. Britain’s previous African expansion had been very different then it would be in Africa during the scramble. The early British territories were either in primarily un-inhabited coastal regions or they had been gained from other European powers that had previously established sound control of territory such as with France in regard to The Cape Colony.

The situation in Egypt continued to worsen as France played less of a role because of concerns with Germany and with the debts mounting and the abdication of Khedive Ismail in 1879 something had to be done in order to bail out Egypt and preserve control over the Suez Canal. The British for the economic reasons attached with the canal stepped in and bought out the Egyptian shares in the Canal to help cancel some of the Egyptians debts. The debts were still not able to appropriately managed and rebellion broke out because of the wretched economy and the European presence in Egypt. At this point Britain was un-encumbered as France was with major concerns about Germany decide to go in and occupy Egypt so as to ensure the canal and bring about order.

In order to explore the nature of British expansion in Africa Porter’s The Lion’s Share and T.O. Lloyds The British Empire 1558-1995 are indispensable texts. Using their information on British expansion throughout Africa as a foundation it becomes possible to break down the period of greatest growth between 1880 and 1900 by analyzing British role in Africa prior to 1880, the external roles that competitors such as Germany and France had in forcing England’s imperial hand coupled with the internal economic drives for procuring areas of Africa, and the special case and significance of the Cape Colony and British Afrikaner relations.

At first this seemed sound but the British East Africa Company was poorly managed and was in competition with the east African slave trade. The company was in trouble right from the start but made efforts to get involved with the Buganda Kingdom who were the primary rulers of the hinterland. McKinnon sent missionaries and his military captain a man by the name of Lugard into the Buganda kingdom and they quiet successfully became overlords of the Buganda Kingdom with little bloodshed. The only problem that arose from this was the fact that the British East India Company had neither the money nor the military needed to politically control the region. Lugard’s expenses in the hinterland and the lack of financial growth by the government prompted Salisbury to try to get a rail line built between Mombassa and Lake Victoria. This plan was meet with little support and Lord Rosebery soon replaced Salisbury in 1892 (Lloyd, p. 239).

As England encouraged emigration to the Cape Colony and the slave trade and slavery were abolished throughout the British Empire greater cultural conflict grew between the Afrikaners and the British. The abolition of slavery made the majority of Afrikaners feel that their rights were being impinged upon and so in 1836 under the leadership of Sir Benjamin D’Urban and Piet Retieg a mass exodus of Afrikaners to the north occurred. Nearly 15,000 Afrikaners trekked north past the Orange River into unclaimed territory in the southern portion of the Zulu Nations territory and founded the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

ria, and the mapping and exploration of the previously mysterious African interior early in the 1

Some topics in this essay:
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