History of Africa from the 16th to the 20th Century

[Music] The Scramble for Africa is, I believe, one of the most poorly understood periods in history. From what I gather, most people seem to believe that the colonial powers one day sat around a map at the Berlin Conference, drawing borders around bits they wanted, and that was it.

But the Scramble had already begun by the time of the conference of 1884. Plus, the conference dictated that any claimant must show effective occupation of a region before it was granted to them. This meant, in some instances, there were literal races between explorers, far more intense than destroying lines on a map.

During the Scramble, great powers like Britain and France nearly went to war. It brought about a revolution in Portugal, and I'd argue, with the exception of maybe the Zulus and Ethiopians, the Africans and their battles against colonialism are often just completely ignored. Plus, the fact that some African countries like Egypt and Ethiopia actually expanded is also often glossed over.

But to understand the Scramble, you really need to go back in time. Well, maybe you don't, but there's some fascinating empires, wars, and cultural exchanges beforehand. The first European colonies in Africa were set up by the Portuguese as bases along their route to India. These included Madeira in the Atlantic, Sofala and Mozambique, Luanda in Angola, and Mombasa and Zanzibar in East Africa. These all proved to be important stopover points for international trade, and this was pretty much the standard for colonialism at that time. It was far more profitable to set up factories for trade and control sea lanes rather than taking over entire regions.

As such, the Portuguese would also set up colonies in the Spice Islands, Hormuz, and Persia, and important to this story, in Oman. The Spanish and Portuguese had agreed to divide the world in two, so they had little competition from Europeans in Africa. But late in the 16th century, the Iberian Union united Portugal with Spain, and as such, the Portuguese entered into Spain's wars against the Dutch and the English.

The Dutch were quick to move into the colonial game and took Menna from the Portuguese. They expanded in West Africa, established the Dutch Slave Coast, and built forts in Senegal. Plus, for a few decades, they even held Portuguese Luanda. While in the south, in the middle of the 17th century, they entered Cape Town, an important midway point for ships sailing between the oceans.

The Dutch that settled in this region became the Boers. However, the locals in South Africa that they encountered during this period were not the Zulu. They were the Khoikhoi. These are often grouped together with the San hunter-gatherers, but they were a distinct group of people. The Zulu, on the other hand, didn't enter the picture for another few decades, as they were Bantu who migrated from the north.

However, to further complicate matters, there were also the Xhosa in South Africa at that time, and they are closely related to the Bantu. There is some debate over when the Xhosa arrived, but their language shows that they may have been there a lot sooner, as they adopted some of the click sounds from the local San people. Hence, Xhosa is usually pronounced something like "Gosa," but I think it's time to explain a bit about the African people and their kingdoms.

So, this is going to be a gross oversimplification, I'm aware of that, as I'm trying to explain about 200 years of African history, but here goes. Let's start with the Bantu. They originated probably from Cameroon and they migrated south and east. This migration lasted potentially thousands of years, so don't think of it like a mass movement of people. They became the dominant group in many countries in Central and South Africa over time, but they often lived alongside the original inhabitants. So, in South Africa and especially in Namibia, you still have the San people. Plus, alongside the Bantu in Congo, you have the Pygmies.

Plus, it was the Bantu who established the Kingdom of Kongo in Central Africa. And this kingdom, in the early 1600s, sent an ambassador to meet with the Pope in Rome. He was Emmanuelle Nsunda, but after travelling via Brazil and Spain, he died just two days after arriving in Rome. This kingdom also built cities larger than some in Europe, and many of their rulers became Christian very early on and adopted European fashions. Congolese men also joined Christian religious orders. They had their own coats of arms, and the kingdom survived in one form or another until the 19th century.

So, you had an almost European Christian kingdom in Central Africa which had connections with the Papacy and a large urban population, but their country was often torn apart by civil war. And strangely, during one of these wars in the late 1600s, a prophet emerged. This prophet was Kimpa Vita, and she had visions claiming that Jesus was in fact born in the Congo. So, it was sort of like an African version of Mormonism.

Otherwise, in Central Africa, you had many kingdoms like the Kingdoms of Burundi and Rwanda, which were established there in the late 1600s. From very early on, these kingdoms were based on Tutsi dominance over the Hutu, and this power dynamic would still be very important in the 20th century, leading to genocides in the respective countries.

And the outbreak of the First Congo War. In Southern Africa, it was also the Bantu, specifically the Shona people, who built Great Zimbabwe in medieval times. But by the 1600s, Great Zimbabwe had fallen, and power in the region was transferred to Mutapa in Mozambique. This Kingdom of Mutapa, however, was eventually weakened due to infighting and Portuguese interference. So, by the late 17th century, they often accepted the vassalage of the Portuguese or even their other new neighbour, the Rozvi Empire. The Rozvi grew rich on gold and were a formidable power, so they were able to fight back numerous Portuguese attempts to take over their gold mines.

Going further north along the coast, the Muslims once ruled over the important trading centers of Zanzibar and Mombasa. But their Kilwa Sultanate was already on the decline when the Portuguese arrived, and it ultimately collapsed. This allowed the Portuguese to take over these trading centers. But soon, a new power emerged in the region, and anyone who has played Victoria 2 will know this power: Oman. Their capital of Muscat had been held by the Portuguese, but they were driven out of there in the 1600s, and the new Yaruba dynasty capitalized on their victory and chased the Portuguese west and took over the East Coast of Africa. Zanzibar, in particular, would become an important trading center for the lucrative Arab slave trade, something that played a very important role during the Scramble for Africa centuries later. Plus, it was from Zanzibar that many Arab slavers would form trading centers deep into the interior of Africa.

Further north still, you had more Muslim sultanates in Somalia like Ajuran, who fought back a couple of Portuguese invasions. While nearby, the Adal Sultanate in the 1500s tried to conquer their Christian neighbors, the Ethiopians, but the Portuguese came to the aid of the Ethiopians and prevented the takeover from happening. The Ottomans, on the other hand, would come to the aid of the Muslims, starting the Ottoman-Portuguese War, which spread from East Africa all the way over to India.

Now, in previous centuries, the Somalians were pretty intrepid explorers. As people like Sa'id of Mogadishu made his way over to China in the 1300s. By now, though, they began to fall behind Europeans in terms of maritime technology and trade. But the port of Berbera continued to be incredibly important well into the 19th century. It was said during this time that thousands of camels would arrive at the port, bringing ivory, cattle hides, and the like, ready to be shipped across Arabia and beyond.

But their failures against Ethiopia meant that Ethiopia would remain an independent Christian kingdom, trapped behind Muslim lands. So, many Christians believed that this was the homeland of Prester John, a fictional Christian king of great wealth who would aid the Europeans in their conquest of the Islamic empires. Plus, this idea of Prester John encouraged many Europeans to explore the region.

Furthermore, as a Christian kingdom, Ethiopia, like the Congo, had connections with Europe and the Papacy. For instance, they sent ambassadors to the Council of Florence in the 1430s, and they even tried to form an alliance with the King of Aragon against the Muslims. Before that, going even further back, their ruler Lalibela built huge stone churches which bear his name in the 12th century as a sort of second Jerusalem. This came shortly after the Muslims reconquered the city of Jerusalem. So, they were present in the Middle East during the Crusades, and Ethiopians, along with their Christian neighbors to the north, were sometimes present in the courts of the Byzantine Empire.

Yet, this whole area of East Africa, as you'd expect, had a completely different racial makeup. Its position on the Indian Ocean brought in a number of Arab merchants who brought Islam to the area. Then, within Ethiopia, they had a number of different ethnicities like the Tigrayans and the Amharans. Amharic was the language of the empire for the most part, but this was a Semitic language, closer to those in the Middle East rather than anything in Africa. Plus, in future centuries, many of the Ethiopian rulers and elites, just like many of the Europeans, would consider the Ethiopians to be Caucasian.

For instance, a journalist from Haiti named Benito Sylvain met Emperor Menelik II in the 19th century, and he hoped that he would become an honorary president of their society advancing the cause of black people. But Menelik refused, declaring that he was in fact a Caucasian man. But don't think of Caucasians just being white like in the USA today, as at that time it included everyone from India to England.

Then, in Ethiopia, and even the Islamic sultanates in the 1500s, they were facing a sort of migration crisis, as the Oromo people from Southern Ethiopia began to migrate north. These Oromo people and the ruling Amhara never fully unified into a single entity, and conflicts between them continue to this day. The Ethiopians weren't even the only Christian kingdom in the region, as just to the north of them, you had the Medri Bahri, who survived for centuries. But just to the west of them, you had more Islamic kingdoms and empires like Darfur, the Sennar, and the Funj.

Now, for Borno, they were in medieval times a far more powerful empire, but by this point, they had become a bit of a rump state, lying in modern-day Chad. Going further west still, you had the Hausa states, formed by the largest ethnic group within Africa, the Hausa. Then to the west of them, you had the declining Mali Empire. This empire, like others along the Sahara, grew rich from the trans-Saharan trade. Gold, salt, slaves, and the like passed through these great states, and once upon a time, the ruler of Mali, Mansa Musa, was argued to be the richest man who ever lived.

The salt mines here kept food preserved on long journeys, and whole salt mining towns were reliant on this trade to bring them food in the middle of the desert. And just to the south of them, they had many gold mines. And I often think that the slave trade somewhat overshadows the West African gold trade. The desire for gold was not just among a few rich Europeans looking to get even richer, but at the beginning of the Age of Exploration, it was essential for the survival of the European economies.

This is because from 1457 to 1464, there was a bullion famine, and the Europeans were running out of gold and silver. This was in part caused by wars like the Hundred Years' War and the huge trade deficit the Europeans had with Asia. So, Europeans began exploring and discovered West Africa and their gold mines, and these practically saved Europe. The gold from this region was so well circulated in Europe that this is where you get the name of the old Guinea coins from, because where else but Guinea could you get such a large quantity of gold?

As such, there were numerous African states that popped up along the coast here. Benin and Oyo, for instance, had been around since medieval times, while others like Dahomey and Ashanti came about around 1600 to 1700. But there's almost too many to mention in this summary.

In the far reaches of West Africa, around modern-day Senegal, there was the powerful Jolof Empire. But by the middle of the 16th century, Kure broke free, and the empire disintegrated into various states. However, as the Europeans began to enter West Africa, stories began to emerge of previous settlers in the region. For instance, in the 1600s, the French claimed that they had evidence of the Normans raiding the West African coast back in the 1300s. This was based on documents which have now disappeared and the alleged testimony of a 130-year-old Guinea man. He apparently mentioned a French battery in the region, but without those original documents, it's impossible to know if this was based on any truth.

Another story came from the Genoese, who had their own explorers in medieval times and the early modern period. The most well-known was, of course, Columbus, but there was also the Vivaldi brothers, who tried to circumnavigate Africa way back in the 13th century. They, however, disappeared en route. But Antoniotto Usodimare, a later explorer writing over 150 years later, claimed to have found their descendants. Now, Usodimare was an early traveler in Africa, hoping to gain funding for future expeditions, so his reports are often filled with exaggerations and lies. For instance, he wrote of the incredibly rich lands of Prester John along the Gambia River and, weirdly, a group of people speaking the Genoese dialect. So apparently, the great-great-grandchildren of the Vivaldi brothers.

Now, these medieval explorers may not have made it to West Africa, but ancient people did. The Phoenicians, for instance, explored the area, and Hanno the Navigator even tried to enslave gorillas way, way back in the 5th century BC. But even though successful trade stopped in medieval times, that's not to say that Europe was completely cut off from West Africa. Obviously, the gold found its way from West Africa to Europe, but some strange items might have traveled the other way.

Like in the 19th century, the British took over Ashanti and discovered a… dating back to the 1300s. It was inscribed with the English royal seal of the time and had English writing along the side. So, it was clearly made in Plantagenet England, but how it arrived there remains a mystery. Did it come with slave traders later on in the 18th century, or did it embark on a great medieval journey, being traded with people from Spain, Morocco, Mali, and the like, before finding its new home in the Ashanti Kingdom? It's really hard to know.

Now, back in West Africa, there was a powerful empire just to the east of Senegal: the Songhai Empire. They had largely drove the Mali Empire into decline and took the city of Timbuktu from them. But the Songhai Empire had all but collapsed by the 1600s, and their defeat didn't come at the hands of the Europeans, but Morocco. The Moroccans of North Africa, in 1578, had fought back a Portuguese invasion, and their new Sultan, Ahmad al-Mansur, launched an invasion south and crushed the Songhai.

The Moroccans at this point were so powerful that they were seen as a potential ally for the Judah dynasty and even the French, who hoped to fight against their mutual enemy of Spain. Plus, the Moroccans were so convinced that they could defeat the Spanish that al-Mansur planned on how to divide up the Spanish colonies in the Americas. However, their rule over West Africa didn't last long. The logistics of maintaining such a large empire across the Sahara proved to be too hard, especially after plague swept through the region, killing al-Mansur and weakening the kingdom. So, they retreated back north just a couple of decades later.

And this brings me to one of the most forgotten colonizers of Africa: the Muslims of the North. After the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks in the early 1500s, they annexed Egypt, and this in turn opened their path to taking coastal Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia. And this in turn opened up their path to taking coastal Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia. These would later become the Barbary States, which infamously would launch pirate attacks on ships passing through the Mediterranean Sea. And if any nation wanted safe passage, they would have to pay the respective countries tribute.

Many Europeans would join the ranks of these pirates, notably Jan Janszoon, a Dutch pirate who wanted to attack their Spanish enemy. Under his command, the pirates would launch raids as far north as Iceland, where they captured hundreds of people. These people, like many Europeans at that time, were then brought back to the Barbary States and sold as slaves.

Now, this slave trade, at its height from around 1580 to 1680, probably saw close to 1 million Europeans enslaved and brought to North African states. But if you were to add this number to the number of Christians enslaved by the Ottomans to fill in the ranks of the Janissaries and their likes, the number would of course be a lot higher. Also, during this period, the pirates temporarily took over the English island of Lundy, near Bristol.

While back in Morocco, they formed their own republic: the Republic of Salé. Among the population of this republic, there were many Christian converts to Islam, like Jan Janszoon, plus there were many Muslims who were forcibly evicted from Spain in the decades prior, and also a collection of Jewish pirates who also wanted some revenge against the Spanish for kicking them out of their home. The Ottomans and the Muslim pirates were therefore the most dominant force in North Africa.

But the Ottomans also began looking further south for land and expanded along the Red Sea. For instance, back in 1557, they seized Massawa in modern-day Eritrea, and it was from there that they got involved in the war between Adal, the Ethiopians, and the Portuguese. Plus, in North Africa, there were also a number of European colonies. The Portuguese tried numerous times to invade Morocco and was sometimes successful in establishing bases along the coast. Most of these were reclaimed by the Moroccans, but there is one interesting tale in there.

When Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess, married King Charles II of England in 1662, she gave Tangier to the English as part of the dowry. This dowry also included Bombay, which set British expansion in India in motion. So, the same thing could have happened in Tangier with the English expanding into North Africa, but the English Protestants already suspected that Charles was a Catholic, and there was a large number of Catholics garrisoning the town. So, they later had the fortifications destroyed and left Morocco.

Also, back in the 1500s, the Spanish were able to take over quite a lot of important towns along the North African coast. For instance, they took over Tripoli in 1510 and gave it to the Knights of Saint John in Malta. Algiers was also temporarily occupied by them, and Tunis was made a Spanish puppet, and so too was Gibraltar. They lost most of these to the Ottomans later on. However, to this day, the Spanish still hold on to some of their North African possessions: Melilla and Ceuta.

So, you had the Portuguese, Spanish, and English in North Africa. Plus, there was a very small French attempt as well, as they set up a fort called the Bastion of France in Annaba. There, they hoped, like many, to exploit the coral trade in the region, but very little came from this colony. The largest coral traders at that time were the Italian Genoese, who held Tobruk in modern-day Tunisia all the way until the 18th century.

However, European, or at least Christian, attempts to take over North Africa go back centuries. For instance, way back in the 12th century, the city of Pisa attacked Annaba, while the Sicilians held onto Gibraltar sporadically from the 12th to the 15th centuries. In fact, when the Normans ruled Sicily, they launched the Mahdia campaigns in the 11th century and took over large sections of Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. They controlled so much land that the Norman rulers took the title of the King of Africa and ruled over the area until the Almohad Caliphate kicked them out.

Anyway, as Europeans began to grow more in wealth, they too looked to create their own colonial empires, and most of them arrived on the West Coast. After all, this place was rich in gold, and many of them were looking to get involved in the growing slave market. In particular, the Gold Coast, or modern-day Ghana, saw a great number of Europeans arrive. But these Europeans, like in other regions, were not controlled by the governments of each country, but they were rather private trading companies. So, just like the Virginia Company in America or the numerous East India Companies, there were also groups like the English African Company of Merchants or the Guinea Company.

So, in West Africa, there were, of course, the English and the Dutch, who were by this point setting up colonies around the world. But there were also Danish and Swedish colonies, plus a short-lived Prussian attempt, which lasted from 1682 to 1721. But possibly the most obscure colonial power was Courland. This was a small vassal state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, located in modern-day Latvia. But the population was a mix of local Baltic people, Polish, and many Germans who had arrived there during the Northern Crusades. They set up a colony on the Gold Coast from 1651 to 1661. However, they also had a colony over in Senegal and had a Caribbean colony on the island of Tobago.

So, the language of many African countries could well have been German or even Swedish had things gone differently. But again, although this is a gross oversimplification, many of these countries would become distracted or indebted due to wars in Europe, and many of them would go on to sell their colonies to the Dutch or English. On the other hand, the Danes held on to colonies in West Africa and the Caribbean until the middle of the 19th century. But since the abolition of slavery, many of their settlements were abandoned and eventually sold off.

Then, as we move into the late 17th century, the Dutch were on the decline, and in their place, the French appeared as a power in the colonial game. For instance, they seized Gorée from the Dutch. This island, by the way, has a bit of a controversial history, as it is often claimed to be one of the major hubs of the transatlantic slave trade, but this has been disputed in recent years. Now, this is because less than five percent of the 12 million slaves who crossed the Atlantic are said to have set off from the Senegambia region. Then, even a smaller percent of them would have arrived at Gorée. So, compared to other regions, this five percent is pretty low. The Gold Coast, for instance, sent over ten percent of the slaves, the Bight of Benin over twenty, and by far the largest number arrived from the area around Congo and Angola, with close to forty percent.

This, by the way, makes quite a bit of sense, as this is the region in which the Portuguese largely operated. And most slaves were not sent to the Caribbean or the United States, but in fact, Brazil. Close to five million arrived in Brazil, compared to two million in the British Caribbean, one million in the French Caribbean and Spanish Americas, and half a million in the Dutch Americas and modern-day United States respectively. Plus, it should also be said that over one million of those who left Africa never made it across the Atlantic at all.

But now we're entering the slave trade, and this is another thing that seems to be completely misunderstood by many. On the one hand, it is said that Europeans were going out capturing the slaves themselves, while on the other, it is often said that the Africans were the biggest traders of slaves. But in truth, the situation was far more complicated, as you would expect.

To try and simplify the situation, the slave trade was of course around long before the Europeans arrived. Muslim traders had been taking slaves across the Sahara, or the more regular route for slaves was via ports like Zanzibar. There were, in fact, so many African slaves in the Muslim world that there were huge slave rebellions. For instance, there was the Zanj Rebellion in 9th century Iraq, which allegedly saw hundreds of thousands of men involved. The Islamic slave trade in Africa continued until way until the 20th century, and in some cases, like modern-day Libya or Mauritania, well into the 21st century. Plus, this slave trade would be a major justification for the Europeans to begin taking colonies in Africa, but I'll get onto that in later videos. And as a bit of a side note, although not Islamic, the Ethiopian slave trade would be used as a justification by Mussolini to invade the country in the 1930s.

But anyway, onto the European slave trade. Now, some African kingdoms did engage in the trade, but not all of them. Other nations were completely torn apart by it, as their neighbors fought more aggressive campaigns against them solely to capture slaves to sell to the Europeans or to keep to themselves. While on the reverse, some nations and people flourished due to the slave trade. The Oyo Empire, for instance, launched campaigns to capture slaves and sometimes even campaigns of conquest. They would also demand tribute from conquered people in the form of slaves, which they in turn sold to buy European guns, and the cycle continued.

Nearby Dahomey also had a largely slave-based economy. In the 18th century, the King of Dahomey even sent a diplomatic mission to Brazil, hoping to encourage further trade, and they were also one of the first nations to recognize Brazilian independence on that basis. But because it was forced to give male slaves to Oyo as tribute every year, they decided to create an all-female military unit named the Dahomey Amazons. These Amazons would often go on slave raids themselves, and during some festivities, hold mock battles showing them capturing male slaves. These female soldiers actually continued to be a powerful force in West Africa until the 19th century and were present in the war against the French.

Further east, some Arrow people moved towards the coast and set up their own confederacy in order to take advantage of the slave trade. While down south in Angola, there were the Imbangala, who would later form the Kasanje Kingdom, but they were initially marauders and mercenaries. They would attack settlements, capture slaves, and according to some accounts, fill their ranks with captured kids. Plus, there are reports of them cannibalizing their victims and forcing their new recruits to eat human meat. They therefore provided a far better slave trading partner for the Portuguese rather than the nearby Kingdom of Kongo.

This is because the Congolese would often try to limit the number of slaves that the Portuguese exported, sometimes tried to cut off trade altogether, and they even gave refuge to runaway slaves. So, some nations were keen traders, others were not. Plus, like with the Islamic trade in East Africa, the transatlantic slave trade made some people incredibly rich and allowed some kingdoms to flourish, but it mainly created a state of lawlessness, as warfare was near constant. Agriculture suffered as fields were left destroyed, and many young people of working and fighting age were taken from their homes to be sent to nearby kingdoms or over to the Middle East or the Americas.

There was, however, one other major hub for slaves that I've not mentioned, and that's Madagascar, where over five percent of slaves in the Americas came from. But on Madagascar, the population there was completely different to the rest of Africa. Obviously, they were divided by the sea, but the original settlers didn't come from Africa at all. They came from Southeast Asia and were ethnically Austronesian. This means they had more in common with the Maori of New Zealand or the Hawaiians rather than the Kenyans and the Nigerians. They first came across the Indian Ocean around 500 AD, but soon afterwards, Muslim traders also began arriving, bringing their religion with them. Then, allegedly, more Austronesians crossed the Indian Ocean a couple centuries later, followed in the 9th century by the Bantu, who came from mainland Africa.

The English, French, and Portuguese all tried to set up colonies on the island, but disease and pretty fierce locals meant they didn't survive longer than a couple of decades. But the French were able to establish bases on nearby islands like Réunion and Mauritius in the middle of the 1600s. As for the locals, they set up the Merina Kingdom. This kingdom would expand to take over most of the island until the 19th century, when they were conquered by the French. But due to the numerous races that lived on the island, they would organize their society into a caste system of sorts. At the top were the Merina people, the highlanders. They were known as the Andriana, and as you'd expect, they filled the positions of power and were seen as more Austronesian in appearance. Below them were other people who spoke the local language of Malagasy but were absorbed into the kingdom later on. These were called the Hova and were the commoners, while below them were the Andivo, slaves, which were brought into the country in large numbers to work on the plantations. They were bought from the French and Arabs primarily, who brought them from Mozambique on the East African coast. So, similar to the United States, it was quite a racially based form of slavery, and according to a recent UN report, there is still a large amount of discrimination against this slave caste.

Meanwhile, there were allegedly stranger colonies set up on Madagascar by pirates. Although piracy is far more famous over in the Caribbean, many pirates in the 17th century began to terrorize the Indian Ocean. Captain Kidd, for instance, turned pirate after being tasked with trying to catch pirates off the coast of Madagascar, which was a great place for looting the treasures being brought back from India. One of the pirates who made a name for himself was Henry Every. He captured a ship belonging to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, and this led to possibly the world's first ever manhunt. Pirates like Adam Baldridge set up bases around Madagascar, like on the island of Saint Mary's. Plus, there was a somewhat mythical colony called Libertalia, where pirates would go to war against oppressors and defend people's rights. However, many historians question whether or not it really existed.

As we enter the 18th century, there wasn't really a great deal of change in terms of colonization. For instance, during the Seven Years' War, the British took French posts in Senegal, but they were given back to the French shortly afterwards. Most colonial efforts at this time were still focused on the Americas, which was far easier to settle in, or over in India, home to great riches and cities. But Spain did enter Africa, as they agreed to hand the Portuguese land in South America in return for Spanish Guinea, modern-day Equatorial Guinea. But Spanish influence in Africa below the Sahara will largely just keep to this area.

In the south, the Dutch settlers began to form their own unique culture, and these Boers, or Afrikaners, began to launch treks into the interior of South Africa. Over in London, the African Association was set up in the last years of the century, aimed at exploring the continent further. They sent Mungo Park to Timbuktu, but by then, it was a shadow of its former self. Ever since the Moroccan invasions, the city had been left weakened, and it had been invaded by Tuareg tribes a couple of times. Plus, the increase in transatlantic slave trade meant that it had lost its strategic importance as a trading center, as money began to move further towards the coast.

This was a pretty recurring theme across the continent, as the 18th century saw the demise of many once powerful nations. The Kingdom of Kongo, for instance, was stuck in a near-endless fight for the throne. While over in Ethiopia, there was the Age of Princes, when the country was divided between various lords, and the emperor had no real power. This in turn led to various ethnic clashes and ultimately the weakening of the empire. To the north of them, the old Christian Nubian states of Makuria had been defeated, but the new Muslim states of Darfur, Sennar, and Funj fought a number of wars against each other during the 18th century. Plus, they also faced droughts which lasted for years. The power of the monarchs began to erode, and Ethiopian raids plundered a great deal of wealth. So, by the beginning of the 19th century, the palace of Sennar in the Funj Sultanate was essentially in ruin.

Yet, there was one peculiar state stuck among the Christians and Muslims in this area: the Shilluk Kingdom. Here, their religion was based around their kings, and their capital was Fashoda, a place that would gain a great deal of fame during the Scramble for Africa. In the southeast, the Kingdom of Mutapa faced numerous civil wars and competing factions constantly called on the Portuguese for aid. The Portuguese were obviously willing to participate, and the kingdom just disintegrated in that century.

But on the Portuguese, they were able to expand their holdings in Africa at the expense of kingdoms like Kongo. However, Portugal itself was weakening, so they had very little direct rule over much of the land they took over. Otherwise, the Portuguese also aided in the rise of the Zulu Kingdom in nearby South Africa. This is because they brought maize over from the Americas, and it had spread inland by the middle of the 18th century. This led to a huge increase in population in the region and spurred on the desire to seize arable land, which had dramatically increased its importance due to the crop. So, the Zulu, along with other Bantu people, began to set up their own kingdoms in the decades following this.

Over in the west of Africa, a number of palace coups weakened the Oyo Empire, and there was also the fall of the great Fula Empire to an altogether new threat: jihadists. These jihads began in the 1720s and were largely launched by the Fulani people, who today can be found in nearly every West African country. They were inspired to launch jihads by the Torodbe, a group of clerics whose origins are not altogether that clear. They had, in fact, begun to launch jihads at the end of the 17th century, but they really became significant in the 18th, starting with Karamoko Alpha's conquest of Futa Jallon. They destroyed many sacred animist objects belonging to the locals, including a ceremonial drum, and made a great deal of money from selling the slaves unto the Europeans. But just like the Christians in Europe, they refused to sell Muslim slaves and even banned the French from using the rivers in their kingdoms for transporting Muslim slaves.

Their success in turn led to further jihad states being formed across West Africa, like Futa Toro, which was founded in 1776 at the expense of the Great Fula Empire. Then, in the early 19th century, they took over Timbuktu and formed the Massina Empire. But their greatest state was probably the Sokoto Caliphate. This Caliphate conquered the Hausa kingdoms and drove back the Borno Empire, which was also largely Islamic, and the Sokoto Caliphate ruled over the region until the very early 20th century.

Plus, in the north, the 18th century was also a bit of a disaster for the Moroccans. Meanwhile, up in the north, the Moroccans, the people that once tried to create a huge West African empire, were also on the decline. Under Ismail ibn Sharif, the country's various tribes and ethnicities were brought under central control in the late 17th century, and he even managed to retake many Spanish towns in the region like Mehdia and Asilah. Then, to further weaken the Europeans, he sponsored pirate attacks against them. But the various divisions were never fully bridged.

This is evidenced by the creation of the Black Guard, a personal guard made up entirely of sub-Saharan African slaves. They were seen as more loyal than any of the various people in Morocco and were tasked with collecting taxes, crushing rebellions, and the like. But when Ismail died in 1727, the country began to unravel and descend into anarchy for the following decades.

Their neighbors to the east, the Ottomans, were also on the decline in the 18th century. Although their decline in Europe is more well-known, they had been losing control of North Africa ever since the beginning of the 1700s. For instance, in Tripolitania, a Janissary named Ahmad Karamanli murdered the Ottoman ruler of the region in 1711, and he took power for himself. Towards the end of the century, a Turkish officer named Ali Pasha tried to restore Ottoman control through a coup of his own, but the civil war of the 1790s saw the Karamanli dynasty re-establish their authority.

The same thing happened in Tunis with Al-Hussein ibn Ali, who took power in 1705, and in Algiers, where Baba Ali Chaouch ousted the Ottoman officials. Plus, on Algiers, they started demanding higher tributes from the European powers, and when this was refused, they actually started wars against them. So, long before the Barbary Wars of the 19th century, Baba declared war on the Dutch in 1715, and then in 1769, the Danes declared war on Algiers. The Algerians responded by enslaving the crew on a number of Danish ships and refused to surrender despite the threat of the city being bombarded. And fortunately for them, at least, many Danish soldiers died of typhoid during the conflict, meaning the Algerians defeated the Danes.

The Spanish would then declare war in the 1770s to stop further Algerian raids, but despite having their cities heavily bombarded, the Algerians still refused to surrender, and a poorly planned Spanish assault on Algiers was driven back. So, once again, the Algerians were successful. But their luck would eventually run out in a couple of decades when the Americans, under Thomas Jefferson, and also the British would defeat them.

And just at the end of the century, further east still, Napoleon invaded Egypt. Although he was defeated and left the region, this set off a huge chain reaction which completely changed the course of African history. This is because Egypt, although under Ottoman control, had been governed by the Mamluks for centuries. This was a military caste made up of slaves brought from the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the like. So, the ruling elite of Egypt was a different ethnicity to the larger Arab population. But now they'd been defeated by Napoleon, which resulted in a power vacuum. Eventually, a man who may well have been Albanian took over. He was Muhammad Ali, and his dynasty would rule Egypt virtually independently of the Ottomans. But his dynasty would change the world. They created their own empire, built the Suez Canal, and fell into debt, which brought the British into the country and led to the Mahdist Wars.

So, I'll look at the very beginnings of the Scramble in the next episode and leave it here for now, at the end of the 18th century, where we have a power vacuum in Egypt, declining powers in all parts of the continent, jihadist states in the west, slave-trading kingdoms like Ashanti and Dahomey in Madagascar, Arab rule in the east, and a collection of very small European colonies around the coast. But then, although often ignored, the Napoleonic Wars and its aftermath brought about a number of changes in Africa. Notably, the British entered South Africa, the Americans defeated the Barbary States, the British fought the Ashanti, and the government took direct control of the West African colonies. Then, the restored French monarchy invaded Algeria, and probably most importantly for many African kingdoms, slavery was abolished. This meant the kingdoms that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, those that built their economy on the slave trade, were left economically crippled, and this weakened the continent's major powers even further.

Although the African continent had a number of powerful kingdoms in the early modern period, like Kongo, Ethiopia, Mutapa, and Morocco, by the end of the 18th century, most of them had been left weakened by civil wars, foreign intervention, and constant warfare. Many of these wars were spurred on by the demand for slaves. But then the continent would completely change with the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, starting with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt.

At that time, Egypt was ruled by the Ottomans, but that was just another power on the decline in the 18th century, and by then, the Barbary States of North Africa were acting independent of their rule. Meanwhile, in Egypt, the Mamluks had largely run the country for centuries. This was a military caste made up of slaves brought from the Caucasus, Balkans, and the like. So, the ruling elite of Egypt was a different ethnicity to the larger Arab population. This meant when Napoleon invaded Egypt, he largely fought the Mamluks and their armies, and despite some early victories, Royal Navy blockades and disease forced Napoleon to flee.

But the defeats of the Mamluks had created a power vacuum in the country, as power was then fought over between the Mamluks, Turkish government sent by the Ottomans, and Muhammad Ali, a leader of Albanian troops that the Ottomans had sent to fight the French. During the following years of chaos, Muhammad Ali was successful in defeating the Mamluks, cementing his control, and even expanding Egypt's borders. His first war was against a new sect of Islam in Saudi Arabia named the Wahhabis. After this war, he invited the remaining Mamluks to celebrate, but as they entered the city, they were massacred. Those who survived by remaining in the countryside fled south to Sudan, but Muhammad Ali pursued them. In 1820, this began Egypt's conquest of Sudan. However, Muhammad Ali had another reason for the conquest, as he wrote, "You are aware that the end of all our effort and this expense is to procure negroes," and in this, he was successful.

The Kingdom of Funj in the surrounding area were conquered by only 10,000 men or so, demonstrating to the world how a small, well-trained force using modern weapons can defeat a whole kingdom. After this, the Egyptians would launch further campaigns of conquest, taking Kassala, Fashoda, Suakin, Equatoria, and Darfur by 1874. But one country they didn't conquer was Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Ali's dynasty would fight wars against the Ottomans, and for a short while, they even took Syria. So, they could be seen as the first true colonizers of Africa who didn't just seek trading posts, but large stretches of land. Plus, even though his dynasty would remain officially under Ottoman control, they virtually acted independently, and Egypt under their rule would try to rapidly modernize. For instance, the Suez Canal would be built, which would bring European traders and colonizers into East Africa. However, the Egyptian wars and modernization plunged them into debt, and this led to the British entering the country, the Mahdist Wars, and a great deal more.

But going back to the turn of the 19th century, there were a few changes that occurred during the Napoleonic Wars. For instance, the British took Mauritius from the French. But more importantly, there was the formation of the Zulu Kingdom, formed by Shaka Zulu and Bantu people who migrated south. Simultaneously, the British took the Dutch colony in South Africa, pushing the Dutch Boers on their Great Trek in 1836 to establish their own states. This meant that there was a three-way power struggle between the Boers, the British, and the Zulu.

However, these three powers obviously didn't just pop into being peacefully. They conquered and ruled over a number of different races. The British, for instance, went to war almost immediately against the Xhosa people. The first confrontation between them took place in the 1810s when the Xhosa occupied the Zwelitsha region, which had acted as a buffer, but they were promptly driven out of it. There was another war that decade, beginning in 1818, which was largely led by a Xhosa prophet named Makana kaXhosa. Now, he allegedly had the power to turn bullets into water and hoped to unite the Xhosa against the British, who had seized thousands of cattle belonging to them. But the British had the support of the San people, and together they defeated the Xhosa. As for Makana, he became the first person to be sentenced to prison on Robben Island, which became the infamous site of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment.

In the intervening years, thousands of British settlers arrived in South Africa, while the Xhosa angered the Boers with their cattle raids. So, Piet Retief sent his Boer commandos on punitive expeditions against them. While the Sixth Xhosa War erupted in 1834. It was another speedy victory for the British, who took more land and even imprisoned King Hintsa. However, while negotiating the payment for stolen cattle, the king tried to escape and was killed in the chase. However, despite this victory, Britain's inability to protect Boer settlers convinced them to take matters into their own hands and thus embark on the Great Trek north.

However, tensions between the British and the Boers had been running high for some time. Obviously, English became the official language, and British laws and culture alienated the Boers. But what possibly angered them the most was Britain's racial policies. For instance, back in 1815, the British declared the natives of South Africa would be citizens and share the same rights. The British then outlawed slavery in the region in 1834, freeing 30,000 or so African slaves. At that time, it is believed over 90 percent of Boers in some regions like Stellenbosch owned slaves. So, this, along with British weakness during the Xhosa cattle raids, prompted the Boers to set off north and establish their own republics.

These treks lasted a couple of years, and only around 6,000 people, or one-fifth of the Dutch population, made the journey. And they faced attacks from all sides. The Mthethwa attacked them early on, but in 1836, at the Battle of Blood River, just 35 Boers held off an attack from over 5,000 Mthethwa warriors. The following punitive attacks pushed the Mthethwa out of the region and into Zimbabwe, where most of them live today. But their arrival came at the cost of the Shona people, and tensions between these communities continue to this day.

But probably the worst attacks came from the Zulu. For instance, in 1838, Piet Retief met with Dingane, the Zulu king, to discuss a land treaty and watch a ceremonial performance. However, it was a trap, and 100 people

Including ratif, were massacred. This was followed up with a number of other massacres, like the Winning Massacre, in which over 500 boars were killed. So the Boers could well have been destroyed and chased out of their new land.

But the betrayal and massacres encouraged them to meet the Zulu at the Battle of Blood River in late 1838. In this battle, they were victorious, and they set up the Republic of Natalya. While the Zulu descended into civil wars, as the Boers under Pretorius helped Mpande remove his brother Dingane from power.

But the Boers were not allowed to remain in Natalya for long, as the British moved troops in there in 1842 and forced them out. So other Boer republics were established, like a clip river. Before in the 1850s, the Orange Free State and Transvaal were established.

But the Boers weren't the only people establishing new republics, as there was also the Griqua, a group of mixed-race people who set up their own republics like Griqualand East and West in the 1860s, centered around mining areas.

Then finally, onto the Zulu, who probably launched the most destructive campaigns in the region from around 1815 to 1840. The Zulu launched their wars of expansion, and this period has been called Mfecane by the original inhabitants. This word has many meanings, but think of it as meaning a scattering of people, as people were forced off their land. And it is estimated that over one million people were killed.

People fled in every direction and established their own kingdoms and states. For instance, after the defeat of Ndwandwe, Shaka Zulu went to Mozambique and set up the Gaza Empire. The Fengu people, on the other hand, arrived in Kosa land, putting further strain on their resources.

And if you look at a map of South Africa today, you will see a tiny nation trapped inside it. This is Lesotho. The origins of this country date back to this period, as Moshoeshoe I took his Sotho people into the mountains to escape the Zulu wars.

The other tiny nation in this region is Swaziland, or Eswatini, which still has a monarchy. But their monarchy goes back to the middle of the 18th century. Beforehand, the Swazi were living around Delagoa Bay in Mozambique, but they settled in the area that they are today under the leadership of Dlamini III. And they are quite unique in not being affected by the Zulu wars.

To the east of them, the Portuguese still continued to rule Mozambique, but their power was largely on the wane by now. And a lot of trade along the east coast was now being conducted by the Omani people, who ruled in Zanzibar.

Yet, like the Griqua in South Africa, there was a collection of mixed-race people on their borders who became incredibly influential in the region, often serving as intermediaries between the two groups of people. They, however, acted more like feudal lords, running large estates or *brazos*, which they were given in exchange for an annual fee. Their huge estates were protected by slave soldiers known as *chikunda*, and some families owned a few thousand of them. Some of these families would also become somewhat Africanized and even became chiefs of local tribes.

In later decades, the Portuguese would try to bring them back under their control, especially after David Livingstone began exploring the region. But some of these families, like the de Cruz family, were able to drive them back in 1868.

David Livingstone, by the way, was a Scottish missionary who, largely on his own accord, began exploring Africa in the middle of the century. From South Africa, he journeyed north and established a mission as far away as Blantyre in modern-day Malawi. From the 1840s to the 1860s, he traveled around Africa and made some pretty strange alliances in the process. For instance, the Makololo traveled with him from Zambia to Malawi, and they would later fight alongside the British.

During it all, he reported all of his findings back to the Europeans, including the resources of the continent and the Arab massacres of Africans, plus the ongoing slave trade. But very few cared initially. He eventually disappeared in 1869, and Henry Morton Stanley was sent out to find him. They met on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1871 with the famous words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

On Stanley, he was also struggling to find funding for exploration and he often depended on newspapers rather than his own government. Eventually, he relented and went to Leopold II of Belgium, the only European leader eager to colonize the area. But he would later be horrified to find out Leopold's intentions.

Now, these might be two of the most famous explorers, but they were far from the first. The Scottish, in particular, had a number of explorers around Africa, like McGregor Laird, who traveled along the Niger in the 1830s, and Alexander Gordon Laing, who traveled to Timbuktu back in the 1820s. The Irish-born Frenchman, Antoine-Thomson d'Abbadie, explored Ethiopia in the 1830s.

And Richard Francis Burton, a peculiar explorer, tried to find the source of the Nile. But Burton also went to Mecca dressed as a Muslim, gained the nickname "Ruffian Dick" for getting into fights, and collected measurements of people's penises wherever he went. Yet, he was probably inspired by a much earlier explorer, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, a Swiss explorer who went on the Hajj, rediscovered incredibly famous sites like Petra and Abu Simbel in the 1820s, but ultimately was prevented from traveling beyond Egypt by the local authorities.

There was also some German explorers, like Heinrich Barth, who explored the Sahara and West Africa, and the Latvian-born German, Georg August Schweinfurth, who explored Sudan. But once again, these were largely privately funded expeditions led by botanists or missionaries, and they really didn't come from the colonial ambitions of any European government, at least before the 1870s.

So, British explorers were journeying out of South Africa while they continued to fight against the Xhosa. These wars went until the 1870s, and one of the strangest episodes of these wars was the cattle-killing movement of the 1850s. This began when a 16-year-old prophetess claimed that she had spoken with the Xhosa ancestors, and they promised to aid them drive the Europeans into the sea. But they were only willing to help the living Xhosa if they destroyed all of their current means of substance. So they burnt down their own crops and killed thousands of cattle. Even the leaders began to demand people do it. But when the day of reckoning was supposed to come in 1858, obviously they were disappointed, and thousands died of starvation.

Meanwhile, before the Scramble, the British were fighting elsewhere in Africa. Going back to the beginning of the century, in the West, the British were getting involved in wars along the Gold Coast because, just like in the Americas, Europeans would often align with different tribes or nations there. The British often aided the Fante Confederacy, while the Dutch historically helped the far more powerful Ashanti Kingdom. The Fante, by the way, also flew Asafo flags in battle, something very similar to a regimental flag, many of which featured a Union Jack. So the British, albeit in a very minor way, got involved in the Ashanti-Fante war of 1806.

Then the Ashanti fought the Fante again in 1811 and won again. But the Kingdom of Ashanti's most ambitious war of conquest came in 1814 when they conquered large sections of the Gold Coast with an army of 20,000 men and threatened to remove the Europeans from the area. So in 1817, the British African Company of Merchants signed a treaty of friendship with them, recognizing their recent conquests.

However, the British African Company of Merchants was soon dissolved in 1821, and the British government took control of the West African colonies shortly afterwards. In 1823, Ashanti killed soldiers in the British Royal African Regiment, leading to the First Anglo-Ashanti War. During this war, the British were actually defeated in early battles, and their commander, Charles McCarthy, was killed, and his skull was turned into a cup, and his heart was allegedly eaten. But during that fatal battle, only four crates of supplies were brought to the front line, three of which only contained macaroni. Therefore, the 500 people in the British army were doomed against the ten thousand Ashanti.

So to counter-attack, the British brought Congreve rockets into the region and drove the Ashanti back, securing a great deal of the Gold Coast either directly under their control or under the control of their allies, like the Fante. Plus, it should also be said that the African Company of Merchants was also dissolved because they were still allegedly trading in slaves, something that was banned in 1807.

This ban was taken incredibly seriously by the British, as they also created the West African Squadron, which patrolled the seas in the area hoping to stop slave ships. To further help in this effort, they formed a new base in Banjul in 1816, and this would be the basis of the Gambia in the following decades. However, only 20 ships patrolled the entire West African coast, so maybe only 10% of ships were stopped crossing the Atlantic. And it's believed that thousands of slaves were just thrown overboard as the slavers didn't want to pay the fines to the British. Still, it is believed over 150,000 slaves were liberated in these decades and were brought back to Africa.

While in Africa, this ban on slavery had major consequences. The powers that had emerged over the last couple hundred years had based their economies on the export of slaves, along with other items like palm oil and the likes. So the ban weakened their states and it was met with outrage by many African leaders, like the King of Bonny in Nigeria, who wrote to the British saying, "We think this trade must go on. They say that your country, however great, could never stop a trade ordained by God himself."

Plus, the ban did little to stop the trade of slaves within Africa. The Igbo people, for instance, continued trading, while the Dahomey used slaves as a display of wealth and prestige, as King Gezo of Dahomey wrote in the 1840s, "The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth. The mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery." These kingdoms continued to find some markets to export to, primarily Brazil, which only abolished slavery in 1888. Plus, there was also still the option of selling to Islamic slave traders. While within Africa, Mauritania only abolished slavery in 1981, and they still had slaveholders in the 21st century.

Otherwise, the abolition of slavery made colonies in Africa far less profitable. As mentioned before, this led to nations like Denmark selling their colonies in the 19th century.

Then things became more complicated, as many of the slaves were freed and migrated to Nigeria beginning in the 1830s, where they were called the Saros people. Some of these people, as they migrated, were just enslaved again, though, or they were used as some sort of political tool. For instance, the ruler of Lagos, a major slave trading port, was Oba Akitoye. He was willing to ban slavery across his state in order to secure British support, but this was of course unpopular among the slave owners and traders. So they rebelled and placed his brother Kosoko on the throne. In exile, he appealed to the British for help, and they obliged in 1851 on the assurance that he would ban the slave trade. A fleet was dispatched to Lagos, they bombarded the city, and installed Akitoye on the throne. But he died shortly afterwards, and there was another power struggle between his son Dosunmu and Kosoko.

Then there was another problem for Britain. The French had been forming trade agreements with nearby rulers like Sodji, the King of Porto-Novo, who was obviously worried about British military action. The rulers of Lagos also flirted with the idea of accepting French protection, and this convinced Lord Palmerston to act before the French did. So in 1861, British ships arrived once again, and Lagos became a British protectorate, thus establishing a foothold in what would become Nigeria.

This also put the British remarkably close to one of the oldest kingdoms in Africa, the Kingdom of Benin, which is most famous for their remarkably large capital city and the huge walls defending it. In fact, back in the 1600s, many European explorers said that the city was equal in size to some of their own cities back home. But large walls, or at least large gates, were not unique to Benin, as in the north, the Hausa states like Kano, Zaria, and Katsina all had huge gates defending their palaces and cities.

But back on the coast, the French and local African rulers were obviously angry by British expansion. While the British were supposed to be foreign slaves, they were simultaneously taking fresh colonies in Gambia and Nigeria. So in 1863, Sodji of Porto-Novo signed an agreement with the French. But the French were not really better in this regard, as just nearby, back in the 1840s, they signed an agreement with the Nzema people of the Ivory Coast. This allowed them to set up a fort in Grand Bassam and expand their influence in the region.

But going back to slavery, the British even began to bring freed slaves from across North America and even Europe to their main base in West Africa, Sierra Leone. This colony was home to the infamous Bunce Island. But even when slavery was legal, there was a huge scheme to resettle black people in this area. Many of these black people fought alongside the British in the American Revolution in exchange for their freedom, while others, like Olaudah Equiano, was able to purchase his freedom in the Caribbean. He, like many others, went to live in England and formed the Sons of Africa group, aimed at abolishing the slave trade.

Meanwhile, white abolitionists set up the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. They believed that sending the poor black people from Canada or the UK back to Africa would help relieve their poverty. But this plan also got support from many racists who hoped to remove black people from their countries. Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger said, "They should be sent somewhere and be no longer suffered to infest the streets of London."

So with government approval, former slaves from England and Nova Scotia were resettled in Sierra Leone, where they founded the city of Freetown. On arrival, they had many rights and even elected their officials, but they were given very few supplies, faced conflicts with their African neighbors. And back in 1799, they rebelled. To crush the rebellion, the British used Jamaican Maroons. Now, these Maroons had escaped from slavery and lived in the countryside of Jamaica, but in the 1790s, they also rebelled against the British. Many of them were deported to Canada, but on the outset of the rebellion in Sierra Leone, 500 of them were transported to Africa to crush the rebels. In return, they were given land and became part of the new social elite.

So within this new society, there were Maroons, the Nova Scotians (as they were called), liberated Africans (the West African Squadron had taken from slave ships), and the local people. These groups would rarely get along. For instance, a Maroon leader named Major Jarrett was killed by his liberated African employee. This prompted attacks from both sides until many Maroons fled back across the Atlantic.

But over time, during the 19th century, these three immigrant groups would begin to merge together into the Creole people of Sierra Leone. They lived in homes that were clearly inspired by their old homes in the southern USA. They developed their own language, known as Krio, and they even began trading down the West African coast and settling in new countries.

Then just across their eastern border, the country of Liberia had a very similar origin tale. There, the American Colonization Society acquired land from the Gola ruler named King Peter in 1821. This land served as a base for the former slaves to arrive in. But from the beginning, they too faced attacks from the locals, specifically the Malinke people. But the liberated slaves in Liberia also had government support from President Monroe, and in his honor, they named their first town Monrovia.

Only a few thousand people actually made the trip to Liberia, and of them, less than two thousand were still alive by 1841 when Joseph Jenkins Roberts declared that the country was independent. However, the history of Liberia took quite a dark turn, as the American Liberians began to emulate the slave owners of Southern America. So their society was based upon segregation, with them at the top. Despite never making up more than five percent of the population, their numbers were bolstered with the arrival of people from the Caribbean in the 1860s and a mass exodus of former slaves from South Carolina a decade later. This ruling class of American Liberians were criticized as late as the 1920s for still using slave labor, and they kept hold of power until the outbreak of the civil war in Liberia in 1980.

Nevertheless, the independence of Liberia was recognized by the great powers very early on, meaning it was one of the two countries that was never colonized by the Europeans. However, to compare it to the Ethiopians is a little problematic, as Liberia was seemingly born out of the effort of colonizers, just a different sort of colonizer.

Plus, on slavery elsewhere, there was still the threat of Islamic slavery in Europe thanks to the Barbary states of North Africa. At the turn of the 19th century, the Americans, under Thomas Jefferson, refused to pay tribute to them, beginning the Barbary Wars. Algiers and Tripoli were bombarded by the American fleet, and then after the Napoleonic Wars, the British also bombarded Algiers when they massacred Christian slaves. This, as well as more advanced European ships, greatly reduced the power of these once-feared states.

Then Algeria would also be the first state in North Africa to fall to the Europeans, specifically the French. The French conquest began in 1827 when Charles X blockaded their capital. The justification behind the blockade, however, was a farce, as it began when the ruler of Algiers demanded the French pay their bills for supplies given to them during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. The French initially refused to respond, but their ambassador was whipped by the Algerians, prompting the blockade. However, this just gave Charles the cause for war that he wanted, as he was keen to find a distraction for the French people. He was, after all, the king, and his unpopular Bourbon dynasty had been restored after the fall of Napoleon. So to gain public support, he invaded Algeria in 1830.

This did little to help Charles, though, as he was removed from power during the July Revolution. Nevertheless, the invasion continued, and initially, the French held very little power outside the major cities of Oran, Algiers, and Bone. So they had to pacify the rest of the region, and to do so, they created the French Foreign Legion in 1831. This had a number of benefits to the new ruler of France, Louis Philippe. For starters, he came to power with the help of French liberals, people who were largely opposed to the Algerian War, so by sending off foreigners, he could appease them. Plus, it also served as a place to throw the old guards of the French kings, like the Swiss guards who had defended Charles during the July Revolution.

So this new Foreign Legion helped the French gradually expand their control in Algeria, and by the middle of the 19th century, they controlled most of the coast, forcing many Algerians into Morocco to organize their resistance. This just resulted in the extremely short Franco-Moroccan War of 1844, which the French won, and their control over Algeria was formally recognized by the Moroccans.

Then in the 1850s, the French launched a further campaign of conquest in Senegal. This could be seen as part of a much larger French effort to expand their empire under their new ruler, Napoleon III, who also moved into Southeast Asia and Mexico. But looking at these conflicts as connected is often problematic, and this will be especially true during the Scramble. This is because the governors of various colonies would often act independently of the central government or were responding to immediate problems.

So the campaigns in Senegal really could have begun in the 1820s after the French colonies were left weakened after the British took them during the Napoleonic Wars and only returned them to France if they promised to abolish slavery. The trade in acacia gum, therefore, began to grow more important as a replacement source of income, as it was extremely important as a dye in the growing textile industry of Europe. But the weakened French outposts in Senegal faced the growing power of the Emirate of Trarza, who often raided their neighbors, the Wolof Kingdom. These two, however, were close to uniting through marriage, which would give them control of both banks of the Senegal River. So the French attacked them in 1825 to end this union.

Then fast forward to the 1840s and 1850s, the French companies were building more forts along the banks of the Senegal River, angering the local states. So Trarza united with Wolof again, and even their old rivals, the Emirate of Brakna. They launched a united raid on the French port of Saint-Louis in 1855, but the French responded quickly and successfully and took control of Wolof, which had existed for centuries. But the last queen of Wolof was facing invasions from Muslim states in the north and the French throughout most of her reign, so she really stood very little chance of survival.

The French victory then brought them closer to the borders of a new African state, the Toucouleur Empire, which had been created by Omar Saidou Tall. Think of this as an extension of the Jihadist states of West Africa, as they were essentially just the unification of the most western ones under Omar. They launched an attack on the French in 1857 but were pushed back, and the new spheres of influence were recognized.

The French were therefore free to start picking off the small kingdoms in Senegal, and quite quickly, a new enemy appeared in the King of Sine. He attacked the French just two years later but was defeated at the Battle of Logon Demi and lost some of his provinces. But the wars obviously didn't end there, as the Sine people spent the next decade or so destroying French infrastructure until their king was assassinated by the French in 1871.

A very similar fate was in store for the other Senegalese kingdoms, like Kayor, Saloum, and Baol. Despite fierce resistance and the occasional jihad, they were all absorbed into French Senegal. However, these wars and raids destroyed much of the farmland and infrastructure of Senegal, leaving the area crippled. But it would become the center of French West Africa, and the French would later hope to connect it to their new colony on the east coast of Africa in Djibouti. This colony was created back in 1862 when the French bought land around Obock from the Sultan of Afar named Radita Dini Ahmed.

And this brings me right the way back to Egypt, because two events in the 1860s set the stage for the Scramble for Africa. As stated before, the Egyptians launched campaigns of conquest in the Sudan, and their wars against the Ottomans in the 1830s split the support of European powers, as France supported Egypt, while Britain and Austria sent ships to help the Ottomans. But largely, the country was free from European ambitions until the outbreak of the American Civil War. As Southern American cotton was not making its way to Europe, the factories in Britain and France were brought to a standstill. Many Brits hoped to enter the war on the Confederate side to end this cotton famine, and the French, who were already active in Mexico, were even more keen. But the Confederacy's King Cotton plan ultimately failed, as the Europeans found another solution. They began to look at Egypt's growing cotton industry. Yet, to encourage this trade, the Egyptians fell further into debt by building railway lines. However, the American Civil War and this new market made Egypt and Africa as a whole a more attractive option for resources.

Then the second great event was the construction of the Suez Canal. Construction began with the French Suez Canal Company, created by Ferdinand de Lesseps. Said, the ruler, or Khedive, of Egypt, also invested a lot of money into stocks. Plus, as a bit of a side note, as the French and Egyptians began working together, Said agreed to help Napoleon in his invasion of Mexico and sent hundreds of Sudanese slaves to fight alongside them. Anyway, as construction was underway, Europeans began to correctly see that East Africa would become incredibly important to international shipping. So this is why the French purchased part of what would become Djibouti several years before the Suez Canal opened.

But just across the Red Sea, there was already a British colony at Aden, and this dated back to the 1830s when the British took the town to serve as a coaling station for their ships on the way to India. Also nearby, another colonial power joined in the race: the Italians. Their ambitions in East Africa are largely the result of Giuseppe Sapeto's explorations of Ethiopia and his insistence on Italian expansion. So in 1869, the newly unified Italian Kingdom listened to his calls and sent him to purchase land around Assab Bay from the Danakil chiefs. This territory was initially owned by a private company, but it would serve as the foundation of Italian Eritrea.

And this brings me on to a crucial part of the history in the 19th century. Europe saw the creation of a number of new states, all eager to establish colonies. Going back to the July Revolution in France, this inspired another revolution: the Belgian Revolution against the Dutch rulers. This small country and its new kings, the German Leopold I and his son Leopold II, would try to desperately seek out new colonies. This included the Philippines, Cuba, various Caribbean islands, and even at one point Texas. But they were only really successful in the Congo.

The Italians then came into the picture in the 1860s, and then in 1871, the Prussians defeated the French and created the German Empire. This encouraged both sides to develop colonial empires. For starters, the humiliated French sought to find land and resources outside of Europe, while the Germans wanted their place in the sun. So the arrival of new European powers completely changed the status quo in Africa, prompting the old powers to claim territories that they had previously been uninterested in.

But just before I end this episode, I need to highlight developments in one country, and that's Ethiopia. They had been left weakened in the 18th century as various leaders ruled independently of the Emperor during their Age of Princes. However, in the 19th century, a bandit named Sahle-Selassie began to gather a large following. He grew so powerful that the Empress married off her granddaughter to him, but this did little to help them, as in 1852, he rose up against his in-laws, took the throne, and became Tewodros II as Emperor. He was wary of the growing Egyptian power to the north, so he too tried to rapidly modernize his country. But to do so, he forced European missionaries to produce cannons for him, which were obviously terrible, and he wrote numerous letters to Queen Victoria asking for weapons, but these letters were ignored. This would have seemed strange to him, as he, like the Ethiopians in centuries past, believed an Ethiopian-European alliance could have destroyed the Muslims. However, now the British were invested in Egypt and had very little to gain through an Ethiopian alliance. So Tewodros imprisoned the foreigners in his country and demanded weapons for their release. This was disastrous, though, as the British in 1867 sent an army into Ethiopia to free them. Tewodros had very few followers among the various ethnicities, so the British were able to take his capital city while he committed suicide.

This created a power vacuum in the country, as different factions fought for the newly vacant throne. But eventually, Yohannes IV would succeed. He would go on to defend Ethiopia against attacks from the Egyptians and even the Mahdists of Sudan. Plus, he would also become a colonizer of sorts, as under his rule, Ethiopia would expand their empire from their homeland in the north to the borders of Kenya in the south. Therefore, the Ethiopians, like the Egyptians, would become the forgotten participants in the Scramble for Africa.

But that's where I'll leave it. Over the first half of the 19th century, the Americans set up Liberia and defeated the Barbary pirates. Britain expanded their control in South Africa and West Africa. The French took Senegal, Djibouti, and Algeria. The Italians entered Eritrea. The Portuguese maintained their hold along the coast. The Egyptians became essentially independent, took Sudan, and built the Suez Canal. Four republics were established in the South, and Jihadi states in the West expanded, all of which predates the traditional starting point of the Scramble for Africa.

By the 1850s, the French had moved into Algeria, took posts in the Ivory Coast, and expanded their holdings in Senegal. Meanwhile, the British expanded their holdings in the West and the South at the expense of the Xhosa, the Ashanti, and the likes. But the greatest colonizers of the early 19th century were the Egyptians, who conquered all of Sudan. And in the 1870s, they even tried to invade Ethiopia, but this was a disaster. Even though some ex-Confederate soldiers were employed to help in the expedition, they were quickly driven back by Ethiopia's new Emperor, Yohannes IV, in 1876. This campaign, along with previous campaigns, the construction of the Suez Canal, and various other projects, plunged the Egyptians into further debt. Plus, with these defeats, their hold over Massawa fell, and they eventually allowed the Italians to take over.

But there was another major event in the world that is often overlooked that encouraged the British and many Europeans to force the Egyptians to repay their debts and to begin colonizing new lands. This was the Panic of 1873. This, put very simply, was the result of over-investment in railway lines and some industries. Too many were being constructed and brought in limited returns, so banks began to close down, causing a depression in the United States and Europe. And this depression would last until the 1890s.

This, of course, is a very simplistic view of the depression, as other people have put the causes down to different things, like the French war debts caused after their war with Prussia, or even the construction of the Suez Canal. Many argue that this panic led to protectionist policies, so compare it to the depression in the 1930s, which saw some countries like Germany and Japan angered at the international markets and financial systems, causing depressions. So look to produce a much more self-sufficient economy through the conquest of land. The same thing could be said here, as the Europeans were producing too many goods, goods which couldn't be sold in a stagnated Western economy. So like explorer Henry Morton Stanley said when in the Congo, "There are 40 million nude people, and the cotton spinners of Manchester are waiting to clothe them."

This theory behind the cause of the Scramble was developed on by Lenin, who described imperialism as the later stage of capitalism. But personally, I believe this is too simplistic, as the Europeans largely propped up declining empires elsewhere, like China and the Ottoman Empire. There, a strong and stable government was better for trade and provided even larger markets without the expenses of direct control.

But going back to Egypt, the British were now determined to have their debts repaid after the Panic, and along with the French, they sent a commission to oversee the country's finances. But the Egyptians were still officially under Ottoman rule and had to provide funds to help them in their war against the Russians that decade. Plus, as the British offered diplomatic support for the Ottomans during this war, they were given Cyprus, putting them within striking distance of Egypt. The British interference in Egypt would eventually lead to the Urabi Revolt, but we'll put a pin in Egypt for now.

As the 1870s saw further development elsewhere. In the South, there was a short civil war in the Boer Republics of South Africa, which helped Paul Kruger rise to power. But some people sought British protection from the Boers, like Basutoland, which came under British control in 1869, and this would eventually become the nation of Lesotho. Otherwise, a group of mixed-race people known as the Griqua set up their own republics like Griqualand West. After the discovery of diamonds, thousands of British migrants would appear, and they too would fall under British protection, putting Britain firmly on the borders of the Boer Republics.

So the Panic of 1873 also encouraged the British to take more interest in the newfound diamond wealth of the Boer Republics. And thankfully for them, the Boers suffered a defeat at the hands of the nearby Pedi people in 1877. This, along with the ongoing Zulu threat, encouraged the Boers to accept British protection, and the British then sent an army to crush Sekhukhuni, the King of the Pedi people. Around the same time, the British also finally defeated the Xhosa, who they had been fighting for decades. But now, under governors like Frere, the British were more keen to expand, so they fully annexed the coastal lands.

And then came the Anglo-Zulu War. Governor Frere was presented with a cause for war when a colonial engineer and a traitor were taken prisoner by a group of Zulus when they were working near the border. They were released, but Frere issued an ultimatum that he knew the Zulu King Cetshwayo could not accept, as it included disbanding his entire army. After the deadline for the ultimatum passed, the British declared war in January 1879. But famously, their first invasion ended in disaster at the Battle of Isandlwana. The British public was outraged, and they sort of forced a reluctant British government to send in reinforcements to defeat the Zulu. And I say reluctant because Prime Minister Disraeli and many prime ministers before him were more focused on Russia, India, and the likes. For instance, Lord Palmerston advised the Belgians against buying Cuba from the Spanish way back in the 1830s, arguing that colonies are unwieldy and expensive. Even Disraeli's own Secretary of Colonies, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, wrote, "The fact is that matters in Eastern Europe and India were so serious in aspect that we cannot have a Zulu war in addition to other greater and too possible troubles."

So the British favored the idea of a soft empire, which allowed the British to dominate trade across the world, in particular in South America, without the need to rule over people. So the anti-colonial stance wasn't borne out of a noble idea, but it was more pragmatic. And it wasn't just the British who felt this way. The Germans, under Bismarck, were more focused on Europe and maintaining alliances there, but independent colonists would force his hand. Therefore, the whole Scramble was championed through the actions of some men: Rhodes, Leopold, Frere, Lüderitz, and others.

Now, this may seem like a bit of a simplification, but there was never a unified protectionist plan to acquire new markets and resources. This is especially true as the African colonies very rarely turned a profit and never provided a huge market for European goods, which was still mainly sent to the Americas or Asia. Of course, some people made a great deal of money exploiting the rubber and diamonds, but more was made via the soft empires in South America or even opening up and modernizing Japan, China, and the likes. So small colonies like Hong Kong or Singapore proved a better investment than fighting in the deserts of Sudan. And this policy of just collecting small trading posts had been the Europeans' policy in Africa for centuries.

But going back to South Africa, the Zulus were defeated at Rorke's Drift. While reinforcements arrived, these fresh troops launched a second invasion of the Zulu Kingdom, captured Cetshwayo, and divided his kingdom up into small chieftains. These would all later be brought under British control. But there was a problem for the British now. The Boer Republics no longer needed their protection, so they declared their independence in 1880, starting the First Boer War between Transvaal and Britain. The British Gatling guns, that were so effective against other opponents, proved to be pretty useless against the Boer marksmen and their guerrilla tactics. So after numerous embarrassing defeats, Prime Minister Gladstone admitted defeat, and the Boer Republics remained independent for now.

As for the Boers, they had been branching out and looking to expand their influence into Southern Africa. So throughout the 1870s, they had embarked on the Dorsland Treks, which took them through Botswana, Namibia, and even as far north as Angola. Some of them would remain in Angola for decades before returning south to Namibia, but many died along the way, and no large Boer communities were established in their new homelands. And of course, the Portuguese were not open to allowing new republics being formed in their colonies, and they faced opposition in Namibia from the ruling Herero chiefs.

Besides Egyptian debt and British South Africa, the third major development that occurred in the 1870s was Leopold II of Belgium hiring Henry Morton Stanley to explore the Congo. And this brings me to what I believe was the major cause behind the Scramble: the emergence of new colonial powers and a sort of panic to claim colonies out of a fear that someone else would take them. Three European nations emerged in the 19th century that would go on to claim colonies: Belgium, Italy, and Germany. The Italians, as discussed on the last episode, purchased land in Eritrea, while the Belgians had been desperate to acquire colonies ever since they achieved their independence in 1830. Plus, Belgium was something of an economic powerhouse, at least in comparison to its size, as they underwent a rapid period of industrialization. They built hundreds of miles of railway lines and were producing more coal and iron than the Austrians for most of the 1800s, so they had wealth but no empire.

Leopold II had heard of the journeys of Henry Morton Stanley, and he was the only person to agree to fund further exploration of the Congo. But Stanley was a little shocked to find out about Leopold's intentions, as he said, "It is a question of creating a new state as big as possible and of running it. It is clearly understood that there should be no question of granting the slightest political power to the Negroes in this project; that would be absurd."

But to the rest of the world, Leopold projected a far more humanitarian mission. In 1876, he hosted a geographical conference in Brussels and created an International African Association. Philanthropists, mapmakers, and scientists were all invited to attend and discuss how to map out Africa in order to better stop the slave trade and even provide medicine to the people. But of course, this was all just a mask.

Stanley was tasked with buying land in the Congo in exchange for *amiga* gifts like bolts of cloth. You may be wondering why the African leaders were willing to sell their land to the Europeans, but I think French explorer Christian de Bonchamps said it best: "The treaties with these little African tyrants, which generally consist of four long pages, of which they do not understand a word, and to which they sign a cross in order to have peace and receive gifts, are really only serious matters for the Europeans in the event of disputes over territories." Plus, there was the immediate threat of being killed by the Europeans, as what happened to some particularly resistant leaders.

Then there was another threat coming from the East, and that's the Zanzibari slave traders under the leadership of Tippu Tip. He had thousands of slaves working in clove plantations over in Zanzibar, but by the late 19th century, he had pushed far into the heart of Africa, destroying hundreds of villages and capturing thousands of slaves. This caused panic and left huge parts of Congo unpopulated, while he styled himself as the leader of the Eastern Congo.

Plus, within the various African states and outside of the Congo, there had been a great shift taking place. The Kingdom of Luba, which was formed way back in the 1500s, was the old power and had a number of tributary states, but with the arrival of the Zanzibaris, their power began to diminish. Nearby, the same thing was happening to the Kingdom of Kuba, a kingdom which incorporated a couple dozen ethnicities, including the Pygmies, but they were remarkably suspicious of the Europeans and would kill any missionaries. So the Christians had to rely on a black American named William Henry Sheppard to enter the country in the 1880s and establish Christian missions.

Then in the South, the Lunda Kingdom once controlled an expansive land larger than France. They used to hire the Chokwe people as warriors and hunters, but the Chokwe would break free from their rule, and in the 1880s, they took over a lot of the old Lunda Kingdom. The Chokwe, then in power, then began to enslave people and traded with Tippu Tip, the Zanzibari trader. The Chokwe themselves were quite a warring people and fought more wars against the Ovimbundu people. The Ovimbundu won this war, but their new power worried another neighbor known as the Luvale.

Now, the Luvale have some customs that are somewhat unique, as they believe in maternal inheritance. Also, coming of age can be quite intense. For instance, a boy is sent to live in a bush camp for months by himself, while a girl remains in a grass hut for months, being educated by an older lady. These Luvale people were defeated by the Ovimbundu. Yet, despite all of these wars between the different groups, they continued to have quite an extensive trading network. This was because only the Ovimbundu living on the Angolan coast had direct trade with the Portuguese and Europeans, but they received their goods like wax and rubber from Congo. Therefore, they relied on caravans of people journeying between the states of Ovimbundu, Luvale, and other states like Kazembe. Most of these rulers, by the way, would remain in power until the 20th century, and some, like the King of Ovimbundu, has even been recently restored.

Otherwise, below the land of Tippu Tip, there was another new arrival in the area. He was Msiri, and he came from Tanzania. He took a militia west, armed with modern rifles, to carve out a state of his own. He formed an alliance with Tippu Tip to conquer the Kazembe Kingdom and kill their king, Mwata Kazembe VIII. He then went on to conquer more villages, and in each of the conquered villages, he'd take for himself a wife. In the end, he had over 500 wives, and these allowed him to form alliances, have hostages should a rebellion come, and a permanent spy working against their own families. Plus, as he was in the center of Africa, he traded weapons with the Ovimbundu and Portuguese in the west and the Arabs in the east.

Then there was yet another new arrival in the region, and this was Marambo, whose name literally means "corpses," and he was a Nyamwezi warlord that Stanley called the "African Bonaparte." Now, Marambo had learned a lot from Shaka Zulu, as the Zulu's expansions in the South pushed people north, and they eventually revealed tactics and information to Marambo. Then, using these tactics, as well as modern firearms, he created a formidable army and also a state for himself. This again was mainly based on the slave and ivory trade, but he would later die in 1884, and his state would disintegrate.

So there were three powerful warlords decimating the interior of Congo and Tanzania. The states in Angola, Zambia, and Congo were all fighting one another. The Belgians and Stanley had arrived on the coast, and then the French also arrived nearby. They arrived just to the north of the Congo River, where the Loango Kingdom ruled. Now, they were once probably under the control of the nearby Kingdom of Congo, but had since broken free. The Loango Kingdom were famed cloth producers and exported a great deal to the Europeans, while their neighbors, the Anziku Kingdom, produced a great deal of metal, and metal was so important to the Anziku Kingdom that it was not uncommon for the Teke people who lived there to choose a blacksmith as their chief in times of a succession crisis.

While the Italian-born Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza began to explore this region, largely using his own funds. Then in the 1880s, he arrived in the Anziku Kingdom and met King Ilô I, who was willing to put his kingdom under the protection of the French in exchange for increased trade. Thus, France and Belgium had, within months of one another, set themselves up on different sides of the Congo River. King Ilô I died shortly after making the agreement, but his wife, Ungaliforu, stayed close with the French and would remain so for many years. She was born in the 1860s but lived into her 90s, so she died in 1956, just a couple years before the Republic of Congo would get their independence.

Now, this puts the whole colonization of Africa into perspective, as a woman who was old enough to agree to fall under French protection, encouraged her people to fight in two World Wars, met Charles de Gaulle, and was almost there when the French left. Anyway, Brazza secured a bit of land and created an outpost named Brazzaville, while nearby, Stanley created Leopoldville. The two men would enter into a race in building up their towns in order to become the dominant trading hub, while Brazza himself didn't stay there; he left behind a Senegalese volunteer named Malamin Kamara to supervise the city.

But all of this was being observed by the Portuguese nearby. Although the Belgians and the French successfully avoided signing any treaties inland claimed by the Portuguese, the Portuguese were of course suspicious of new European arrivals. And this wasn't the only area heating up, as back in the North, the British and French were both ruling the financial affairs of the indebted Egyptians. Their ruler, Isma'il, agreed to be a constitutional ruler and had to appoint a prime minister, but he tried to stop paying back debts to the British and French after unpaid soldiers rebelled. So all the Europeans united to force Isma'il to resign, and his son Tawfiq took over. But Tawfiq was not the greatest leader. For instance, he followed the advice of his officers in banning peasants from the military academy. This move was a little motivated by race, as the Egyptian officers, like the Mamluks before them, were largely Circassian, Albanian, and the likes.

So many Arabs were angered by this, and also the fact that Europeans were controlling Egyptian finances. So they united behind only one of four Arab colonels, called Ahmed Urabi, and they rebelled in 1881. They marched on the palace and forced Tufic to create a nationalistic parliament.

The European nations were, of course, worried by this, especially when foreigners started being attacked on the streets. So the French and British sent ships to Alexandria. But Urabi refused their demands, and an anti-Christian riot broke out. The British would later invade alone because, although the French had been calling for war for much longer, they had become distracted elsewhere. As when the great powers met at the end of the Russia-Turkish War of 1877, they more or less pushed the French to take Tunisia, and this was all part of the same negotiations that saw the British take Cyprus.

Now, there were a few reasons for them to push for France to take Tunisia. First of all, Italy, the newly formed nation, was determined to take more colonies besides their post in Eritrea, and Tunisia was a prime target. But Britain didn't want Italy to control both sides of the Straits of Sicily and have the ability to cut off trade from the Suez Canal. Germany, on the other hand, wanted to keep France distracted with empire-building rather than trying to reclaim Alsace-Lorraine. While France, under Jules Ferry, was keen to go along with it. He was a supporter of colonialism and wanted to expand French holdings across Asia and Africa. Plus, Tunisia would also secure the Algerian borders and prevent Italy from becoming too powerful.

Italy, meanwhile, under Vendetta Cairoli, was encouraging Italian migration to Tunisia, playing a more long-term strategy, and they believed that the British would never allow such a takeover. As for Tunisia, Muhammad III al-Sadiq had ruled since 1859. He attempted to modernize his country but lacked the funds to do so. Tunisia had, after all, lost a great deal of revenue from piracy. Most of their 1 million people were farmers or nomads, and they suffered from many droughts. He therefore welcomed European investment, and like in Egypt, an international commission arrived to manage the country's finances. So taxes were raised, and this pushed some tribes to launch raids. The Cromier tribe raided across the border into French Algeria, giving them a cause for war. 36,000 Frenchmen quickly moved into Tunisia and forced the Bey to accept the French takeover, but he still remained as head of state in theory.

Italy responded by formally annexing their colony in Eritrea and expanding it a little bit. While back in Egypt, with the French away, this meant the British attacked alone when Urabi refused to respond to their ultimatum. The following Anglo-Egyptian War was short. Urabi was exiled, and Tufic was restored to the throne, but the British would remain until their debts had been repaid. And this, in practice, meant that Egypt was now in the British Empire. It also meant that the British would now get involved in Egyptian wars in Sudan, which was becoming a very volatile place.

Way back in 1873, Isma'il appointed General Charles Gordon to run the Equatorial Provinces, but there he made a very powerful enemy. This was Sebir Rama, and the British described him as the "Slaver King." But he had conquered Darfur on behalf of the Egyptians. Sebir Rama tried to have his position as ruler of Darfur made official through bribes, but on his trip north, he was arrested. His son Suleiman unsuccessfully rebelled, but more importantly, a general in his armies named Rabi' al-Zubayr continued the fight. He took a mercenary army, reconquered some land, and began to push west, taking over Borneo, the ancient empire. So he carved out a state for himself and continued slave trading, and he will be very important in the decades to come.

Yet, back in Sudan, a cleric named Muhammad Ahmad began gathering followers who despised the Egyptian occupation and high taxation. Then he declared himself the Mahdi, or the redeemer of the Islamic world, and launched a jihad in 1881. The Egyptians, on the other hand, despite having all of the modern weapons, led terribly planned expeditions, similar to what they did during their wars with the Egyptians. So in 1882, they were ambushed, losing their weapons, uniforms, and supplies. And this is around the same time that the British took over Egypt. And another poorly planned expedition under William Hicks was sent south in 1883. At the Battle of El Obeid, they were again crushed. So the British encouraged the Egyptians to leave the area. To oversee the withdrawal, they would send Gordon to Khartoum, but this would end in disaster, as the city would be captured, and the Mahdist War would begin, but that's in 1885, so we'll again put a pin in it for now.

Meanwhile, over in the west, there was further movement during this time. The British had already took Lagos, bought the Danish colonies, and fought the Ashanti War along the west coast. Then in the 1870s, they bought the Dutch colonies in the Gold Coast, upsetting the balance of power in the region. The Dutch had, way back in the 17th century, signed a treaty of protection with the Ashanti Kingdom, while the British often supported their enemies. So now, with the Dutch gone, the Ashanti invaded in 1873. The British responded quickly, and troops were dispatched from the West Indies, Wales, and Scotland, plus using locals. They began to construct roads through the dense forests to the Ashanti capital of Kumasi. This, the Third Ashanti War, was over quickly. The Scottish Black Watch, in particular, charged at them with bayonets, forcing the Ashanti to flee. The Battle of Amoaful, the capital city, was then evacuated, but tragically, the British put it to the torch. This city, of course, contained a great deal of artwork and treasures, but what I find more tragic, the British did complement the city's collection of books contained in the palaces, which were apparently written in many languages. The Ashanti couldn't recover from this war, and they'd be annexed a couple decades later.

Meanwhile, in the region, the French had a brand new enemy of their own. They were the Samori Empire. This was an offshoot of another recently established empire, the Tukolor Empire, which was founded by Umar Tall. When he died in the 1860s, his generals began to assert their independence, and the most successful was Samori Touré. The Samori Empire that he created was primarily made up of Mandinka people, who you may have heard of if you've seen Roots. But slaves were instrumental in his military successes, as his armies wouldn't function without the sofa, a military unit of slaves, which goes back to the old Mali Empire. These, however, were also equipped with modern rifles, most of which were purchased from the British, who became worried about the French expansion in the area. The French clashed with Samori first in 1883, and then they angered him more in 1885 when they established bases along the coast of what would become Guinea. He was so worried by this that he even offered to accept British protection, but this was refused, as this would have almost inevitably brought the British and French into a war with one another. So Samori would continue to rule independently for another decade or so, primarily because after their first engagement, the French were alarmed by his well-drilled soldiers using modern rifles and didn't seek out confrontation until later on.

Then there was another event to occur just before the conference that divided Africa up into spheres. This was the French invasion of Madagascar. Now, the French did control a couple of islands near Madagascar, but the British had taken Mauritius from them during the Napoleonic Wars. Therefore, they both desired control, or at least influence, over the ruling Merina dynasty. This dynasty in Madagascar, under Radama I, had united most of the island, but in the middle of the 19th century, there were a number of coups, and power kept changing hands. Each of the respective leaders began to side with either the British or the French. For instance, Radama II, who ruled in the 1860s, signed an agreement with the French, promising them many concessions, including the right to exploit all of the forests, minerals, and unoccupied land. But Radama II only ruled for two years before being killed, and successive governments and rulers would ignore this treaty with the French, called the Lambert Treaty. The leader of this coup against Radama II, called the aristocratic coup, became the new prime minister. He and his younger brother, who succeeded him, were more keen on cementing ties with the British and began to modernize their country. This included the abolition of slavery, improving the education system, and hiring Brits to train their army. However, this was almost too little too late, as the French acted quickly to prevent them from falling under British influence. In 1883, they used the past treaty to justify an invasion, and by 1885, they forced the Madagascans into their sphere of influence. But this fact was often denied, and another invasion would be necessary 10 years later to cement French control.

And finally, by 1884, a new colonial power had emerged, and that was Germany. Bismarck had not been interested in the colonial game, preferring to focus on Europe, but he could do little to stop various colonial groups and private businessmen who went to Africa and almost forced his hand. One of these societies was being led by Hermann, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and they had over 15,000 members, most of which were obviously very influential aristocrats, politicians, and businessmen. One of them was a merchant named Adolf Lüderitz, who went to modern-day Namibia and signed an agreement with Chief Joseph Fredericks II of the Nama people for 100 pounds in gold and 200 rifles. He purchased a stretch of land far larger than Joseph had anticipated, because in the treaty, they bought 20 German geographical miles, which was closer to 140 kilometers, not the 30 kilometers that Joseph would have thought. This land, Lüderitz believed, would be a far better place for German migrants to go to, who were already leaving en masse to the Americas, plus it would give Germany the prestige that they wanted.

But the Germans would also expand in the west, especially in Cameroon. This region at the time was being ruled by Kings Bell and Aqua. They had engaged in trade with the British and even sought their protection at times. For instance, King Bell wrote to the British saying, "I at last despaired have he not received any answer. I hence concluded that neither the consuls nor yet the English government cared anything about my country." So he was writing to the British but got no response. So when a German company arrived in 1884, named Jannsen and Tamalen, the kings agreed to sign a treaty with them, but this treaty was again vague and merely a treaty of friendship and trade. Initially, Gustav Nachtigal was instrumental in setting up German colonies in Cameroon and also in Togo, where they negotiated a treaty with King Mlapa III. But some stories suggest that chiefs had been kidnapped and forced into signing the treaties as well.

There were other targets for the Germans to go after, like the capital and Cobra over in Guinea, but the Anglo-French Convention of 1882 divided Sierra Leone and Guinea between the two countries, meaning if the Germans moved into Guinea, they would risk a war. The other German colonies were established over in the east, where Carl Peters formed the East African Company and traveled out to modern-day Tanzania to sign agreements with small groups of people like the Ukami and Unguru. This new territory was called Petersland, and he would later threaten to sell it to the Belgians if he didn't receive imperial German protection for himself. This tactic was used across Africa as the colonists forced the German government to offer protection. So in 1884, the Germans sent fleets and commissioners to the new colonies and brought them all into the German Empire. But then Bismarck needed to get them recognized as German colonies by the international community, so the Berlin Conference was held in late 1884 to early 1885.

Meanwhile, the British took over some little posts to counter German influence, like Walvis Bay in Namibia, but this was all pretty inconsequential, as Bismarck was keen to host the conference to keep the peace and cement control over his new colonies. But he had just a few years earlier held the Congress of Berlin, which divided up the Ottoman Empire after their war with Russia, and now he was center stage on the treaties dividing up Africa. People have debated why he suddenly went from an anti-colonist to a colonist almost overnight, as before, he once said he would be happy to see France take over all of Africa to keep them occupied. But in just a couple of months, he was claiming chunks of Africa. Maybe it was all due to public opinion, or in spite of the anti-colonial Liberal Party, who he wanted to undermine. It's all really hard to say.

Anyway, 14 countries attended the conference. Five of which had nothing to gain: Austria-Hungary, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and the United States. Now, you may ask yourself why these countries didn't claim anything. Well, simply put, besides the United States, they were all far too poor to enter the colonial game. It was expensive to take over land, police it, and have a large enough navy to protect your interests. Sweden, for instance, was particularly poor in the 19th century, and their population was in decline because huge numbers of people were fleeing to the United States. The US, meanwhile, for the time being at least, opposed creating empires, and besides Liberia, had no interest in the continent. Plus, you could also throw the Ottoman Empire into this group. They clung on to Libya but really didn't have much say at all. They were weakened and on their last legs at the time.

Then there was also Russia, who may also be seen as a useless member of the conference, but as you'll see in the next video, they did have some, albeit very small, colonial ambitions. The Spanish, as well, were pretty inactive. They would soon lose their colonies like the Philippines and Cuba and were suffering from political instability, so they kept hold of their territory in Equatorial Guinea. And they did make a very small claim on the coast of southern Morocco, or Western Sahara. This was nearby islands they already owned, but their control was pretty limited for a while. They faced fierce resistance from the locals, and the only people who accepted their protection had no rights to give it away. But in 15 years or so, they would form an alliance with the French and divide up Morocco.

The Portuguese, on the other hand, despite being one of the poorest nations in Europe, would desperately try to expand their holdings, especially after Brazil had achieved their independence in the north. They did little to expand Guinea-Bissau. They kept hold of their islands like Cape Verde, but their true goals were in the south. Their "Pink Map," as it was called, highlights their ambitions to unite the colonies of Angola and Mozambique, so it would have included Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi.

As for the other nations, the Belgians had taken land in the Congo and would set about expanding it, and the Italians would move further into East Africa. The French, meanwhile, looked to connect their colonies of Guinea and Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, while the British hoped to claim everything in between Cape Town and Cairo. Well, this is the often-repeated story, but the French and British ambitions really only became prominent in the 1890s. Cecil Rhodes, for instance, only came into prominence in the years following the conference, and he was the champion of the Cape to Cairo ambition. Plus, it was never an official position, more like the words of one man, albeit a very influential man. The same thing could be said for the French, so they really didn't bring these ambitions to the conference. The conference mainly just discussed the current claims and set the boundaries between them.

One of the most important items discussed was the hinterland theory, where the countries had the right to claim any land beyond their coastal possessions. But this was largely ignored in later years, as it presented more problems than it solved. The conference, however, did establish the idea that each country had to establish some sort of control over an area in order to claim it. This meant the Portuguese claims based on discovery were null and void, and every country would at least have to set up some form of base or sign treaties in order to claim a region. So this meant that the conference was sort of opposite of drawing lines on a map, besides, of course, the boundaries between already established colonies like in West Africa. The conference actually began a race, sometimes a literal race, to sign treaties and establish control, as it was only when they established control that the colony would be recognized as theirs.

In 1885, the Europeans and Americans met at the Conference of Berlin. There, they discussed the future of Africa in the wake of Germany and Belgium, in particular, taking colonies. Their arrival on the continent seemingly panicked the older empires, and this is evident by the Beira Land Expedition, which took place while the powers were meeting in Berlin. This British expedition saw 4,000 men march north from Cape Town to modern-day Botswana. On the way there, they took over the newborn Republic of Stellaland without any bloodshed. While to the north, Botswana was home to a number of different tribes. Most of them were Tswana people. One of the largest of these groups was the Bamangwato, and they were under the leadership of Khama III, who most famously converted to Christianity and fought a number of wars against his political rivals to keep Botswana Christian. But there was also Kgosi Garone, who ruled the Bakwena people, and he lived until he was 106 years old. But as for Khama, like some of the other leaders, he grew wary of Boer expansion, and even the expansion of the Germans would set up camp in Namibia and the Matabele Africans to the north of him. So when the British arrived, although some resisted, most fell under British protection. This, after all, was ultimately the goal of the expedition: to prevent the Germans or even the Boers from encircling the British Cape Colony. The local rulers in Botswana, for the most part, kept their position, despite the likes of Cecil Rhodes advocating for complete annexation and incorporation into the Cape Colony.

But to the north, in East Africa, the British and Germans were willing to work together and establish spheres of influence through a treaty in 1886. But this land, which would go on to become Tanzania and Kenya, was up until that point controlled by Oman, under Said bin Sultan. The capital actually moved from Muscat to Zanzibar, and he expanded his holdings by taking Mombasa in 1837. However, he died in the 1850s, and two of his sons split up the kingdom between Oman and Zanzibar, which was taken over by Majid bin Said. So Zanzibar was then an independent country, ruling over the east coast of Africa. But under Carl Peters, the Germans had already established a protectorate in the hinterland of Tanzania. Plus, the Germans had also signed an agreement with the rulers of Vitu Land. Now, this state had broken away from the Arab rulers who ruled in Zanzibar and became a safe haven for runaway slaves. Incensed by this, the Sultans of Zanzibar launched many attacks and slave raids, but this just pushed them into accepting German protection. The new Sultan of Zanzibar, Bargash bin Said, however, refused to accept the loss of his mainland territories. But he died in 1888, and his brother, Khalifa bin Said, was all too happy to acknowledge European control, especially as there were British and German ships in the area.

This takeover, however, wasn't peaceful. Though, as both Swahili people and Arabs united behind a man named Abu Shiiri and rebelled. But the Germans had already formed the Schutztruppe, a force made up of Africans, otherwise known as the Askari, and they helped quell this rebellion. Yet, I hesitate to say local Africans, because many of the soldiers active in this campaign were employed from as far away as Egypt or across the border in Portuguese Mozambique.

So now, the British and Germans were expanding in South and East Africa, but further north still, along the coast of Somalia, the British also made claims around the same time. Now, the last time I mentioned Somalia, there was the Adal and Aidin Sultanate, but they had long gone. The Somalis, in fact, had lost territory to the Ethiopians and suffered from raids from the Oromo people who had been migrated north. But in the place of these old sultanates, sprang a number of new, smaller sultanates, like Isaaq. They had actually fought the British way back in the 1820s. At that time, the British were active in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and forced the leaders of what would become the UAE under their protection after the Persian Gulf campaign. But while one of their ships was docked in the important trading city of Berbera, the locals attacked and killed them, prompting a blockade and assault on the city.

Then, as would be the case with most of these Somali sultanates, there was infighting, clan disputes, and fracturing. Many of these Somali clans, like the Ogaden, now lay outside of what would become Somalia, while inside the country, many of the clan disputes remain. For instance, in the 20th century, President Barre and his Daarood clan committed genocide against the Isaaq tribe of the north. So in the late 19th century, there were a lot of new sultanates springing up. For instance, the Habr Yunis Sultanate would eventually break off from the larger Isaaq Sultanate. Then, on the tip of the Horn of Somalia, there was the Majeerteen Sultanate, which was then led by Osman Mahmud. But there were even challenges to his throne, notably from his cousin Yusuf Ali Kenadid. Yusuf was initially unsuccessful and forced to flee to Yemen, but he returned with Yemeni soldiers and created his own sultanate to the south, the Hobyo Sultanate, in 1878, just before the Scramble took place. Then, in between Isaaq and Majeerteen, you had the Warsangali, and in the far south, the Geledi, who was so powerful in the 1870s that they sailed to Zanzibar, attacked the city, freed some slaves, and extracted tribute.

Well, by 1887, the British had signed treaties with the Sultans of Isaaq, Habr Yunis, and Warsangali. Initially, these formed British Somaliland, and they fell under the control of British India. And this resource-poor region was often ignored by the British, as it mainly just supplied some meat to their base in Aden. But they would later lose a lot of men and resources fighting the Dervish movement a decade or so later. Many of the leaders who once signed a treaty with the British, like Mahmud Ali Shaya of Baha, backed the rebellion and would be exiled as a result. Plus, just as a side note, he was another ruler who saw the end of colonialism, as he lived until 1960, so very similar to Ungaliforo of the Congo, if you watched the last episode.

Then, just one year after they all signed treaties with the British, Yusuf Ali Kenadid of Hobyo and Osman Mahmud of Majeerteen signed a treaty with the Italians. But this was largely just to protect themselves and used the Italians to seek out support in their own expansionist ambitions. So like the British, they left the local rulers in power and left the territories largely alone. Nevertheless, the Italians had succeeded in getting more colonies, but they couldn't connect their colonies to Eritrea because of British and French Somaliland.

But this brings me on to settlement, as the story differs widely across the board. But in these early days, the number of Europeans in the area was remarkably small, by and large. For instance, in Kenya, the British would settle large numbers of people in the region known as the White Highlands, but that came about in the 20th century. So even by the First World War, only 1,300 white people had settled there, and most of these were South Africans. Whereas going back to this period, only 100 people had moved there by 1903. Rule was therefore remarkably indirect in most places, and it wouldn't have been possible to rule over nations without the aid of local rulers. For instance, you can take German Togoland. This was possibly one of the most developed colonies in terms of railway lines and the likes. Well, by the First World War, only 300 Germans lived in the country, but back in this period, only 31 Germans lived in the capital of Lomé. Obviously, this isn't true across the board. For instance, in Algeria, the French were relocating there in huge numbers, and the new population, called the Pied-Noir, made up 10% of the population even in the middle of the 19th century. And then, obviously, South Africa and the diamond mines attracted more European immigrants. But then, just to give you one more example, in the Ivory Coast, a colony which the French held for decades, the total number of white people living there, even in 1960, just before independence, was 0.009% of the total population. To put this into comparison, there are more Montenegrin Americans in the US than there were French settlers in the Ivory Coast. Or as another comparison, you know that very few British people actually were able to rule India, but the numbers were in fact quite a lot higher. Like in 1901, the number of British living in India would have made up 0.05% of the population, plus of course, they had the help of the princely states to rule over this country. So if you were to travel to many places within the colonies outside of the capitals, life would have appeared the same as it had done 30 years prior. Again, obviously, this isn't everywhere. Like if you went to Belgian Congo in the countryside, you would have seen a remarkable difference.

But going back to the Scramble, just to the west of Somalia, the Ethiopians were also expanding at a rapid rate. Emperor Johannes came to power shortly after the British expedition in the country, and he quickly looked to conquer the small kingdoms around him. Now, one interesting side note here in Ethiopia was their currency was the Maria Theresa Thaler. This would continue to be their currency until the Second World War, and you can probably tell by the name, this wasn't a locally minted coin. It was produced all the way over in Austria, but so many of these coins made their way south that they just adopted it as their own currency. Anyway, Johannes was initially just really the king of one province, Tigray, but he soon moved on to Shewa and got their king, Menelik, to submit to him. Therefore, Johannes was the king of kings, and Menelik was the king of Shewa. Together, they continued to expand and took Jimma in 1881, and the Kingdom of Gojam in 1882, and Lasta shortly afterwards. Now, they were ruling over a number of ethnicities and often treated them quite brutally. For instance, in Hatosha, just south of the newly created city of Addis Ababa, Menelik massacred 11,000 Oromo people in a single day in 1886, and he also cut off body parts of many of the dead. But although they were able to take over the small Ogaden, they were prevented from taking over Geledi, as Menelik's forces were crushed at the Battle of Lugh.

However, just across the Ethiopians' borders, there was the Italian colonies in Eritrea and the Mahdists of Sudan. These Mahdists had rebelled against the Egyptians and, in fact, launched a jihad against them. The British, who had already entered Egypt, looked to leave the area, as it had no real strategic value. So Charles Gordon was sent to oversee their withdrawal. However, in 1885, he was besieged inside Khartoum and killed when the Mahdists took the city just before a relief expedition made it there. This caused outrage within the British public, who called for revenge, but it would take a while for them to get it. However, after Khartoum fell, Equatoria had been cut off from the north, and their governor was trapped behind enemy lines. He was Emin Pasha, an Ottoman doctor, who had hoped that the British would fully annex the region, but it was rejected. So a Scottish businessman named William Mackinnon pushed to send Henry Morton Stanley on an expedition to find him. But this Emin Pasha Relief Expedition was a colonial pursuit. Mackinnon himself was the owner of a shipping company which dominated trade around the Indian Ocean, plus he would later create the East Africa Company, looking to expand British control as far inland as Uganda. Furthermore, Stanley was still employed by Leopold II, who agreed to release him from his contract in exchange for taking a longer route to Equatoria, traveling on Belgian steamers through land he would later look to expand into. Though this was not a military expedition, it was just a humanitarian one. However, during this expedition, a number of atrocities were committed, with one member in particular, named William Stairs, killing people at random. However, also Edmund Musgrave Barttelot was another person who would randomly beat and kill people, and apparently he descended into some sort of madness and believed he was being poisoned, but he also had a history of killing, as he had killed a Yemeni man for a minor indiscretion. While on the campaign to relieve the siege of Khartoum, then there was the Irish heir to the Jameson Whiskey Company, James Sligo Jameson, who bought a 10-year-old girl to sell to cannibals in order to sketch the ordeal and write about it. All of these people were also still open to buying slaves from Tippu Tip and the Arab slavers or capturing their own en route. Their exploration into the region opened up Congo and even Uganda to the Europeans, decimated the local population through disease and murder, and importantly, expanded Belgian rule. This is because Stanley met with Tippu Tip and persuaded him to accept Belgian rule and divert trade to the Atlantic rather than the Indian Ocean, and it should also be said that they found Emin Pasha.

But back in Sudan, the Mahdist uprising made Massawa a major issue. This was owned by Egypt before the rebellion, but the British signed an agreement with the Ethiopians, the Hewitt Treaty, giving them permission to move in and turn Massawa into a free port. Plus, this would also have stopped the French from taking it. However, in 1885, the Italians moved into the city, also with British approval, but the Ethiopians could do very little about it. Now, as their situation was becoming more volatile, the new leader of the Mahdists, Al-Khalifa, invaded the country and sacked Gondar in 1887. The same year, the Italians moved on Dogali near Massawa, and although this small invasion force was driven back, the Italians entered into an alliance with Menelik, who in turn formed an alliance with the King of Gojam. So Johannes had Mahdists, Italians, Shewa, and Gojam against him, plus he also had the occasional raid from the Dervish in Somalia. And Johannes would die in the Battle of Gallabat against the Mahdists in 1889, allowing Menelik to come to the throne. The Mahdists, however, could do very little with their victory, as they were now on their last legs, and they had lost far too many men in different campaigns. They also had enemies on all sides, and they would later come into conflict against the Italians and even the Belgians.

As for Menelik, he signed a treaty of friendship and trade with the Italians, the Treaty of Wuchale. But the translation of this treaty caused some problems, as the Italian version stated that Ethiopia was obliged to conduct their foreign affairs through Italy, essentially making it a protectorate, whereas the translated version said that they just had the choice to do that. This misunderstanding would eventually lead to the Italo-Ethiopian War a few years later. But fortunately for the Ethiopians, they had a strange ally of sorts in the Russians. And the Russians, I've not really mentioned because they're not really a likely contender to enter the colonial race. They were bogged down with controlling the likes of Poland, expanding into Central Asia, and they had a relatively small navy, plus by really any metric, their wealth was comparable to Italy, but with a far larger population.

However, there was a very small attempt to create a colony in Djibouti, a pretty poor choice of location, as the French were already in the area. This whole scheme was the brainchild of Nikolai Ivanovich Achimov, who traveled to Djibouti with 165 Cossacks. There, in 1889, he occupied the abandoned Egyptian fort of Sagallo and renamed it New Moscow. But the Cossacks quickly made enemies by raiding the nearby Danakil people. The French then got word of this new settlement, sent ships to barrage the fort, and forced Achimov to surrender, while the Tsar distanced himself from the whole thing. So the whole scheme failed. But this expedition did seem to open up a dialogue between Russia and Ethiopia, and the Russians would agree to arm their fellow Orthodox people. Maybe this was all part of a plan to acquire some colonies along the Red Sea, and many of the other powers believed this was the case. However, as you know, Russia never became a colonial power, but the weapons they sent proved to be the decider when the Ethiopians went to war against the Italians.

Then, just as another side note, there was another famous Russian in Africa, well, technically a Polish man. His name was Rogozinski, and he was employed by the British to explore Cameroon back in 1882. But this could have been so much more. One of his companions later admitted, "When in 1880 I met Rogozinski and he unfolded before me his plan of research, and one of his main objectives of necessity hidden, namely the search for a suitable site for Polish colonization as a future refuge for those who are not only physically but spiritually too tightly held under one of the three of our invaders." These three invaders, of course, being Germany, Austria, and Russia. So a homeland for Polish refugees in the heartland of Africa could well have been a possibility, but it wasn't to be.

Yet, keeping in West Africa, there was more British expansion there, near their Lagos colony. Here, the Royal Niger Company set up a protectorate, and this was confirmed at the Conference of Berlin. In this whole area, British expansion was largely headed by George Taubman Goldie. He was keen to sign as many treaties as he could with local chiefs before the Germans, and Edward Robert Flegel did the same. However, these treaties were strangely broad, inasmuch as the local rulers gave away a great deal. For instance, in one, they said, "We, the undersigned kings and chiefs, with the view to bettering of the condition of our country and people, do this day seed to the National African Company forever the whole of our territory. We also understand that the said National African Company have full power to mine, farm, and build in any portion of our country." Why they agreed to do this, it's hard to say. Maybe it was a fear of jihadists in the north, maybe they didn't all fully understand the implications, maybe they just wished for better trading opportunities, maybe they feared the British. It's really hard to say.

So Britain and Germany were rushing to sign treaties. This made the main focus along the borders of what would become Nigeria and Cameroon. But in Nigeria, the British had already been expanding their power and also their wealth, thanks to the export of palm oil. Then, from their established bases, they were able to expand into the Kingdom of Bonny, which had existed since the 15th century. Luckily for the British, trouble was already brewing in the kingdom when King George Pepple, who was educated in England, began to change his society. For instance, he declared that the iguana was no longer to be a sacred animal, as it went against his own Christian beliefs. So he was deposed in 1883, but as we'll see time and time again, the British helped him return to power in 1888, and in return, he agreed to accept British protection. That same year, the British also arrested Jaja of Opobo. He was a former slave who broke free from the Kingdom of Bonny and also made a great deal of money from the new palm oil trade. His territory was put under British control at the Berlin Conference, but he continued to tax British merchants. This prompted Harry Johnston to invite him to negotiations, but he just arrested Jaja, exiled him, and took over his state. Harry Johnston, by the way, was sort of the Cecil Rhodes of West Africa, as he drew maps detailing his plans for dividing up the continent. He hoped to connect Nigeria and Sierra Leone to Kenya and Egypt, and this just shows how uncoordinated the whole Scramble was. Plus, in 1886, he envisioned Germany taking Somalia and Ethiopia, Britain moving into the Arabian Peninsula, and Portugal connecting their colonies in the south. Yet, he did correctly predict the Italians would take Libya decades before they did.

However, I've not mentioned the French for a while. And also in the west, they were expanding into Gabon. Well, in fact, they had already established towns there back in the middle of the century, notably Libreville. This town was set up to house around 50 or so liberated slaves back in 1849, but the French really had very little influence in the region. However, as soon as the conference was concluded, they set up a colony in the country and would begin to move into it very slowly. They would then join it with French Congo in 1891 to form the basis of French Equatorial Africa. They then tried to swiftly expand north from there through Northern Congo and into Nigeria, as Antoine Mazon was sent on an expedition in 1890, but his rival in Nigeria was met with anger by the British, so the French withdrew, allowing British Nigeria and German Cameroon to later expand inland.

To the south of French Gabon, the once powerful Kingdom of Kongo was just a rump state at this point and constantly in civil war, so King Pedro V accepted Portuguese protection in 1888 and used their help in cementing his control. But Kongo would later rebel in 1914, and the kingdom would just be wiped off the map. So, in general, the 1880s were of course a very busy period, but 1890 also saw a flurry of activity across the continent. Keeping in the west, the French went to war against Dahomey. This came about in the aftermath of King Glele's death in 1889. He had agreed to hand Cotonou, a newly built fort and village, over to the French. This is now the largest city in Benin, but the capital remains Porto-Novo, which became a French protectorate back in the 1860s. As for Glele, he, like many of his countrymen, practiced Vodun, which was brought across the Atlantic and developed into Voodoo in Haiti. New Orleans. Well, when he died, Behanzin, his son, took the throne. He was far more reluctant to deal with the Europeans and hoped to reassert Dahomey's influence across the country. So he began to raid Porto-Novo. So the French, the protectors of the city, sent a small force to meet the Dahomey army at the Battle of Atchoukpa. There, 2,000 Dahomey Amazons, the feared female warriors, fought alongside another 7,000 warriors, but they were defeated by a few hundred French troops and Senegalese Tirailleurs. Behanzin was forced to make peace, but it wouldn't last for very long. He began to rebuild his forces and equip them with modern rifles. They fired at Frenchmen sent to inspect the area, so the Second Dahomey War erupted in 1892. This time, the Dahomey and their Amazons, equipped with thousands of German rifles, were able to put up much more of a fight. Yet, after a number of defeats, Behanzin burned down his old capital and fled north. The French then installed a Goli Agbo on the throne. He was a relative of Behanzin and agreed to accept French protection. As for Behanzin, he eventually surrendered and was exiled to Martinique.

But the French were prevented from expanding further inland for the time being, thanks to Samori Touré. His Wassoulou Empire had been battling against the French since the 1870s, and they had even approached the British to fall under their protection. The British rejected this, but they did sell him weapons, which he used against the French and drove back their numerous expeditions throughout the 1880s. By this point, he had an army of 30,000 men, most of which were well-trained, and he held off the colonizers until the late 1890s.

But the French, at this time, probably launched the most bold attempts to conquer huge amounts of land. For instance, there was the Flatters Expedition of 1890. There, they tried to march from Algeria through the Sahara and into West Africa, but this was a complete failure, and they were killed by Tuaregs. Eugène Bonnier suffered a similar fate outside Timbuktu, when the French took over it. But this expedition was far more successful, as in 1894, the French were able to raise their flag over this once powerful city, but by now, there were only around 4,000 inhabitants. It was stuck in the Sahara, behind French enemies, with no railroad links.

The Germans, on the other hand, were having a bit of a harder time colonizing areas in the 1890s. For starters, over in East Africa, although the British were able to expand in Kenya quite quickly, the Germans were met with resistance in Tanzania. From 1891, they had to fight the Hehe people, who were being led by Chief Mkwawa. Eventually, tribes turned against the Hehe and backed the Germans, so Mkwawa committed suicide. Years later, further rebellions broke out in the region in the years to come. Meanwhile, in the west, the leaders of Bafut, a small town in Cameroon, killed a couple of German messengers who were demanding ivory. The Germans responded by burning down their towns, but lost a good deal of men in ambushes. Also, this really did little to end the power of the Bafut, because just like in Tanzania, they would need to go to war against them again.

All this isn't to say the Germans were having no success, as they did sign some treaties during this period. Most notably, there was the Anglo-Zanzibar Treaty, which gave the British Vitu Land and put Zanzibar into their sphere of influence in exchange for Heligoland, a small island in the North Sea. Many Germans saw this and said that their Chancellor, Leo von Caprivi, made a terrible deal. Some said it was like swapping trousers for a button, and others in imperialist groups said it was actually tantamount to treason. Yet, Caprivi did manage to gain some land in Southwest Africa, which still bears his name, the Caprivi Strip. This gave them access to the Zambezi River and pushed them closer to uniting with their East German colony.

However, there was another claimant to this land: the Portuguese. Back in 1885, Foreign Minister Barros Gomes published the Pink Map showing Portuguese claims. Then, to get foreign support, they signed treaties with the Germans, agreeing on their borders in the new colonies, with the French, as they gave up claims on the Casamance River in Guinea. Then they set to work on subjugating the Africanized families who lived on their borders in Mozambique, and then Serpa Pinto was sent on a number of expeditions to form alliances with local chiefs. At this time, the British were even willing to allow them to connect their colonies, but not to take Zimbabwe, which was a far more lucrative region. However, the Portuguese rejected this.

Then, in 1888, Cecil Rhodes founded the British South Africa Company, and the idea to connect Cape to Cairo was taken far more seriously. Plus, all the way up in Malawi, the African Lakes Company had been formed, and their claims to the region were only based around a couple of Christian missions established there way back during the expeditions of Livingstone. But Malawi had experienced a great deal of change throughout the 19th century. The region was once dominated by the Maravi Empire, which a century beforehand reached the coast, but with the arrival of the Europeans, many Yao people from Mozambique and German East Africa began to migrate into the region. They were also joined by Swahilis from the coast and even Arab traders. They brought Islam to the region and also the slave trade, which was the chief cause of the very minor Shire War. This war saw the British African Lakes Company and their Makololo allies fight against the slavers in sporadic clashes. When this war subsided, Harry Johnston, the British Consul General for Mozambique, declared British protection over the Shire Highlands in Malawi without authorization from London. This obviously prevented the Portuguese from pushing inland through Malawi.

Then the situation was made worse for the Portuguese, as Rhodes's South Africa Company was given permission to administer territory as far north as the Limpopo, which he quickly acted upon, and he would send pioneer columns into Zimbabwe. Now, the British had established themselves in the disputed areas, so Prime Minister Salisbury refused international arbitration, largely because in the past, it had always favored Portugal. Instead, they went straight to Carlos I of Portugal and offered him an ultimatum in January 1890 to withdraw his claims. As this was ongoing in Africa, while the British and Portuguese were negotiating, the South Africa Company began to expel Portuguese officials from Zimbabwe and even clashed with them in Manicaland. The Portuguese government initially refused to sign such an ultimatum, so amendments were made, giving them more land around the Zambezi in exchange for Manicaland in Zimbabwe. Then Carlos, who had just become king a few months earlier, soon had to deal with widespread anti-British riots across the country. And in Africa, António de Silva Porto, a famous explorer, self-immolated in protest. In January 1891, Republicans used the discontent to launch a failed coup in Porto. So Carlos, who was already ruling over a declining nation and now facing domestic strife, finally relented and signed the treaty in June 1891, giving up their claims over Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the likes. Yet, during this whole process, they were able to get their claims over the interior of Angola recognized, but really, Portuguese influence in the region remained minimal. The humiliation of the ultimatum inspired many to join the Republican cause, and this would ultimately lead to the assassination of

King Carlos and the Revolution of 1910, which ousted the monarchy, back in southern Africa, 1890 also saw the British expand their influence into Zambia, where Lewanika ruled Barotseland. He signed an agreement with Cecil Rhodes, and although claiming to have been deceived by the British company, he had pretty good relations with Britain and would attend the coronation of Edward VII.

Plus, the Pioneer Columns of Rhodes had established Fort Salisbury. From there, they would come into direct competition with the Shona. And under Ba-illi people, Yoon de Bailli, in fact, hadn't lived in Zimbabwe for very long, as they only arrived there under the leadership of Umzilikazi, who fled from Zulu expansion in the 1830s. On their arrival, they began to fight with the Shona people, the people who had built Great Zimbabwe and formed kingdoms like Mutapa.

By this point, the Ba-Ndebele people were being led by Lobengula. He initially signed agreements with the British and even gave them the Tati Concessions land in exchange for weapons, but many of his own vassals began to break away from him and seek the protection of the white settlers. So, to assert his authority, he launched raids on these breakaway people, but this gave the British South Africa Company a cause for war, even though Lobengula made sure no white person was killed in these raids.

This war, the First Matabele War, broke out in 1893. Khama III, Britain's ally over in Botswana, sent troops to aid in the conflict. As equipped with Maxim guns, they decimated their opponents and took over the region. The region would be named in honor of Rhodes, but British rule was challenged almost immediately when the Second Matabele War erupted in 1896.

This began when Mlimo, a religious leader, began to whip up support to chase the British out of Bulawayo and the region in general. Like many religious leaders, like even the Boxers in China, he promised his followers near certain victory because he could turn bullets to water and cannonballs to eggs. He then marched on Bulawayo, but the British were under the command of people like Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter. They were able to break the siege and chase the Ba-Ndebele into the countryside.

Plus, among the British troops, there was Robert Baden-Powell, and his experience during the war was instrumental in him creating the Scout movement. But Baden-Powell was accused of illegally killing Chief Uwini, who was prominent. Clemency if he surrendered, and he was also involved in possibly one of the most daring plans to end a war: the assassination of Umlimo. Although not an active participant, he helped two men in this task: Frederick Russell Burnham and Bonar Armstrong. They managed to sneak past thousands of Matabele warriors and enter into Umlimo's sacred cave. There, they waited for Umlimo to return to perform his dance of immunity. But on his return, he was shot. The assassins were then able to flee the cave, jump onto their nearby horses, and flee the pursuing warriors.

This put an end to the war, and on Burnham, he had a pretty interesting life, as he was born on a Sioux reservation, learned many skills from them, and would become the father of American Scouting. So, the fathers of British and American Scouting were present during these Matabele Wars.

While all of this was going on, from Malawi, then known as Nyasaland, Alfred Sharpe set off on an expedition to Katanga. This land was and still is incredibly valuable, as it's filled with resources, but importantly to Britain, it was crucial that they secure it if they ever wanted to connect Cape Town to Cairo. He hoped to meet with Msiri and get him to accept British protection, but Msiri, according to many, was a cruel leader who left stretches of the region depopulated and came up with cruel ways to kill people, like burying them up to their necks in the ground. So, he wasn't going to give away his authority and would never give up the lucrative slave trade.

But unfortunately for Msiri, King Leopold also sent William Stairs to Katanga a year later. He had already slaughtered Africans for no reason during the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, and now he was in command once again. His men killed many people for no reason, including Msiri. With his death, Katanga was then brought under Belgian control. But the Belgians also entered into a war with the Zanzibar slavers who occupied the eastern parts of Congo.

Now, in the middle of Britain and Belgium, there were the Kazembe people of northern Zambia. Although the British did dispatch a number of people to try and convert their king and convince him to fall under their influence, they were all rejected. When Mwata Kazembe X, even met with Sharpe, the same man who failed to convince Msiri, and although he got some mining concessions in the resource-rich region, again, Sharpe largely failed. It wouldn't really be until the end of the century that Kazembe was forced into accepting British protection.

But just on Belgium Congo, in the years gone by, they were willing to accept Tippu Tip, the famous slaver, to control large sections of their country on their behalf. However, when Belgian power began to grow, they were determined to assert their dominance. Plus, one slaver named Rumalisa saw Tippu Tip's dealings with the Belgians as treasonous and refused to fly the Belgian flag. He would often continue to fly the Zanzibar red flag, or sometimes even the German or British flag, hoping to accept their protection. Rumalisa then carved out a piece of land for himself around Ujiji in Tanzania, the same place that Livingstone first met Stanley decades ago. He also began to grow suspicious of Belgian missionaries, especially those who tried to end the slave trade.

So, the Society of Missionaries of Africa sent Leopold Louis Jugebert to the region to protect the missionaries and set up bases, but he was soon attacked by Rumalisa. As another side note, Jugebert was a French Christian who had participated in the defense of Rome when Italian nationalists were attacking the city, and along with Archbishop Charles Lavigerie, he hoped to create an African kingdom in the middle of the continent, possibly under the control of Mutesa, the king of Buganda. But I'll get back to this person and Central Africa in the next episode.

Anyway, the anti-slavery expedition sent further troops to relieve Jugebert's men, and over the next year, more Congo Free State soldiers arrived. The slavers had very few modern rifles by this point, and their leaders often acted against one another. Then, the Zanzibari position was further weakened when Tippu Tip returned home and left his son Sefu bin Hamid in charge. But the conflict did make some pretty strange bedfellows, as Gongo Lutete, a former Congolese slave, led his Batetela people in battle alongside his former owners. But when the Zanzibaris couldn't pay him, he switched sides. And then, in 1893, the Congo Free State grew suspicious of him, and he was executed for treason. So, he was enslaved, fought alongside slavers, and then fought against slavers, but was executed by the Belgians.

Eventually, the Belgians and the abolitionist forces, along with their Congolese allies, gained the advantage. They completely destroyed the town of Nyangwe, an important center of the slave trade, and killed Sefu bin Hamid in battle in 1893. The slavers of Central Africa had therefore been destroyed, as the Zanzibaris were chased out and Msiri had been killed. Belgian rule was therefore cemented across Congo, but this would infamously be just as cruel.

It was in the 1890s that Leopold and his private police force, the Force Publique, began to implement draconian laws, turning the country into a privately owned feudal state where all resources were collected by officials, and those who couldn't produce their quota would be punished severely. Most of the population was set to work producing rubber, and as it grew in value, the Belgians moved further and further into the interior of their vast colony.

On the opposite side of the colony, the Germans were trying, albeit slowly, to push west, and the British were moving inland from Kenya. They were all about to congregate on some countries I haven't really discussed: Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda. But as I said, I'll get to them in the next episode. As now we've reached 1894, and as you may well have noticed, large chunks of the continent were still not colonized. Kingdoms like Benin and Wassulu still ruled in the west, the Mahdists and the warlord Rabih az-Zubayr still controlled parts of the Sahel states. Then there were the Boer Republics in the south, Morocco and Ottoman Libya in the north, and a lot more. Then, of course, there's Ethiopia, who the Italians had already attacked, but they would drive them back in 1896 and thus secure their independence.

By the 1890s, the Scramble for Africa was well underway, but many countries still lay unclaimed, especially across the Sahara, in the south like the Boer Republics, and in Central Africa. Central Africa was, in fact, home to some ancient kingdoms, but they now lay in the middle of colonialists rushing in their direction. The Belgians had just defeated the slavers and moved into eastern Congo, the British had expanded through Kenya, and the Germans through Tanzania. Plus, in the north, the Mahdists were still in open rebellion. All of these were about to meet and claim the Central African kingdoms for themselves.

As for the locals, let's start with Uganda. This was the location of a number of kingdoms like Bunyoro, Toro, Busoga, and Ankole, but the most powerful during the 19th century was Buganda. These kingdoms go back hundreds of years, but Euro, for instance, dates back to the 14th century, and it used to be the most dominant kingdom, but by the 19th century, they lost a great deal of power to Uganda.

From the middle of the 19th century, the kingdom of Buganda was ruled by Mutesa, a man that the French and Belgian missionaries wanted to rule over a Christian kingdom, but he was not a Christian. He kept to his traditional religion, despite Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics all attempting to convert him. In fact, many of the rulers here refused to allow foreigners into their country or meddle in their affairs. For instance, Kabalega, the king of Bunyoro, fought back Sir Samuel White Baker back in 1872. Baker had been tasked to explore and hopefully export Uganda on behalf of the Egyptians, but most of his men, who were actually convicts, deserted him, and the whole thing was a disaster.

While in Buganda, when Mutesa died, his son Mwanga II began to persecute anybody who had converted. Yet, by now, his court and country were filled with converts. He, the Protestant, Catholic, or Muslim, and all of them fight for power. He even killed the first Anglican Archbishop of East Africa, James Hannington, in 1885, and burnt some Catholic converts alive in 1886. This encouraged the British to lend their support to rebel Christians and Muslims. Mwanga was then ousted and replaced by his brother in 1888, but this brother, in turn, was ousted by the Muslims, who put another brother on the throne. So, Mwanga, now in exile, made a deal with the British: return him to the throne and gain rights in his country. The British agreed, and in late 1890, the East Africa Company helped him secure his throne, and by 1894, Buganda had become an official protectorate of Britain. Mwanga would later try to rebel in 1897 but was defeated and fled into German territory.

Now, with a base in Uganda, the British targeted the other kingdoms. Like in 1893, Colonel Henry Colville launched an attack on Bunyoro. They were able to take over the kingdom, but Kabalega withdrew into the countryside. There, he launched a guerrilla war against the invaders for years until the British were finally able to capture him in 1899.

To the south of Uganda, there is Rwanda, which was ruled for most of the 19th century by Kigeli IV. He prohibited foreigners from his country, especially the Zanzibar slave traders, and protected his country using modern rifles, which he mainly acquired from the Germans. The Germans did manage to enter his kingdom in 1893 when Count von Gosen led an expedition west, trying to assert control over Tanzania and beyond, but Rwanda remained independent. Kigeli even managed to expand the borders of his kingdom a bit, but in doing so, he is credited with worsening the relations between the Tutsi and the Hutu. This is because the Tutsi were given higher positions, and in later years, the Europeans would make this division even worse, and eventually, this would boil over into genocide in the 20th century.

Then, when he died, the country was thrown into chaos. His son, Mutara IV, took over in 1895, but the previous king had many wives, and these wives had a lot of power. Mutara's mother had already died, so another royal wife named Kanjugira plotted to remove him from power and install her own son. She launched the Ruku coup, and Yuhi V, her son, became king. The new royals accepted German protection and their help in cementing their control over the country during this time of chaos, and thus another country had lost its independence.

Further south still, there was Burundi, which was then ruled by Ntare IV. He was another long-reigning monarch, ruling from 1852, and again, another ruler who had successfully defended his nation from slavers and colonizers for years. Like in 1884, he defeated the slaver Rumalisa in battle. Yet again, his downfall came from within, as some like Nanga Makoko allied themselves with the Germans in a bid for power. Faced with rebellion and war, he also accepted German protection in 1890 in exchange for them helping him remain in power. So, all the Central African nations had fallen under European control, but like elsewhere, their old monarchies remained.

However, just before we reach 1895, there were a couple more conflicts in Africa to highlight. Firstly, the Spanish and Melilla were attacked by a group of tribesmen known as Riffians. This was carried out after the Spanish began to improve their fortifications in the region, which they had owned for hundreds of years. Then, despite some aid from the Moroccans under Hassan I, the Riffians were promptly defeated, and the Spanish expanded their base in northern Morocco. But the Rif tribes would be a problem for the Spanish in the decades to come.

Meanwhile, in the south of Morocco, or Spanish Sahara, they had established a base in the Río de Oro peninsula. There, they appointed Emilio Bonelli as governor, but their expansion was hindered due to the Sorority tribesmen. Otherwise, there's just one final conflict to mention: the French invasion of Madagascar. Now, if you watched the last episode, you would have seen that the French had already invaded Madagascar and forced their Merina dynasty to accept their protection way back in 1885, but the terms of the treaty were vague, and the Madagascan Prime Minister and his Queen, Ranavalona III, refused to accept their loss of sovereignty. Diplomatic relations were subsequently broke off, and in 1894, the French invaded. Disease took the lives of more Frenchmen than battles did as they marched inland and forced the queen to surrender instead of having her royal palace bombarded with artillery.

But the government of Madagascar really couldn't do much to defend their island in the first place. For starters, they made themselves incredibly unpopular by converting to Christianity, and then ethnic groups like the Antaifasy had either been massacred or enslaved during the ruling dynasty's expansionist wars in the decades prior. So, rebellions broke out almost immediately as soon as the French landed. The queen was then exiled, but the French had to subdue a number of anti-Christian uprisings as the country was brought firmly under their control.

Meanwhile, up the coast, there was the short, incredibly short, Anglo-Zanzibar War. This war began when Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini died and Khalid bin Bargash took the throne. This may seem pretty innocent, but according to past treaties, any sultan needed to get British approval before taking the throne, something that bin Bargash did not have. He was, after all, far more anti-British than other contenders like Hamud bin Muhammad, who the British intended to put on the throne. So, the British went to war, bombarded Zanzibar, and won, and the whole thing lasted around 40 minutes, making it the shortest war in history. The British then installed their puppet as sultan, and as one positive takeaway, the British forced him to outlaw slavery. This was a monumental moment in the history of the region, as Zanzibaris had been enslaving Africans deep into the Congo and selling them across the Indian Ocean for centuries.

Plus, the British were making moves elsewhere, especially in the south against the independent Boer Republics. There, the Boers, under Paul Kruger, managed to improve their economy a great deal. In fact, they improved it so much that they began to challenge the British Cape Colony for dominance in the region. So, fearing their position in South Africa was being challenged, expansionists like Cecil Rhodes hoped to encourage rebellion among the Outlanders, foreigners who had migrated to the Transvaal during the gold rush. They did lack many rights, and discontent within the community was high. So, in 1895, Rhodes helped organize the Jameson Raid into the Transvaal without authorization from London. This raid, however, failed, and Rhodes was forced to resign as the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Plus, it encouraged the Transvaal to import foreign arms, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany sent a telegram to Kruger congratulating the Boers. This Kruger Telegram worsened Anglo-German relations in the build-up to World War I, and the British began to fear a German-Boer alliance. So, war between the two would eventually break out in 1899.

So, the Boer Republics had kept their independence, but in East Africa, the Ethiopians had not only managed to maintain their independence but had expanded their borders under Johannes IV. However, he was killed in battle against the Mahdists of Sudan, and Menelik became the new emperor, and he continued to expand south. He was also the leader who established the city of Addis Ababa, the current capital city, founded the country's first banks, post office, and railway lines. Plus, he introduced electricity into the new city. He, however, had a harder time abolishing the slave trade, despite amputating slavers, as his control was somewhat limited in the growing country, and he faced a couple of famines. But he strengthened relations with Russia, got weapons from them, and this proved vital because in 1895, the Italians invaded.

The Italians had for the past few years been fighting the Mahdists in a number of battles and controversially seized Massawa in 1894, angering the Ethiopians who wanted a seaport. They then used past treaties signed with the Ethiopians, poorly translated treaties, to justify their invasion. Fifteen thousand Italians and their allies marched inland and met over one hundred thousand Ethiopians at the Battle of Adwa in March 1896. There, the poorly trained, outnumbered, and unprepared Italians lost to the Ethiopians, making it one of the only African countries to maintain their independence, with the other being Liberia. This was a great humiliation for the Italians and weakened their position in East Africa. They could have even lost land to the Mahdists, but fortunately for them, the Mahdists faced a number of enemies.

For instance, the Belgians had managed to push east through the Congo, and in 1894, they were given the Lado Enclave by the British, a small piece of land in South Sudan, but this was currently occupied by the Mahdists, and this brought Belgium into the war against them. The Congo Free State crushed the Mahdists at the Battle of Rajaf in 1897 but faced a number of mutinies among the Tetela people they conscripted. This was particularly important because this prevented the Belgians from moving onto their desired target of Fashoda, where the British and French would later meet and almost go to war. So, had they not mutinied, maybe there could have been a three-way standoff between the British, French, and Belgians.

As for the British, they had finally tried to get their revenge on the Mahdists, and in 1896, began building railway lines to invade. Under Kitchener, they would move south quickly, and in 1898, crushed the Mahdist at Omdurman. There, the British only lost around 48 men compared to 12,000 Mahdists killed and 5,000 captured. Khartoum was then brought under Anglo-Egyptian rule, and the British continued to push south, eventually killing the new Mahdist leader in battle in late 1899. They were then set to take over South Sudan.

But back in 1897, two Frenchmen set off on expeditions to unite the colonies in the east and west. Christian de Bonchamp set off from Djibouti, and Jean-Baptiste Marchand set off from French Congo, both hoping to meet in South Sudan. Bonchamp, however, failed to get beyond the Ethiopian highlands and hostile locals. But Marchand did succeed, and he made it to Fashoda in July 1898. Once there, however, he was soon joined by Kitchener, who arrived after their victory over the Mahdists with 1,500 men. Marchand, on the other hand, only had 20 French officers and 100 African troops, so he was keen to avoid conflict. He and Kitchener, therefore, both met and avoided conflict, agreeing to await orders from their respective governments before acting.

The British stood firm in their claims, while in France, they were more divided. For instance, some saw Germany as the major enemy and didn't want to antagonize a potential ally in their future war against the Germans. Then, the infamous Dreyfus Trial took place. He was a Jewish man who was allegedly spying for the Germans, and this drew attention away from Fashoda. So, the French were able to peacefully resolve the crisis and withdrew, avoiding conflict with Britain. But French nationalists like young Charles de Gaulle felt humiliated at the French withdrawal, and the future French focus in the defense of their African colonies has been dubbed the Fashoda Syndrome.

Yet, the French were having far more success elsewhere. In 1898, they had finally managed to defeat Samori Touré, a Muslim ruler who they'd been fighting for the last two decades. But despite initial victories against the French, his support had waned, and the French captured him and sent him into exile. This defeat, along with treaties signed with other great powers, firmly cemented French control over most of West Africa, including the interior of the Ivory Coast and the like. The general that finally achieved this victory was Henri Gouraud, and he became a hero in France. He would later serve in World War I, and then after the war, crushed the Great Syrian Revolt.

This victory opened the path to French conquering the lands controlled by Rabih az-Zubayr. I mentioned him back in the third episode, but as a recap, he was a warlord from Sudan who carved out a state for himself. In 1887, he invaded Darfur and then pushed further west, taking over the Bagirmi Sultanate and forcing its ruler, Gōrang II, to flee. In 1893, the same year, he conquered the old Bornu Empire and made Dikwa, now in Nigeria, his capital city. Hoping to modernize, he reached out to the Royal Niger Company, but he was an infamous slaver, and there were a number of stories about his brutality, so he was turned away. In response, he began to launch even more raids, threatening the Niger Company, which was now surrounded by two major Islamic empires: Rabih and the Sokoto.

But it was the French who were about to change this. From the Congo, they sent Émile Gentil to meet with Gōrang II, and his Bagirmi Sultanate, or what was left of it, was put under French protection. Then, when this sultanate was threatened by Rabih, the French sent troops from the Congo in 1899, but they were wiped out at the Battle of Togba. However, Rabih's power was beginning to weaken, as the British defeated the Mahdists, their influence, albeit not full control yet, expanded into the likes of Darfur.

Then, three different French forces were converging on the region from different parts of their empire. Émile Gentil led troops again from the Congo, the Foureau-Lamy Mission was heading through the Sahara from Algeria, and the volatile Voulet-Chanoine Mission was coming from the west. This Voulet-Chanoine Mission was incredibly brutal. They set off with just a small force, both left a trail of destruction in their midst. The atrocities were so bad that the French sent Jean-François Clapperton from Timbuktu to intercept them and take control. On the way, he would have seen torched villages, numerous civilians hung from trees, and even children cooking on fire. But when they met, Voulet had Clapperton killed and declared that he was no longer a Frenchman but a black chief and the conqueror of an empire. But this just prompted a mutiny, and both leaders were killed. Lieutenant Pallier took control of the mission at Zinder in Mali and proceeded to head over to Kousséri in northern Cameroon. The three expeditions then met up, captured the town, and defeated Rabih in battle. He was killed during the conflict, and his empire promptly disintegrated, with the French taking most of it, except Bornu, which later went to the British.

As for the British, their military presence in Nigeria grew after a conflict against the Itsekiri leader Chief Nana Olomu back in 1894. Now, Chief Nana Olomu acted as an intermediary between the British and the then still independent nation of Benin, but when Olomu tried to expand his holdings, the British captured him and took his lands. But the authority still didn't permit an invasion of Benin. Nevertheless, James Robert Phillips moved into Benin without permission. To hide his intentions, he hid all of the weapons, but this proved to be disastrous, as the Oba of Benin found out about the invasion and ambushed them. Because their weapons were hidden, they had no way to defend themselves, and most were killed.

In January 1897, however, as always, this massacre prompted a punitive expedition with the full backing of the Royal Navy. Around 1,500 marines plus local troops marched on the capital of Benin and torched villages on their way. Rockets were then fired indiscriminately, and the walls of Benin, the largest earthworks created, were completely destroyed. The kingdom was then disbanded, and many of the artwork was shipped back to Europe, including the famous Benin Bronzes.

But the British in Nigeria didn't stop there, as the Nembia Kingdom had been placed in the British sphere of influence at the Conference of Berlin, but their king, Frederick William Koko, had refused to allow the British into his region. Yet, this region became increasingly more valuable since the discovery of oil and the formation of the British Oil Rivers Protectorate. But in 1895, Koko renounced Christianity and led an attack on the company's base at Opobo. A couple dozen British settlers were captured and ceremonially executed, and some reports indicate that they were eaten. This was again followed by a punitive expedition, and Koko was deposed.

Now, public opinion was slowly turning against the private African companies and their leaders like George Goldie. However, Koko went a little bit too far with the cannibalism. Then, living in exile, he was probably the inspiration behind King Cocoa the Fanta Poe in the Dr. Doolittle books. So, Goldie was therefore able to keep control of his Niger Company, and in 1897, he personally led attacks on small Islamic states like the Bida Emirate. But this success finally meant the end of the private companies in West Africa, though, as up against German and French state-sponsored colonies, they really didn't stand much of a chance to compete. So, the charter was finally revoked a couple years later, and the British government took control of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the nearby Ashanti had been turned into a British protectorate back in 1891, but by 1894, King Prempeh I was refusing to allow the British to establish a residency in his capital, Kumasi. So, the British, led by the likes of Robert Baden-Powell, marched on the city and forced Prempeh into exile. This was a remarkably peaceful expedition, as the Ashanti more or less gave up without a fight, but some British did die, mainly of disease like malaria, like Prince Henry, the son-in-law of Queen Victoria. The British, by the way, justified this war and other actions by saying they were hoping to end human sacrifice, slave trading, and to establish peace, but as you can probably guess, they mainly wanted to prevent the French and Germans moving into Ashanti land and to claim the riches of the kingdom.

The causes for the next war with the Ashanti were a little more ridiculous, as it began when Frederick Mitchell Hodgson insisted that he should be able to find and probably sit on the Golden Stool. This was pretty scandalous, as the stool served as a symbol of not only the royal family but also the kingdom at large. Only the king had the authority to even touch it, so the fact a British person wanted to find the stool, which was hidden, was incredibly offensive to the Ashanti. But some say that Hodgson just didn't realize how important it was. So, the Ashanti rose up under the Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa in March 1900, forcing the British to retreat to a small stockade. But with the help of a few hundred Hausa soldiers, they fought off the attacking Ashanti until a relief force helped them escape. A second expedition was sent into the capital and forced the remaining royal family to surrender, but they surrendered on the condition that the stool would not be touched by a Brit or non-Akan person. Akan, by the way, are the people that lived in the Ashanti Kingdom. So, the Ashanti, despite being annexed, claimed victory. As for the stool, it was discovered in 1920 by road workers, and it is currently housed in the British-built Ashanti Palace.

But let's move away from West Africa, as the late 19th century saw developments elsewhere. In Zambia, the British had already secured the south back in 1890, as they secured a deal with Lewanika, the ruler of Barotseland, but the north still lay unclaimed and was sitting directly in between British and Belgian control. On the Belgian side was the province of Katanga, the former lands of the slaver Msiri, and this land the British had tried to claim. However, Alfred Sharpe was never able to make a deal with Msiri, so the Belgians just moved in and killed him and claimed it for themselves. The British, therefore, were unwilling to let this happen again, but Alfred Sharpe once again failed to strike a deal with the leader of northern Zambia. This was Mwata Kazembe X. He did give the British some mining concessions in this resource-rich land and allowed some missionaries into his country, but largely, he refused to submit. For instance, he refused the British South Africa Company the right to fly the Union Jack and stopped their tax collectors from getting money from his citizens. He even began to clash with company troops in the late 1890s, prompting Alfred Sharpe to send in troops to Malawi. Seeing British machine guns and cannons, and even Sikh troops, the king retreated without a fight. Missionaries gave him refuge and then helped him negotiate his return to power. The British agreed to this, and for the remainder of his life, he worked closely with the company. Thus, the British had secured Zambia for themselves. However, they were now too late to realize their dream of connecting Cape Town to Cairo and would need to wait until the end of the First World War for that.

Otherwise, also in the late 1890s, over in Somalia, the Dervish movement had begun, and this would continue until the 1920s. Somalia, to recap, was one of the first countries to be brought into European spheres at the beginning of the Scramble, but European control was limited. The Italians, British, and French had just signed deals with local rulers and largely allowed them to govern independently. They also made deals with each other over the borders, like allowing Italian Eritrea to expand. Plus, the borders between Britain and Ethiopia were cemented late in the century, but controversially, the Ethiopians were given the Ogaden. This region is made up mainly of Somalis and is a source of hostility between the two nations still today.

So, in Somalia, the sultanates of Majeerteen, Warsangali, and the likes were still there, and their rulers, like Mahmud Ali Shire of Warsangali, despite signing agreements, would join in the Dervish movement against the colonizers once it began. The whole rebellion was started by a Sufi poet, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, after traveling to Mecca. He was inspired to return home and remove the Western and Christian presence from his homeland. Think almost like the Mahdi rebellion in Sudan, as he launched a religious war against colonizers. There were, in fact, quite a few similar movements popping up across the Muslim world. For instance, there were Jihadi states in the west, and in the north, Hassan had connections with the Senussi Order, which I'll discuss in the next episode. By using religious rhetoric, he did something that had almost been impossible just a few years prior: he had united the warring Somali tribes into a powerful fighting force, one which wanted to rid the region of Christians, as he said, "The Europeans were converting their children and made our children their children." Around 6,000 men joined him as he first attacked the Ethiopians and secured their first victory. Then, he began launching attacks on British Somaliland and he was dubbed the "Mad Mullah" by the British press. However, it would take the British to use planes after World War I to finally crush the uprising. This was largely because of the mobility of the Dervish fighters. Their ranks were filled with pastoral horsemen, so whenever their territory was overwhelmed by the British or Italians, they could just pick up, move, and establish a new base somewhere else. Meanwhile, they were being supported by the local sultans who wanted to claim back their independence, sympathizers in Sudan, and even allegedly the Ottoman Empire.

This wasn't even the only rebellion going on in Somalia, as in the south, in Italian Somaliland, there was the Banadir Resistance. This was led by the Biimal clan and began years earlier, plus it would actually last a little longer than the Dervish movement. Although it was largely clan-based, they too used religious rhetoric to stir the population, often through poetry. One poem ended, "Those who resist are heaven-bound; those who submit can stay home in hell where they belong." So, poets were influential in both rebellions. Hassan would actually trade insults and poems with another anti-colonist, Weiss al-Barawi. Burhan began the insults, as he favored a more peaceful solution and accused the rebels of being Wahhabi. In one poem, he wrote, "They are the justifiers of spilling the blood of the ulama and of wealth and women. They are libertines. They prohibit the study of sciences such as law and grammar. They are repugnant. Their characteristic is to wear their hair like the Wahhabi. They are a sect of dogs." For these accusations, Barawi would be assassinated by Hassan in 1909.

Yet, of course, these weren't the only rebellions. They were popping up across the continent, like the Bailundu Revolt in Portuguese Angola. There, the Ovimbundu kingdoms, including the Bailundu Kingdom, had lost their independence back in 1890, but the region was seen an increase in Portuguese activity. This, along with the economic problems, obviously angered the locals, but the conflict began in 1902 when the Portuguese accused the King of Bailundu's councillor of not paying for bottles of rum. Tensions rose, the Portuguese imprisoned their leaders, and the rebellion began. The Portuguese enlisted the help of Boer settlers and chased the rebels into the mountains and continued to launch expeditions against them until 1904, when they were finally defeated.

But going back to Muslim uprisings and wars, over in the west, the Germans had finally settled their Togoland borders in exchange for some Pacific islands, but they still only held onto the coast of Cameroon. To the north lay the Muslim kingdom of the Fondom of Bafut. This small state was attacked numerous times by the Germans between 1901 and 1907. However, they never really submitted to German rule, and the Germans had to just reinstate their ruler when no good replacement was found. So, the Bafut Wars were a costly affair.

Otherwise, there was the Sokoto Empire further north, the jihadist state which had held off European advances so far. Inside their empire were a number of autonomous regions, one of which was Adamawa. Inside Adamawa, in the late 1890s, there were a number of internal conflicts. For instance, there was yet another person claiming to be the Mahdi, Hayatu ibn Said. He began to rebel against the crown, so the Germans, claiming to want to end the Islamic slave trade, took this opportunity to move in in 1899. But the Muslims resisted fiercely, and in 1901, the Germans had only really managed to subjugate two parts. That year, they met with the Emir Zubairu ibn Adamawa to discuss the possibility of placing his lands under German protection, but this came to nothing. So, the Germans attacked again, while the British, looking to exploit the situation, moved on Yola. Zubairu was then on the run. He appealed to the Sokoto for help, plus the calls for jihad inspired many Mahdist supporters to join forces with the emir. Together, they tried to reclaim land but failed. Slowly, sultans of different cities broke from the Sokoto and swore allegiance to the Germans or the British. As for Zubairu, he was killed by tribal enemies in 1903.

As the Germans moved north, the British, led by the likes of Frederick Lugard, proceeded north as well and occupied Kano. Lugard, by the way, wrote "The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa," in which he justifies colonialism, saying that it stopped slavery, ended what he called barbaric practices, and the likes. But he goes one step further and says that colonialism was a fad and the British needed to get involved so they didn't look weak. So, you can see why he decided to join the Germans in partitioning the Sokoto Caliphate. Otherwise, he did argue in favor of indirect rule as the best way to run a profitable colony, prevent uprisings, and the likes. However, although this is what he argued, he very rarely allowed educated Nigerians to take over positions of power.

Anyway, after fleeing Kano, the Emir of the city, Ali Babba, tried to reclaim his power, but he was defeated. The British were therefore free to move on to the city of Sokoto, where Muhammadu Ashirru I tried to put up a fight, but he also failed. He, in fact, called on his people to join him on a migration known as a Hijra. Thousands of people joined in, and he moved from his capital into the countryside. The British then pursued this massive people migrating across Nigeria until they caught up with them and crushed the Caliph's armies. After the battle, the British found Muhammadu coming out of a mosque and shot him, ending the Sokoto Caliphate. The lands were partitioned between the Germans and British, and photos of the dead Caliph were dispatched across his lands to prevent uprisings, but this did very little to actually help, as within a couple of years, there would be huge rebellions across the country.

While all of this was going on, the French had begun to move into Mauritania, but there they hoped to peacefully penetrate the region. Xavier Coppolani orchestrated the entire plot, and it worked incredibly well. Beginning in 1901, he formed alliances with Cheikh Sidya Baba and Sadibou, who were leaders of the Qadiriyya Sufi Brotherhood and held a great deal of power. They agreed to join France because they were promised protection against their rival Hassani tribes and a position of power within the new colonial government. So, this was just divide and rule. These men persuaded the Emirate of Trarza to join France in 1904.

But of course, not everyone was happy about this. To the north of them, Ma al-Aynayn had been appointed as the commander of Tindouf by the Sultan of Morocco, but today, this is part of Algeria. He was a fierce anti-colonist and had already begun to build a fort known as Rabat in Smara in Spanish Sahara with the intention of launching attacks and chasing the Spanish out. But then the French also arrived nearby, and he launched a jihad on them in the name of Sultan Abdelaziz of Morocco. The Sultan, although not directly involved, seems to have supported the jihad by being a middleman for the purchase of weapons, and it is believed that one of his men assassinated Coppolani, ending French expansion into the interior of Mauritania for a couple of years.

But we need to go back to Nigeria for a bit, as the British looked to fully cement their control over the Aro Confederacy. The Aro people had thus far been unwilling to allow any real European settlement in their lands, despite technically being under British influence. They were deeply religious people and saw any foreigners as a threat to their beliefs. Central to their religion was an oracle called Ibini Ukpabi. They would, of course, perform religious duties, but also would settle legal disputes, murder cases, and the likes. The trials would take place in Arochukwu in a cave complex. Inside the caves, there were a number of quite ominous-sounding shrines and tunnels, like the Shrine of Nakedness, where the guilty would be stripped, and the Tunnels of Disappearance. This tunnel got its name because whoever lost the trial was sometimes killed or personally sold as a slave by the Ibini Ukpabi. This ongoing slave trade eventually gave the British their cause for war.

But on religion, for a moment, a number of secret societies and almost cults began to develop around West Africa at that time, like the Ekpe in Nigeria. They claimed that they could apparently speak to their ancestors, and many young boys would be sworn into the society as soon as they became men, and for life, they would be sworn to secrecy and had to pay membership fees. Plus, alongside their religious roles, they would, in full ceremonial dress, do police work, grabbing the attention of the British. There was also the Poro and their female equivalent, the Sande. Men would go and listen to a man dressed in full fetish dress give speeches and occasionally place taboos on things, while the women would attend masquerades and unfortunately perform female genital mutilation. These groups, by the way, still exist today.

But they weren't the most violent groups. There were some like the Leopard Society in Sierra Leone. Their members would dress in leopard skins and ritually cannibalize people, believing it would give them more power, and you can maybe see a link between groups like this in Sierra Leone and Liberia and later reports of cannibalism in the civil wars of the 20th century. But back to the Aro, they attacked the town of Ubeagu, which was allied with the British, so the British began preparing for war. It took a while to build up the forces, but in 1901, they were ready. The British won very quickly, and the Aro Confederacy fell into British hands, but some guerrilla conflicts persisted. For instance, the Ikomiku War persisted until the outbreak of World War I.

And finally, the last conflict of this period occurred in the south, and it was the Second Boer War. It began when the British began to build up troops along the Transvaal border until September 1899, when Kruger sent an ultimatum demanding that they withdraw. This, however, was ignored, and war was declared in October. Thousands of foreigners joined to help the Boers in the early stages of the war, as they lay siege to towns like Ladysmith and Kimberley. But in 1900, thousands of British reinforcements arrived to relieve the besieged cities. Their march was temporarily halted at the Battle of Spion Kop, a battle which Gandhi and Churchill both witnessed. By May, Robert Baden-Powell had relieved the city of Mafeking, and in June, both Johannesburg and Pretoria were captured. But many Boers like De la Rey, Jan Smuts, and Louis Botha launched a guerrilla war, and the 250,000 British troops struggled to maintain control over the region. So, they built thousands of blockhouses around South Africa to defend their supply lines. Herbert Kitchener also began burning crops, houses, and anything that could potentially aid the guerrillas. Captured Boers were then deported to colonies like Bermuda and Saint Helena, while mainly women and children were sent to concentration camps, where around 40,000 people died, many of which were children.

This was met with outrage internationally, so thousands of Dutch, Scandinavians, French, Irish, Americans, Italians, and more joined in the war on the side of the Boers. The Russians, as well, were also keen supporters of the Boer cause, not only because they had a mutual enemy but also because they believed that they shared similar values, as Tolstoy wrote in his diary, "Opening a paper every morning, I passionately wish to read that the Boers have beaten the British. It cheers my soul." Plus, in Britain, many also actually opposed the war, notably the Liberal Party under Bannerman, but patriotic fervor won out, and the Liberals were defeated in the so-called Khaki Election.

As the war dragged on, the Boer gorillas were increasingly unable to carry out their raids, and both sides became worried about black people like the Swazi becoming involved in the war. So, the Bitter-Enders, as they were called, made peace in 1902, and the Boer Republics were annexed. Plus, in the aftermath, Swaziland finally accepted British protection. Although reconstruction and amnesty was offered to the Boers, the British governor, Alfred Milner, tried to Anglicize the newly conquered regions, but this worsened race relations and fueled Boer nationalism. So, when the Union of South Africa was declared in 1910, many Boer leaders like Botha and Smuts were elected as prime ministers.

However, by now, the majority of the south and west was colonized. Yet, even by the early 20th century, some nations were still free from European rule, although very few. The final nations to fall, like Morocco, would cause tensions between the great powers in the build-up to the First World War. Otherwise, there was of course a wave of unrest against colonization. For instance, there was the Maji Maji Revolt against the Germans in Tanzania, and more Mahdist uprisings, plus great crimes were committed, like the genocide of the Herero, forced labor, and a great deal more.

By the early 20th century, most of Africa was fully under European control, but in the north, Morocco was still open to colonization. The country was ruled by Sultan Abdelaziz, but the extent of his control was really weak. In the countryside, bandits and local rulers ruled virtually independently and captured foreigners like Raisuli, a man who has been described as the last Barbary pirate. He captured a few people and held them to ransom, but none prompted such outrage as the kidnapping of an American man named Perdicaris in 1904. To secure his release, Raisuli demanded the control over provinces in

The country making him a bit of a Robin Hood character, fighting against a corrupt sultan who was conceding too much to the West. But President Teddy Roosevelt responded swiftly and sent ships to Morocco. They demanded that the sultan pay the ransom, and to make sure it happened, there were plans of even landing marines and capturing custom houses.

This worried a couple of nations in Europe, like Spain, who believed the US wanted ports in Morocco. This was especially worrying for them, as they had just lost Cuba and the Philippines to the Americans a few years earlier. But the sultan gave in, and the captive was released.

Yet, this was just one of the many problems that the sultan was facing. For instance, Buhumura claimed to be the Mahdi, the savior of Islam, and also the rightful heir to the throne. He launched a rebellion in the north of the country, and the French could and did use any assassination as a pretext to claim more land. French interest in Morocco had, in fact, been growing due to the construction of the trans-Saharan railroad. Plus, the UAE seas in what is now southern Algeria were controlled by Morocco for centuries, but their control in the 20th century remained weak. So the French actively pursued Algerian rebels and their colonist ambitions, and next, the land around Tuat in 1901. Then in 1903, they took Betcha, and they would continue to chip away at Morocco's borders over the next few years.

Morocco's independence, however, was initially defended by Britain, the age-old rival of France. France, on the other hand, was keen on keeping allies in the Mediterranean, and in 1900, they signed an agreement with the Italians, giving them a free hand in Libya. And they offered Morocco to the Spanish, but the Spanish, despite their proximity and existing colonies, refused, believing it would bring them into a conflict with the British.

However, in 1904, everything changed as the British and the French signed the Entente Cordiale. As part of this agreement, without asking Spain, the two powers promised the Spanish a sphere of influence in the north. This would prevent the French from controlling land opposite Gibraltar, while in turn, the British would withdraw from Moroccan affairs and allow the French to move in. So for the two powers, it was a win-win.

But Germany was wary of this new alliance and wanted to use Morocco to undermine it. So the Kaiser traveled to meet the sultan and declared that he would support their independence. He believed the Americans would join him in this pursuit, and the Anglo-French alliance would begin to break apart. War was even threatened at one point before they met at the Conference of Algeciras. The British stood by the French and Spanish, as they were given rights to buy land, police the area, and set up banks. Germany, meanwhile, already angry at not being included in colonial talks, was left out of it and stepped up in their arms race with the British.

As for the Moroccans, they had delegates there, but it was almost impossible to communicate. First, there was the language barrier, and then they had no telegraphs to communicate with their sultan back home. So, as some foreign diplomats said, they sat there like statues. Angered by this, the sultan's own brother, Abid al-Hafid, rose up and took power for himself. But as one contemporary British writer wrote, "To maintain his authority over the tribes, he must continue to appear decidedly anti-European in his feelings and his policy. On the other hand, he must have the money, and the money must come from Europe."

Meanwhile, as the Germans were making enemies in Europe, they were committing atrocities in Africa by genociding the Herero people of Namibia. Well, the Herero people, who were herders, as well as the hunter-gatherer Nama people, they lived in Namibia alongside the Oorlam, who were a mixed-race group, and the Ovambu, who were isolated in the north. The Germans, at the beginning of the scramble, had essentially tricked the locals into selling vast tracts of land to them and then used local rivalries to expand their possessions. During their rule, Heinrich Ernst Göring, the father of Hermann Göring, provided very little aid to the Herero. And thanks to false reports of gold being discovered, German settlers arrived in large numbers, occupied native land, and often confiscated their livestock. So there were small-scale clashes and disturbances, but in 1903, Samuel Maharero decided to launch an open rebellion against the Germans and attacked a nearby fort, killing over 100 people. Lothar von Trotha was sent to deal with the rebels. He had already crushed the Wahiihi rebellion in German East Africa and the Boxer Rebellion in China, and with 14,000 reinforcements, he forced the Herero to make peace.

Over 50,000 Herero gathered at Waterberg, ready to make this peace, but the Germans attacked, killed many, and chased the survivors into the desert. Trotha then declared that "any Herero found within German borders would be shot." He defended his actions based on racial grounds, and many Herero were killed. Count von Schlieffen, who devised the Schlieffen Plan, and many others celebrated Trotha's achievements, but Chancellor Bülow had Trotha recalled in late 1905.

As many thousands of Herero and Nama people were being killed, many others were imprisoned and sent to concentration camps like on Shark Island. There, they were forced to work, but many died of malnutrition, disease, or were just killed. Although numbers are disputed, around 65,000 people are estimated to have been killed during this period. So that's 80% of the Herero population and 50% of the Nama people. Plus, medical experiments were also carried out, and many were actually carried out on living patients in order to find out the causes of scurvy and the likes. Then some, like Eugen Fischer, a future member of the Nazi party, conducted experiments on mixed-race people. His work would later be studied by the likes of Josef Mengele and it was influential in the Nazis' Nuremberg race laws.

Elsewhere, over in West Africa, the Germans had also recently partitioned the Sokoto Caliphate with the British in 1903. The British were, in fact, having some trouble in Nigeria caused by the Ecomico movement. This was a secret society which rose up in Igbo territory. The British tried to crush the movement by burning down villages and imprisoning leaders in 1902, but they kept on popping up over the next decade.

While over in German Cameroon, the colonizers fought against the Muslims of the north in two different rebellions. The first rebellion was led by Ghoni Wadei, who led some Muslims after going on the Hajj and called for jihad. Mahilaji led the other group of Muslims, once again after taking the pilgrimage to Mecca, and when he returned, he called for yet another modest revolt in Africa. Mahilaji claimed that he would deliver the Muslims to the savior of Islam and chased the colonists out. So Fulani people and Bugatti Arabs from Chad joined him. However, Elaji was quickly captured and publicly beheaded, while Wadei was chased throughout the country. Most of the local rulers constantly forced his men to withdraw, fearing German retaliation, but he managed to evade capture until 1907. Then in Gérar, machine guns hacked down his men, and the Germans proceeded to hang any leaders who sympathized with this cause. Also wanting to end any repeats, the Germans banned people from going on the Hajj without prior approval.

But the Germans were equally as brutal over in Tanzania during the Maji Maji rebellion. There, they introduced forced labor and forced everyone to grow cotton. This not only changed the social order of the region, but many places were just not producing enough food to feed their own people. So in 1905, a drought hit, and the people rose up against the colonizers. Like many other anti-European rebellions, the people turned to magic, believing they could turn bullets into water, found potions to protect them, and the likes. In this case, they followed a man named Umali. He mixed animism with Islam and marched into battle with antiquated weapons. So the Germans were able to crush the rebels pretty quickly. However, they went one step further, as Captain Wangenheim wrote to the governor, "Only hunger and want can bring about a final submission. Military actions alone will remain more or less a drop in the ocean." So von Gatsen, the governor, launched a scorched-earth campaign, essentially starving the people of southern Tanzania and killing upwards of 300,000 people. Apparently, the region never recovered for at least 50 years afterwards, but it did finally end rebellions in Tanzania. From the 1880s, the Tanzanians rose up during the Abushiri Revolt, the Wahiihi rebellion, but the Maji Maji proved to be the last major one against the Germans.

Of course, the Germans weren't the only people committing atrocities. Leopold of Belgium ruled the Congo using forced labor. Some of their commanders, like Léon Thys, destroyed 160 villages in just one year back in 1894. There were some rebellions, like the mutinies mentioned in the previous episode, and even the Kasai-Niembo rebellion of 1905, but these were brutally crushed. And in the reprisals, there were widespread reports of crucifixions of men, women, and children. To punish villagers, there were also baskets of heads and hands that were collected from any place that had protested. As Peter Forbath wrote, "The baskets of severed hands set down at the feet of the European post commanders became the symbol of the Congo Free State. The collection of hands became an end in itself. Forced labor soldiers brought them to the stations and places of rubber. They even went out to harvest them instead of rubber. They became a sort of currency." Reports in books like "The Heart of Darkness" introduced the world to these atrocities. Britain sent members of parliament to investigate, including Roger Casement, the future Irish nationalist. Plus, prominent African Americans like William Shepherd and George Washington Williams also disproved Leopold's propaganda campaign. So Leopold eventually bowed to international pressure, and the Belgian parliament voted to annex the colony itself. However, this largely split the parliament, as even among the socialists, there were debates over what to do. Some refused to allow it as anti-colonists, while others wanted to take it from Leopold in order to run the colony more humanely.

The Portuguese also faced international condemnation for their use of slaves, especially in São Tomé, the third largest cocoa producer in the world. William Cadbury, the founder of the chocolate company, convinced companies in Britain and America to boycott Portuguese products. Yet, the practice continued in Angola, Mozambique, and elsewhere. The Nyasa Company and others forced whole families to work on cotton or rubber plantations or to produce chocolate way into the 20th century. Even after Republicans removed the monarchy in 1910, the system continued. So, of course, people tried to push the Portuguese back, but the Ovambo, for instance, were defeated at the Battle of Mufilo in 1907.

Plus, on forced labor, it should be said that the British, in particular, imported workers from across their empire and beyond to come and work within Africa. These had the offensive name of "coolies," and they greatly changed the demographics of certain places. Indians and Chinese men, in particular, arrived in places across the continent to work in horrific conditions in mines, plantations, and the likes. They were instrumental in constructing huge projects like the Ugandan Railway, alongside Africans. 2,500 men died during the construction of this railway, which included a couple dozen to man-eating lions. The Nandi people of Kenya tried to resist the construction of this railway, but the British assassinated their leader in 1905. Churchill praised the construction of it, stating it demonstrated the British art of "muddling through." "Through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, muddled and marched the railway." But many MPs, including Conservatives, criticized it for being ridiculously expensive and serving no real purpose. One MP, for instance, called it the "lunatic line."

And similar projects were being pursued across the continent and faced similar opposition. But really, the whole colonization project was deemed too expensive by many, and most of the grand infrastructure projects in Africa ultimately failed. For instance, the French dreamed of a trans-Saharan railway line, but even by World War II, very little had been built. During the war, the Vichy government even tried to finish it off and used forced labor, including many Jews. Torture and excessive punishments were commonplace, but again, it failed. Then, even though the British would connect their colonies from Cape Town to Cairo after World War I, they never actually finished off their railway lines. Then, despite initially claiming to be bringing about civilization to Africa, it was clear that they only wanted the locals to work in manual jobs by the sheer lack of universities built in Africa. From the beginning of the scramble right up until the 1920s, only two were built in Cairo and Algiers. Before that, there were two others: one in Cape Town and another in British Sierra Leone, which was built in the 1820s. Otherwise, in 1922, the University of Kampala was built, but that was really it until after World War II.

For many Africans, they needed to rely on Christian schools, like the future president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, who studied with missionaries from the Church of Scotland, or later Mugabe, who went to the Catholic Gutama College. But one interesting college that was actually run by this date was the William Ponty School in Dakar. This was set up in Senegal in the early 20th century, and as one of the only real institutions, it had a number of future leaders that came through its doors, including Modibo Keïta of Mali, Mamadou Dia of Senegal, Herbert Marc of Benin, and many, many more.

So many societies were formed to help alleviate the plight of the Africans and even impose colonization entirely. The growing number of socialists saw the whole thing as exploitative and even sponsored for some people to get an education in Europe. Plus, for liberals across Europe, there was also the economic argument. They had long followed the works of Adam Smith in the idea of free trade, so this whole scramble was nothing more than just an extension of the old mercantilist ideas of economics. Plus, for the British in the 1900s and 1910s, the entire sub-Saharan colonial empire only accounted for 20% or so of their exports. Out of this, South Africa contributed 16%, West Africa only 2%, and East Africa only 0.3%. A small colony like Mauritius, on the other hand, contributed 2% of exports. Obviously, that's not to say a great deal of wealth wasn't extracted from the regions, and the push for cash crops didn't devastate them, but East and West Africa contributed about as much in terms of exports as their Caribbean colonies.

France, on the other hand, was able to extract a great deal more and became far more reliant on Africa. West African colonies gave about 10% of exports, Madagascar 6%, and North Africa over 50%. As for Germany, their colonies ran a loss every year. Togo was on the brink of becoming profitable in 1913, but Southwest Africa lost 16.91 million marks every year, Cameroon lost 4.4 million, and East Africa 6.7. So Africa didn't become the huge market for surplus goods as anticipated or even a massive destination for investors. France, Britain, and Germany all invested more money in South America, for instance. But again, obviously, some companies made a great deal of money from exploiting the continent, like Cecil Rhodes created the De Beers Diamond Company, or there was Unilever. Their forerunners had plantations in Belgian Congo, and they would later acquire the United African Company and operate in West Africa. Plus, not all colonies ran a deficit. South Africa made a great deal of money, and the Southern Nigerian Protectorate was making around £100,000 a year, and they would make a lot more after World War I with the discovery of oil. But despite these arguments, prestige and patriotism won out. Colonial societies across Europe championed the cause. Colonial affairs were held across Europe, often with human zoos displaying people from the conquered territories.

So when rebellions broke out, they were promptly crushed. Way back in 1898, in British Sierra Leone, Colonel Frederick Cardew put a tax on huts based on their size, but the tax of between five to ten shillings per year was often more than the huts themselves. So the people united behind Baibura, a Muslim cleric, and began to rebel. The British promptly put down the rebellion and hanged 96 of his followers.

In the South, the British also faced the Bambatha Rebellion in 1905. This again was largely caused by taxes, as the British forced the Zulus once again to pay a hut tax and a poll tax of one pound. This they believed would pressure the locals into joining the workforce, but instead, they just united behind a chief called Bambatha and launched a guerrilla war. Yet, like elsewhere, machine guns and cannons killed 3,000 of his men, and he either fled to Mozambique or died in action. The reports differ. Plus, just as a side note, Gandhi would call this rebellion "no war, but a manhunt." But at the time, he had a completely different view, and he hoped to pressure the Indians into joining the army of the British Empire. He believed that through this, the Indians would achieve full citizenship. In the end, the Indians could only serve as stretcher bearers. But Gandhi, at this point in his life at least, often described the local Africans as "savages and uncivilized."

Otherwise, there was the Wad Habuba revolt in British Sudan. This small rebellion was started by a veteran of the Mahdist rebellion but gathered very little support and once again was crushed.

As for the French, they had to deal with a rebellion in Madagascar in 1904. Now, the Madagascans had kept up some level of resistance to the French occupation, but in the early 20th century, the French began to introduce again new taxes, forced labor, and executions without a trial. Plus, thousands of Asian workers were imported, challenging the whole culture and status quo. So the people rose up across the country, targeting initially Catholic churches. They actually won some early victories, like at Amparafara, and then went on to capture towns across the island. However, as with other rebellions, it wasn't to last, and their whole thing was crushed in 1905. But Madagascans would later rebel in 1947.

Going back to the colonization process in the north, the French had continued to chip away at the Moroccan borders by taking Ogdar in 1907. After the assassination of Émile Moreau at the hands of a mob inside the country, locals began to follow a religious leader named Ma al-Ainin. He launched a jihad against the French around Casablanca, but the French just responded to this new threat by bombarding the city and really beginning their slow conquest of the country. Although the French would make further gains in Morocco, in 1906, they were expanding elsewhere.

In the middle of the Sahara, in Chad, there was the Wadai Empire. This was an Islamic empire which primarily traded in slaves and herded cattle. They had remained relatively weak for quite a long time, far away from the regular caravan routes, but they began to grow in power and wealth thanks to the Sanusi Order. This was founded by a Sufi named Sanusi, who believed that Islamic thought and practices needed reforming. Their movements spread internationally throughout the 19th century, reaching the ears of leaders as far away as Somalia, but their chief base was in Libya, which was then controlled by the Ottomans. They were, in fact, so influential that the Ottomans didn't really challenge them. Their order would form the basis of opposition to the Italian invasion later on. They would attack the British in Egypt, and when Libya became independent, their king, Idris, came from the ruling family of the Sanusi Order. Well, they found an ally in Wadai in Chad. But since the Fashoda Incident, the British and the French had made many agreements dividing the region between themselves, therefore they wouldn't risk war again. So Darfur would fall under British control, while Chad was French.

Darfur, by the way, was ruled by Ali Dinar. He was able to assert his independence into the fall of the Mahdists, and the British agreed to this so long as he agreed to pay tribute. But he wasn't keen on just keeping Darfur and looked toward Chad as well. And fortunately for him, a succession crisis broke out back in 1898, and a number of foreign powers got involved, backing their own factions, including the French and the Sanusi Order. Dūdj Murā, who was backed by the Sanusi Order, won out, and his armies were modernized thanks to the Sanusi shipping guns from the north on caravans. But his cousin Adam Asil still contested his coronation and launched a coup. This failed, and he fled into French lands, prompting the start of the Wadai War in 1906. The French advance was relatively slow, but a couple hundred French soldiers defeated the Wadai and occupied Adécha the following year. Adam Asil was installed as the puppet ruler, but Dūdj Murā and the Sanusi Order just retreated north and launched a guerrilla war. Meanwhile, Ali Dinar of Darfur saw the French expansion as a threat, and he too backed Dūdj Murā. The first couple of French attempts to wipe out the insurgents ended in disaster until in 1911, Victor Emmanuel Lagu, and French control was cemented. But they didn't really trust their puppet ruler, so they removed him and took control of what was now an impoverished region. The insurgency, as well as new diseases, wiped out much of the population and forced many more to flee, especially after some massacres. Many leaders and intellectuals went to seek refuge in Egypt or Darfur. So by the outbreak of World War I, the population had been reduced to 400,000 from 700,000 just a couple of years before.

As for Ali Dinar, he would continue to pay his tribute to the British, but during World War I, they suspected that he was aligning with the Ottomans, so launched a campaign against him. 2,000 men were sent from British Egypt in 1916, and Darfur was brought fully into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Then, post-decolonization, it remained under Sudanese rule and suffered a great deal in what many have called a genocide, but at the very least, ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Arab government.

So after this war, along with many British and French agreements, the whole of the Sahara had been divided. The French desire to connect their colonies across the Sahara was made official, but in practice, it was really limited. Like in the south of Sahara, they still needed to launch pacification campaigns. Then, in the build-up to World War I, there were two final pushes for colonies which played a major role in the outbreak of the war. First came the Second Moroccan Crisis, otherwise known as the Agadir Crisis. Inside Morocco, a rebellion broke out. The Spanish moved troops in, and so too did the French. The Germans, once again hoping to divide the Entente and pursue colonial ambitions, sent battleships to Morocco. War seemed likely, as the British also sent ships into the region to protect the French. Despite their initial doubts, the two sides came to an agreement. However, in return for France turning Morocco into a protectorate, the Germans were given New Cameroon. This wasn't a particularly prosperous region, as sleeping sickness was prevalent and there was little infrastructure, but this was seen as a success, as out of nowhere, German Cameroon was expanded, and they were given access to the Congo River. But ultimately, it made the British and French closer and more suspicious of German ambitions.

But the French didn't take over all of Morocco. As per the old agreement, the north was given to Spain. Officially, meanwhile, the Italians were watching on. They were part of the Triple Alliance with Germany, and the Germans had close ties with the Ottomans, but Italy had been promised a free hand in Ottoman-controlled Libya. So in 1911, they made secret deals with Britain and France and made their move. But the Italians had always been quite slow at colonizing. They first sent over migrants and then set up institutions like banks, believing this would give them a better claim. However, as they tried to start this in Tunisia, the French just moved in and took it forcibly. So Libya was really their second choice, and their whole ambitions in North Africa were championed by nationalists who had long pursued the idea of "Mare Nostrum," essentially turning the Mediterranean Sea into an Italian lake. And Libya would, of course, be essential to this. Fortunately for them, the Ottoman Empire wasn't severe to climb by this point and suffered from revolts almost everywhere. Plus, Libya was separated from the rest of the empire, so the stronger Italian navy could hold back the Ottomans from sending in reinforcements. So they struck on claims that the Turks were funding extremists and they quickly occupied port cities. They used the latest technology like armored cars and planes and declared their control over the region. In fact, the first ever aerial bombardment was conducted during this war.

Inspired by the Italian victories, the Balkan states united to form the Balkan League, prompting the Ottomans to sue for peace. Italy therefore took Libya just before the Balkan War started. However, the borders of Libya were far smaller than what they are today, and it wouldn't be until Mussolini took power that the French and British agreed to Libyan expansion. Otherwise, the Sanusi Order launched a campaign against the Italian occupation, and during World War I, they actually managed to declare independence. But there were reports of crucifixions of Italians, and this obviously angered many Italians. So Mussolini used mustard gas and concentration camps to reassert Italian control. Yet, the Sanusi's fight against the Italians was just one of many continuous wars against occupation.

Over in Somalia, the Dervish movement fought against the Italians, British, and even Ethiopians from 1899 all the way up to 1920, when they were finally defeated by British aerial bombardments. And these weren't the only ones who rebelled during the First World War. In fact, there were a couple of rebellions just beforehand, like the Giriama people of Kenya, who rose up against the British after they tried to force them to work in certain fields. Then in 1914, some Boers tried to secure their independence. They were led by a man named Maritz and they received some support from neighboring German Southwest Africa, but Jan Smuts and the South Africans mobilized their men and crushed the rebels before moving into Namibia on behalf of the British in 1915.

Despite fighting the Germans in Cameroon, the British deposed the Emir of Busa in Nigeria. This prompted a rebellion which was initially successful, but the British soon brought in reinforcements to crush it. In Malawi, there was a growing middle class who obviously despised the forced labor and racial policies in the country. So they united behind an American Baptist minister, John Chilembwe, and rebelled, but the white settlers and the King's African Rifles quickly mobilized and prevented them from entering Blantyre. Many were executed afterwards, and Chilembwe was shot trying to escape to Mozambique.

The French, on the other hand, faced up to 20,000 rebels during the Volta-Bani Wall. This spread all over West Africa and across all sorts of ethnicities, all angry with conscription. They were all hoping to end French rule. While they were busy elsewhere during this period of weakness, it took the French nearly two years to crush the rebels. And to prevent anything like this happening again, they created a new colony which today is known as Burkina Faso. This they believed would stop the Mossi people from connecting with potential allies in Mali and the likes. But the next year, the Tuareg got support from the Sanusi Order and rose up in Niger, beginning the Korchen Revolt. This again would take the French a while to suppress, but they managed it in 1917.

In Portuguese Mozambique, the Bahrui Uprising began as a result of the harsh treatment from the Portuguese colonizers. This again included forced labor, random killings, and rape. But in crushing the rebels, the Portuguese stepped it up a gear, as they torched villages and enslaved many of the survivors, in particular the women. Then, towards the end of the war, Nigerians rose up again against British taxes as part of the Adōbi War, but 600 people were killed, and they once again failed.

Some rebellions came closer to success, like the Riffian rebellion in French Morocco. They received considerable support from the Germans and actually won some major battles, like at L'Harrid. They continued to fight against a weakened French army throughout the entire war, and it would only be in 1921 that the French, through numerous pacification campaigns, were able to reassert their control over the Moroccan hinterland.

But the end of World War I brought great changes in the map. For starters, the Germans lost all of their colonies to the British and French. But the Italians felt slighted by this. They had, after all, entered the war on promises of land, but they got nothing. So to appease them, the British allowed them to expand their Libyan colonies, but they still wanted more. Yet, rebellions continued in the north. The Spanish had to deal with the Rif War, which lasted until 1926. There, they suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Annual, when around 3,000 Rifians killed over 13,000 Spaniards. This defeat was so humiliating that it led to Miguel Primo de Rivera seizing power in Spain and forming a dictatorship. He in turn would promote Franco, and ultimately, this instability would lead to the Spanish Civil War. But the dictator would use more and more cruel methods in winning the war, like the use of poison gas across the Sahara.

In Sudan, officers united to form the White Flag League, hoping to unite fully with Egypt and assert their independence. So they pledged their loyalty to King Fuad, but their leader, Abdul Fadil al-Amaz, had little support from the Egyptians, and he was bombed by the British in 1924.

For more peaceful resistance, there was the Women's War in Nigeria among the Igbo people. Igbo women actually have a long history of pushing for change through peaceful protests. For instance, there is a practice known as "sitting on a man," which was essentially public shaming. They would surround him at work, dance outside his home, and the likes, in order to push for change. Well, in 1929, they were angry with the British-appointed chiefs for limiting their role in government, so they united with other ethnicities like the Etche and Ogoni and organized sit-ins and forced the British to act. They allowed Nigerians to select their own clan leaders instead, so it was pretty successful, although far from revolutionary.

The French, however, faced a huge rebellion of up to 350,000 men across Central Africa. They had been forcing the locals once again to work on a railway line – this was the Congo-Océan Railway. To get men to work on this line, they actually employed a number of Fulani people to recruit them. However, the employees began to believe that a miniature hoe handle called a "congo wara" could turn French bullets into water, and it is this congo wara that gave the rebellion its name. Apparently, the rebels would even shout, "Fire, big gorilla, your gun will only shoot water!" So despite their numbers, tens of thousands were slaughtered, and the whole event was largely kept secret from the French public. But if this mysticism wasn't so pervasive, this really could have challenged French rule.

Yet, probably one of the most successful interwar movements came in Egypt, which the British finally officially occupied when hostilities with the Ottomans broke out. But in 1919, this prompted a revolution led by the Wafd Party. Thousands took to the streets, and hundreds initially were killed, but the British government relented a couple of years later and granted Egypt their independence, albeit nominally, as they still maintained troops in the region. They kept the Suez Canal, and Sudan was still to remain under British rule. So the fight against the colonizers never really ended, although in the interwar period, they had died down a bit.

White settlers in certain areas like Kenya began to increase, while pacification campaigns were aided with tanks and planes. So like the bombing of the Dervish rebels in 1920 ended up risings in Somalia. Elsewhere, more rights were given to local people, like in Tanzania, a previous hotspot for rebellion. Now it was a British acquisition, they decided to rule through the local chiefs. Meanwhile, in Uganda, in 1927, the British helped to break up the lands of some of the chiefs who held too much of it or charged too much for rent. So the people began to form their own smallholds and grow crops like cotton and coffee to export.

While in Senegal, the French gave the Africans the vote, and they sent their own deputies to sit in the National Assembly. Or over in Cameroon, which was taken from Germany, a British report said that "through the Germans, the natives have been taught discipline and have come to realize what can be achieved by industry. Large numbers who return to their villages take up cocoa or other cultivation on their own account, thus increasing general prosperity of the country." A similar thing was happening in Ghana. Since the introduction of the cocoa crop, living standards dramatically improved, and a whole new local middle class of sorts began to develop.

However, as more and more people were going to schools in Europe or at home, many began to develop new ideas, like Isaac Wallace-Johnson in Sierra Leone. He became a sailor, traveled the world, and brought back ideas of communism to West Africa, even forming the first trade union in Nigeria in 1930. He would later go to Moscow and attend an international conference for black workers in Hamburg, Germany. But in general, this sort of pact between colonized and colonizer was sort of true in other countries like Botswana. But in turn, this presented its own problems. Power was often given to one group over another, like in British Nigeria, they favored the southern Igbo over the Emeas and Muslims in the north. The British would even encourage southerners to move north and bring business and enterprise there. Then in Central Africa, the different treatments of the Hutus and Tutsis would cause problems for decades more.

However, in other cases, the situation remained calm for other reasons, like the Afrikaners, or the Boers, began to take more power in Rhodesia and South Africa, and their racial laws made fostering a rebellion very difficult. Plus, the South Africans also took Namibia, and the last king of Ovamboland was killed by the South Africans when he refused to accept their newfound authority. So resistance in Southwest Africa had no real leadership. Again, the situation changed dramatically from country to country.

As for the two free states, Liberia and Ethiopia, while they tragically continued to trade in slaves, in Liberia, the American Liberians had stayed in power, often through shockingly rigged elections, like the election of 1927, which saw 15 times the registered voters vote for Charles D.B. King, and he was accused by the League of Nations for still using slaves to help modernize his country. Then in Ethiopia, there would be Emperor Li Yasu. He actually conducted slave raids, and the Italians would use this as justification to move into the country in the 1930s.

And this brings me to the last-ditch attempt to colonize an African country: the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The British and French were happy for Mussolini to take it, as they were more concerned about Germany. So the Italians moved in, and after one year of fighting, Ethiopia was brought into Italian East Africa. Hundreds of thousands were killed during the Italian occupation, which only lasted for a few years, as during World War II, Ethiopia would become free once more. Their Emperor, Haile Selassie, became a bit of an icon for black people in the Americas as a symbol of a pan-African dream.

So for a short while, just after 1937, the entire continent was colonized, that is, if we include the Americo-Liberians as colonizers, which I'm sort of inclined to do. But really, the colonization effort only really ended just before World War I, and the continent began achieving their independence after World War II. Of course, great horrors were committed by many, especially in areas controlled by the Belgians, Germans, and Portuguese, but how much the Europeans impacted society, of course, changed from country to country, and many Africans are still living with the consequences today.