OufO 3 1924 074 488 234 All books are subject to recall after two weeks Olin/Kroch Library DATE DUE -mr -^ l99T 'li^^is Wtt&-F£SeiW SPRIHG 2004 PRINTED IN U.S.A. The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924074488234 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 1994 (Kambtitrge i^istotical Series EDITED BY G. W. PROTHERO, LiTT.D. HONORARY FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. THE COLONIZATION OF AFRICA. aonbon: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, Ave Maria Lane. ©lasBoiu: 263, ARGYLE STREET. Ecipjis: F. A. BROCKHAUS. jjefagorl:: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. JSomlaj: E. SEYMOUR HALE. A HISTORY OF THE COLONIZATION OF AFRICA BY ALIEN RACES BY SIR HARRY H. JOHNSTON, K.C.B. (author of "BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA," ETC.). WITH EIGHT MAPS BY THE AUTHOR AND J. G. BARTHOLOMEW. CAMBRIDGE: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1899 9 [All Rights reserved-^ GENERAL TREFACE. The aim of this series is to sketch tlie history of Alodern Europe, with that of its chief colonies and conquests, from about the e7id of the fifteenth century down to the present time. In one or two cases the story will connnence at an earlier date : in the case of the colonies it will usually begin later. The histories of the differefit countries will be described, as a general rule, separately, for it is believed that, except i?i epochs like that of the French Revolution and Napoleon I, the connection of events will thus be better understood and the contitiuity of historical develop- ment more clearly displayed. The series is intended for the use of all persons anxious to understand t/ie nature of existing political conditions. " The roots of the present lie deep in the past" and the real significance of contemporary events cannot be grasped unless the historical causes which have led to them are known. The plan adopted makes it possible to treat the history of the last four centuries in considerable detail, and to embody the most important results of modern research. It is Iwped therefore tliat the series will be useful not only to beginners but to students who have already acquired some general knowledge of European History. For those who wish to carry their studies further, the bibliography appended to each volume will act as a guide to original sources of information and works more detailed and authoritative. Considerable attention will be paid to political geography, and each volume will be furnished with such maps and plans as may be requisite for tlie illustration of the text. G. W. PROTHERO. AA PREFATORY NOTE. The Editor of this Historical series asked me to compile this little work on the History of African Colonization ; other- wise it is doubtful whether I should have applied myself to a task, which, until I had commenced it, appeared to me an act of supererogation in the presence of such admirable existing works on African history as those of Mr M'Call Theal, Dr Scott-Keltie, Mr C. P. Lucas, Sir Edward Hertslet and others. But when I was made aware that no attempt had yet been made to summarise and review in a single book the general history of the attempts of Asia and Europe to colonize Africa during the historical period, I admitted that there might be room and usefulness for such a work, and have since attempted to fulfil the task to the best of my ability. Further preface would overload this unpretending compilation; but, turning away from the public, I should like to dedicate my work in personal friendliness and admiration to four men specially distinguished among many others by their services in the cause of European civilization in Africa : S^R^GeqrqeJTaub- ^I^n.^Gqjl'DIE^ \vho has_ risked life^and fortune through twenty yearsJn-founding Nigeria as a British dominion, which some day in extent, population, and wealth may rival India ; Lord Kitchener of Khartum, who for thirteen years has cherished, in the face of much discouragement, and has at last accom- plished the task of reconquering from barbarism the Egyptian vi Prefatory Note. Sudan ; Monsieur Rene Millet, French Resident General in Tunis, who has shown how well a Frenchman can admin- ister a great dependency when allowed liberty of action ; and Major Hermann vox Wissmann, German Imperial Com- missioner in Africa, who founded the State of German East Africa, and who has done more than any living German to establish and uphold the prestige of that great nation in the darkest parts of the Dark Continent. H. H. JOHNSTON. Tunis, November, 1898- CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Mediterranean, Malay, and Mohammadan Invaders. The origin of African man — Distribution of native races three thousand years ago — Bantu invasion of South Africa — The Phoenicians — Carthage — Hanno's voyage — Greeks in Cyrenaica and Egypt — Per- sians in Egypt — Rome replaces Carthage — Malay invasions of Mada- gascar — Vandals in North Africa — Byzantine Greeks — Muhammadan invasions of North Africa in the seventh century — Berber dynasties which arose therefrom — Renewed Arab invasions — The Almoravide dynasty from the Niger — succeeded by the Almohades — Counter attacks of Portugal and Spain — Moorish conquests in Nigeria — Turkish inter- vention in North Africa — Arab settlements on Zanzibar coast . i CHAPTER II. The Portuguese in Africa. Origin of the State of Portugal — Prince Henry the Navigator — Portuguese explorations of West African coast — Rounding of Cape of Good Hope — East African conquests — Portuguese in Abyssinia — in the Congo Kingdom — in Angola — Paulo Diaz — ^The benefits the Portuguese con- ferred on Africa — Their struggles with the Dutch — Progress of their rule in West Africa — in East Africa — Monomotapa — Dr Lacerda e Almeida — Livingstone's journeys — Present state of Mo9ambique — Delagoa Bay — Beira — Mouzinho de Albuquerque — Mofambique Com- pany . .......... 27 viii Contents. CHAPTER III. Spanish Africa. Spain's Xorth African establishments in the i6th century — The Moorish Pirates — Gradual loss of Spanish possessions in Algeria and Tunis — Canary Islands — Fernando Po and Corisco . . . . 6i CHAPTER IV. The Dutch in Africa. Dutch traders on the West Coast — Dutch settle at the Cape of Good Hope — St Helena — Mauritius — The Netherland East India Co. — Huguenot colonists — Governor Tulbagh — extensions of Dutch influence — First hostile British expedition under Commodore Johnstone — First Dutch war \\"ith the Kaihrs — First British occupation of the Cape of Good Hope — Interregnum of Dutch rule — British finally annex Cape Colony — Their rulers come into conflict with the sentiments of the Dutch colonists (Boers) — The Boer Treks — Origin of Transvaal and Orange Free State republics — Annexation and revolt of Transvaal — Sir Charles Warren's expedition — ^Johannesburg, the Outlanders, and Jameson's raid — Possible future of Dutch states . . . (16 CHAPTER V. The Slave Trade. Negro predisposition for slavery — Slave trade in the Roman world, in Muhammadan countries and India — Great development consequent on the exploitation of America — English slave traders — English Anti- Slavery movement — Author's own experiences of slave trade — Steps taken by various European countries to abolish Slave Trade — By Great Britain in particular — Rev. S. W. Koelle — Zanzibar slave trade — Ethics of slavery — A word of warning to tie Negro . . 91 CHAPTER VI. The British in Africa., I. (West Coast, Morocco, North-Central.) The English in West Africa — The Gambia — Sierra Leone — Gold Coast — Lagos — Niger Delta— Mr E. H. Hewett — Nigeria — Sir G. Taubman Goldie — Great Britain and Tripoli — and Morocco . . . 103 Contents. ix CHAPTER VII. The French in West and North Africa. The Dieppe adventurers — ^Jarmequin de Rochefort and the Senegal — Briie and the foundation of the colony of Senegal — Campagnon — Progress of French rule over Senegambia — Advance to the Niger — Samori and Ahmadu — Timbuktu — Binger and the Ivory Coast — Samori — Tim- buktu definitely occupied — Busa and the Anglo-French Convention — France and Egypt — Algiers — Development of Algeria — Tunis — The Sahara — The Gaboon — French Congo — The Shari and Ubangi — French designs on Nileland — The convention with Abyssinia — Obok and Somaliland ......... 122 CHAPTER VIII. Christian Missions. Their work the antithesis to the slave trade — Portuguese missions to Congoland, to the Zambezi, to Abyssinia — First Protestant missions — — Church Missionary Society — Dr Krapf — Wesleyans, Methodists, Society for Propagation of the Gospel — Roman Catholic missions to Algeria, Congoland, the Nile — Cardinal Lavigerie — The ' White Fathers ' — The Jesuits on the Zambezi — in Madagascar — The London Missionary Society — Swiss and German Protestant Missions — French Evangelical Missions — Presbyterian (Scotch) Missions — Nonvegian and American Missions — Linguistic work of latter — Universities' Mission — Plymouth Brethren — Baptists — North African Mission — Zambezi Industrial Mission — Abyssinian Christianity . . 146 CHAPTER IX. The British in" Africa, II. {South and South-Central.) Great Britain's seizure of the Cape of Good Hope — Permanent establish- ment there — Abolition of slaver)' — Dutch grievances — Kaffir Wars — Lord Glenelg and intervention of Downing Street — Boer Treks — Responsible government in Cape Colony — Kaffir delusions as to expected resurrection of their forefathers and expulsion of English — St Helena, Ascension and Tristan d'Acunha — Discovery of dia- monds in Grikwaland — History of Natal — Coolie labour and Indian Contents. immigration — Delagoa Bay arbitration — Damaraland — Origin of German entrance into South African sphere — Walfish Bay — Bechuana- land — Zambezia — Nyasaland — British Central Africa — African Trans- continental Telegraph — South African federation — The Transvaal — Sir Bartle Frere — Zululand and the Zulu War — Boer revolt — Rhodes and Rhodesia — Matabele Wars and Dr Jameson — Mauritius . i6o CHAPTER X. Great Explorers. Old-time travellers — Herodotus — Strabo — Pliny — Ptolemy — The Arab geographers — The Portuguese explorers — Andrew Battel — British on the Gambia — French on the Senegal — James Bruce and the Blue Nile — Timbuktu — Mungo Park and the Niger — South African explorations — Portugal and Dr Lacerda — Captain Owen — Tuckey and the Congo — Major Laing — Rene Caille — British Government expeditions in Tripoli, — Bomu, Lake Chad, and Sokoto — Lander and the Niger mouth — Earth and the Western Sudan — the Jewish explorer Mor- dokhai — Krapf, Rebmann, and the Snow Mountains — Livingstone — Burton and Speke, Speke and Grant — Samuel Baker — Livingstone and Kirk — French explorers in North- West Africa — Livingstone and Central Africa — Cameron — Rohlfs — Nachtigal — Alexandrine Tinne — Paul du Chaillu — Winwood Reade — Stanley and the Congo — Por- tuguese explorers — Schweinfiirth and the Welle — Nile explorers — Nyasaland explorations — Dr Felkin — Joseph Thomson — George Gren- fell — Emin Pasha — Recent explorers and explorations . . 190 CHAPTER XL Belgian Africa. Comite d'Etudes du Haut Congo — Mr H. M. Stanley founds the Congo Free State — its subsequent history — Long struggle with the Arabs — Lieut. Dhanis — Rumoured atrocities — Katanga — Extension to the ^Vh^te Nile — Murder of Mr Stokes — Railway to Stanley Pool — Future of Congo Free State 225 Contents. xi CHAPTER XII. The British in Africa, III. {Egypt and Eastern Africa^ England wrests Egypt from the French — Rise of Muhammad AU — Suez Canal — Arabi's rebellion — Tel-el-Kebir — Mahdi's revolt — Gordon's death — Lord Cromer — Lord Kitchener and the reconquest of the Sudan — Fashoda — Aden and Somaliland — Zanzibar — Sir John Kirk — Kilimanjaro — British East African Company — Colonel Lugard/and Uganda — Sir Gerald Portal — "Roddy Owen" — Zanzibar administra- tion — Dissolution of British East Africa Company . . . 231 CHAPTER XIII. The Italians in Africa. Italian commercial intercourse with North Africa during Crusades and Renaissance — Italy in Tunis and Tripoli — Assab Bay — Abyssinia — Eritrea — Italian reverse at Adua — Italy in Somaliland . . 243 CHAPTER XIV. German Africa. The Brandenburg traders and the West Coast — German aspirations after colonies in the " 40's " and " 6o's " — German missionaries in South- West Africa — Herr Liideritz — Angra Pequena — British indecision — German South- West Africa Protectorate founded — Germany in the Cameroons — in East Africa — Anglo-German partition of the Sultan of Zanzibar's dominions — prospects of German rule in Africa — German South- West Africa — Togoland 249 CHAPTER XV. The French in Madagascar. First rumours of the existence of Madagascar — Confusion with Zanzibar and the Comoro Islands — Portuguese discovery — French Company of the East founded to colonize the Island — Fort Dauphin — Pronis, the immoral governor — Vacher de Rochelle, King-Consort of a Malagasy Queen — French East India Company founded. lie de Bourbon colonized — The Madagascar Pirates — French found settlement of St Marie de Madagascar — Send scientific expeditions to Madagascar xii Contents. which first make known its peculiar fauna — Benyowski, the Polish adventurer — The Malagasy — The Hovas — English capture Mauritius and Bourbon and turn the French out of Madagascar— French regain Bourbon and re-occupy St Marie de Madagascar — First missionaries of the London Missionary Society arrive in Madagascar (1818) — Rise of Radama and the Hova power — French repulse in 1829 — The ship- wrecked sailor, Laborde — Queen Ranavalona and persecutions of the Christians— The Sakalavas — Prince Rakoto and Lambert's frustrated coup d'etat — Accession of Rakoto (Radama II) — Deposition and death — French concession repudiated and indemnity paid — The Laborde succession — Quarrel with France in 1883 — The Shaw in- cident — General Willoughby — England recognizes French protectorate over Madagascar — final invasion, conquest and annexation of the Island by the French ........ 26 1 CHAPTER XVI. Conclusion. Three classes into which Africa falls from colonization standpoint — Healthy Africa — Yellow Africa — Black Africa — Prognostications as to future race movements — Predominant European races in the future — The seven great languages of New Africa — Paganism will disappear — Muhammadan zeal will eventually decay — The Negro will become identified in national interests with his diverse European rulers, and will not unite to form a universal Negi'o nation wnth the cry of 'Africa for the Africans ' ......... 277 Supplementary Notes ......... 28^ Appendix I. Notable events and dates in the history of African coloni- zation ........ ... 280 Appendix II. Bibliography ....... 300 Index 303 LIST OF MAPS. Map of Africa as known to the Ancients native races and lines of Bantu invasion Muhanimadan Africa . The Portuguese in Africa The Slave Trade The French in Africa The British in Africa The Colonizability of Africa Political Map of Africa in i showing distribution of To face p. 4. To face p. 26. To fcue p. 60. To face p. 9/. To face p. 145. To fcue p. 231. To face p. 275. At end. Note. The spelling of African names adopted throughout this book is the system sanctioned by the Royal Geographical Society, by which all consonants are pronounced as in English and all vowels as in Italian. N, n represents the nasal sound of 'ng' in ^nngmg,^ 'song,' as distin- guished from the ' ng ' in ' anger. ' No consonants are doubled unless pronounced t%vice in succession : thus ' Massowah ' is properly written Masawa. But where old established custom has sanctioned a spelling diverging from these rules the official spelling of the name is adopted. Thus : Mo9ambique instead of Msambiki ; Quelimane instead of Keliman ; Uganda instead of the more correct Buganda ; Bonny instead of Obani. CHAPTER I. MEDITERRANEAN, MALAY, AND MUHAMilADAN INVADERS. The theme of this book obviously deals rather with the invasion and settlement of Africa by foreign nations than with the movements of people indigenous in their present types to the African continent ; but, nevertheless, it may be well to precede this sketch of the history of African colonization by a few remarks explaining the condition and inhabitants of the continent — so far as we can deduce them from indirect evidence — before it was subjected to historic invasions of alien peoples. In all probability man first entered Africa from Asia, in which continent he almost certainly originated. He followed in the footsteps of those large mammals which now form the most striking features in the African fauna, but which were unknown in that continent before the end of the Tertiary epoch. Later on, and still in prehistoric times, there were no doubt migrations of European man from the northern side of the Mediterranean, just as probably counter race movements occurred from the north of Africa into southern Europe. But it seems much more likely that the bulk of African humanity in its original types passed from India into Arabia, and thence into north-eastern Africa'. ^ Geologists seem still to be divided in opinion as to the existence in Tertiary times of a land surface connecting southern Africa mth southern J. A. I 2 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap. Early African man was of a very low negroid type, like the Bushmen and Hottentots, and was also akin to the negroid peoples still existing in southern Asia and Oceania. From this stock — either in its first place of expansion, Arabia, or in north- east Africa — diverged the black Negro' and the yellow Hamite, and from this latter, the white Semite; it is probable, how- ever, that the divergence of the Hamites and Semites from the primitive Negro stock took place in Arabia rather than in Africa, though from historical results it is better to assume that the Hamite is an African type and the Semite an Asiatic. One branch of the Hamites invading Europe from north-west Africa possibly created that dark-haired Iberian race which has so permeated southern and western Europe. Another Hamite development in the valley of the Nile resulted in that great Egyptian people with whom the dawn of written history commences, and who threw for a time an effulgent light on north-east Africa. But the ancient Egyptians, being regarded b)' most authorities as essentially an African people, cannot come within the scope of this book as colonists, though their wonderful civilization did much to attract Asiatic and European races to the invasion of Africa. About 3000 years ago — a minute in the duration of the human genus — the distribution of African races was probably as follows : — Egypt, Abyssinia, Somaliland, the northern part of the Sahara Desert, and all North Africa, were peopled by Asia. It is therefore much more easy to assume that the shallow Red Sea was at one time reduced to a series of salt lakes, and that the land between them was the route early man followed. Had Lemuria existed in later Tertiary times why does not its relic, Madagascar, retain descend- ants of the large African mammals which would have made their way across this route from India to Africa? 1 Not perhaps black originally but a dirty yellow-brown, like the Bushmen and Hottentots and new-born negro infants; the distinction of hair is perhaps the best definition of these allied races — the woolly-haired negro, the curly-haired Hamite, and the straight-haired Semite. t-] Meditei'ranean mid MiJiammadan. 3 Hamite races, who varied in complexion from dark brown to yellow white. To the south and east were mixed peoples, like the Nubians, Tibbus, Fulas, Mandingoes, who either represent superior ofishoots from the negroid stock (though inferior in upward development to the Hamite), or the result of inter- breeding between the Hamites and their divergent relations the true Negroes. The latter — the black, woolly-haired Negroes — stretched right across the continent in a great belt from Abyssinia to the Atlantic Ocean, but were arrested in their progress southwards by the Congo forests and some other obstacles unknown to us, which, until relatively recent times, prevented their occupying the southern half of Africa. Through these equatorial forests, and beyond them to the southernmost extremity of Africa, ranged a dwarfish people of pigmy Bushman type, to some extent degenerate, but on the whole representing the~~(!ajliest form of the Negro species which invaded Africa, a type that perhaps had overrun all Africa and had penetrated thence into Mediterranean Europe, but which had at the period I am reviewing been in a great measure extirpated from all Africa north of the Congo basin. Possibly in the east and west coast regions black Negroes had penetrated to some degrees south of the equator, though no further than the latitude of Zanzibar. There were no foreign settlers then in Africa, unless a few wandering Semites had settled in Egypt or in the highlands of Abyssinia, and except for prehistoric invasions of Mauritania by European savages. A little later on occurred the great movement of the Bantu Negroes. The actual centre of Africa had by this time (say under 3000 years ago) become extremely populous. Want of space, and possibly the invasion of stronger races from the north or north-east, forced the Negro tribes speaking the Bantu mother language — a speech distantly related to many language groups in the lower Niger basin and on the west coast of Africa, and still more distantly to other linguistic families in north central Africa — to invade e7i masse the southern portion of the 4 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap. continent till then inhabited only by Bushmen, Hottentots', and such-like dwarfish tribes. Skirting the dense Congo forests, they took the line of least resistance down the eastern side of the continent, along the great lakes, the line by which their main body proceeded due south, while section after section curled back west^vard into the Congo basin, and eastward on to the Zanzibar and Mogambique coasts. Soon these black Bantu Negroes were the masters of southern Africa, and feeble remnants of the aboriginal dwarf races lingered only in the Congo forests and in the south-west corner of the continent. Some evidence is adduced to show that Madagascar was first inhabited by a dwarfish race of Bushmen stock known as the Kimo. If this is the case, and the evidence offered is very slight, these first inhabitants of Madagascar must have been sufficiently civilized to have been able to travel in canoes from the east coast of Africa by way of the Comoro islands to Madagascar. However that may be, it is much more certain that a section of the Bantu Negroes did invade Madagascar from the east coast of Africa at a period antecedent to the arrival of the Malay races. These were known as the Ba-Zimba or Va-Zimba. They were subsequently absorbed by the later invaders of Malay stock, so that along the west and south coasts of Madagascar the people are very negroid in appearance. Almost coincident with the Bantu race movement occurred the first conscient Semitic attempts at colonizing Africa. The enterprising Phoenicians founded Carthage and established trading stations along the north and north-west coasts of Africa. Nearly at the same time came Arabs from the west coast of Arabia voyaging down the east coast of Africa till they ulti- mately settled in the Sofala^ district south of the Zambezi, and ' The Hottentots are thought by some to represent a cross between the black Negroes and the Bushmen : but it is more likely from linguistic and other reasons that they are an independent offshoot of the original Negroid stock related to the Bushman. 2 In Arabic: Asj "Zufar." AFRICA AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS BEFORE THE MUHAMMADAN INVASION HaXe I 10 10 -V 40 so j /ATZ4 N TI
^^ 5"^ .,'
Ofottai.
\^ mil ot urt
^^^ EXPLANATORY NOTE B.ixdia™cv..Edm'-
B S B BBi Probable site, of Bantu tnother country
SArea. of distribution of Black Negroes 2000 years ag-o
,, ,, Pyknics, Bushmen, and Hottentots
I j ,, ,, Hatnit&s and Seviites
[^_ "_j ,, „ Ma-lay races
'tis nta.p sitows also ttie firoba^le distribution of races about the conunencement of the Christian Era and
the lines of Ba.?iiu in-vasion. Th£ £lue. lines give tlie directions of tiie principal Bantu invasions
The mingling of race tints indicates inixitire of races
A Red line indicates the limits of more or less certainly known country ; a red dotted line gives the
limits of vaguely known regions. Red shading indicates the approximate area of country well
kncwn to Europe or civilised Asia.
I.] Mediterranean and MuJianiinadan. 5
penetrating inland, commenced to work the gold-mines of
modern Rhodesia, leaving there as witnesses of their presence
the stone forts and buildings which we have recently re-
discovered'. A Semitic people also about the same time
began to settle in Abyssinia^, where it has remained the
dominant race ever since. Other Phoenicians, besides those
who founded Carthage, explored the coasts of Africa, especially
the east coast, where they founded stations as far south as
Mogambique, possibly. They may have even reached the
gold-bearing districts of the Zambezi, and one expedition under
Phoenician navigators employed by the Egyptian king, Necho,
is said to have circumnavigated Africa from the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean (about 600 B.C.).
On the whole, the most fruitful of the pre-Roman invasions
of Africa (as it was almost the earliest) was the foundation of
Utica (about iioo B.C.) and Carthage (about 280 years later).
The Phoenicians (whose descendants have become known as
the Carthaginians, though to the Romans they were always the
Poeni or Puni) in the main founded trading stations rather
than colonies ; but the cities of Utica, Carthage, Hippo^ and
the other Carthaginian ports on the north-east coast of Tunis,
naturally under a centralized government to some extent main-
tained during centuries a domination over the Berber tribes of
what is now Tunisia. There are traces of a Carthaginian
causeway running up the valley of the Majerda and south-east
towards the country of the dates and the hot springs. When
Carthage was most ^vigorous, no doubt the Berber tribes within
100 miles of her strongest settlements gave her their allegiance
in a varying degree ; but at the least weakening of her power
' From the graven representations of the natives left by these early
Arab-Sabaean settlers we know that they belonged then exclusively to the
Hottentot-Bushman type.
^ Semitic invasions of Egypt probably preceded all the events I here
enumerate.
^ In this case, the Hippo Diarrhytus of the Greeks and Romans, and
the Benzert of modem Tunis. [Low Latin, Hippone-Zaryt]
6 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
they were ready to revolt and take part with her enemies. The
troops she employed were alien to her race and mercenaries.
A large proportion of them were recruited in Barbary. They
frequently mutinied and turned against their Syrian employers.
Yet occasionally Carthage produced a man like Hannibal who
could win the confidence of these Berber soldiers and lead
them to fight the battles of Carthage in Spain, Sicily, and
Italy. In the outlying districts of north Africa, however,
especially in Morocco, tradition states that the Berbers occa-
sionally rose en masse and destroyed the Carthaginian settle-
ments. These trading stations were dotted over the north
coast of Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar, and down the Atlantic
coast of Morocco to a point almost within sight of the Canary
Islands. There has been transmitted to us through the diligence
of ancient Greek geographers the Greek version of what is
supposed to be the original description in Punic of the voyage
of Hanno the Carthaginian. This Punic explorer started from
Carthage some time in the sixth century before Christ (perhaps
about 520 B.C.) with a fleet of 60 ships, and a multitude of men
and women (said to have been 30,000 in number"), on a voyage
of discovery mainly, but also for the purpose of replenishing with
settlers the Carthaginian stations along the coast of Morocco.
In the account given of the journey it is stated that after passing
the Straits of Hercules, and stopping at the site of the modern
Sebu, they rounded Cape Cantin and came to a marsh in which
a large number of elephants were disporting themselves'.
They then continued their journey along the coast till they
came to the river Lixus, which has been identified with the
1 This is an interesting obsen-ation. Not only does the statement
repeatedly occur in the writings of ancient Greek and Roman geographers
that the African elephant was found wild in Mauritania in these times, but
this animal is pictured in the remarkable rock sculptures in the Sus country
in the extreme south of Morocco, and in the Roman mosaics and frescoes
found in the interior of Tunis, and now to be seen at the Bardo Museum
near Tunis. (See for this the travels of the Moroccan Jewish Rabbi,
Mordokhai.)
!•] Mediterranean and MiiJiammadan. 7
river Draa. From here they coasted the desert till the)^
reached the Rio d'Ouro, and on an islet at the head of this
inlet they founded the commercial station of Kerne. From
Kerne they made an expedition as far south as a river which
has been identified as the river Senegal (having first visited
the Lagoon of Teniahir). Again setting out from Kerne, they
passed Cape Verde, the river Gambia, and the Sierra Leone
coast as far as the Sherboro inlet, which was the limit of their
voyage of discovery. Here they encountered " wild men and
women covered with hair " — probably the chimpanzees, which
are found there to this day, and not the gorilla, which is an
ape (so far as we know) peculiar to the Gaboon. As Hanno's
interpreter called these creatures " gorilla " that name was long
afterwards — I think wrongly — applied to the huge anthropoid
ape of the Gaboon. When this expedition visited the vicinity
of the Senegal river they were attacked by the natives, who
were described as " wild men wearing the skins of beasts and
defending themselves with stones." So far as we know, this
was the first sight that civilized man had of his wild brother
since the two had parted company in Neolithic times, except
for glimpses of the Troglodytes, whom the Carthaginians appear
to have met with in the valley of the river Draa'.
At Kerne and other trading stations on the coast to the
south of Morocco, the Carthaginians did no doubt a little trade
with the Berber natives in the produce of the Sudan, south of
the Sahara, but after a time the weakening of the power of
Carthage and the attacks of the natives must have destroyed
most of these West African settlements ; for the Romans in
replacing the Carthaginians do not seem to have gone further
south than the river Draa.
1 It does not follow, however, that these Troglodytes were dwarfs or
Negroes, or greatly different in race from the Berbers. They may have been
akin to the Troglodytes I have recently seen in the Tunisian Sahara, a
Berber people living in caves, which are either natural hollows in the lime-
stone rock or have been deliberately excavated.
8 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
The Carthaginians do not seem to have tamed the indi-
genous African elephant (which was certainly still found in
Mauritania), but they introduced and used the Indian elephant.
They also seem to have imported from Asia the peacock, still
verv common as a domestic bird in Tunisia. Compared with
the Romans, however, they did little to open up the country,
and their trade was restricted by jealous monopolies ; but their
religion — the worship of Baal and other Syrian deities — spread
to some extent among the Berbers, and the peculiar Semitic
influence emanating from Carthaginian rule seems to have
paved the way for the Judaizing of certain Berber tribes before
and after the Roman Empire, and for the Muhammadanizing
of the same at a still later date before the Jewish influence had
quite died away. Amid all their wrangles, Berber and Semite
throughout all the recorded history of North Africa seem to
have unconsciously recognized that by descent and language
they were more akin than either was with the Aryan peoples.
The earliest historical connection between Europe and
Africa was brought about by the Greeks, commencing some
600 years before Christ^, who settled in the country of Csrene,
the modem province of Barca. After the successful repulse of
the Persians there was a great expansion of Greece. Prior to
the historical establishment of settlements in the Ionian
Islands, in Sicily, at Marseilles and on the east coast of Spain,
Greek seamen had no doubt ranged the coasts of the Mediter-
ranean, and from their adventures were evolved the fascinating
stories of the Argonauts and Ulysses. Prehistoric settlements
of Greeks on the coast of Tunis are argued by modem
French ethnologists to have taken place, on the strength of the
well-marked Greek type to be found amongst the present
population, for instance, in the Cape Bon peninsula ; but these
Greek types may be more probably descended from the Byzan-
tine occupation of the country in the Christian era. The
^ The computation given by Eusebius would, according to the late Sir
E. H. Bunbury, place the founding of the colony in B.C. 631.
I-] Mediterranean and Mnha^nniadan. g
Island of Lotos Eaters, however, of Greek mythology, would
seem with likelihood to take its origin in the island of Jerba,
where the date palm is indigenous'. But about B.C. 631 an
expedition of Dorians from the island of Thera'' founded
Cyrene on the north coast of Africa, where that continent
approaches closest to the Greek Archipelago. Around Cyrene
were grouped four other cities — Barke, Teucheira, Euesperides,
and Apollonia. This Greek colony continued to exist with
varying fortunes — threatened at times with dissolution through
the civil wars of the colonists and the intermittent attacks of
the Berbers — till it came under the control of Rome 100 years
before Christ. It was occasionally dominated by the Greek
dynasty of the Ptolemies in Egypt. Its civilization was finally
extinguished by the disastrous Arab invasion in the seventh
century of the present era. But it had existed under various
lords for 1300 years, and it is curious that during this long
period its Greek settlers should have made no attempts to
open up communication with inner Africa. The fact is that
the Cyrenaica is separated from the Sudan by a more complete
and absolute stretch of desert than intervenes between Tripoli,
Tunis, or Morocco and the regions of the Niger and Lake
Chad.
In the adjoining country of Egypt the Greeks began to
appear as merchants and travellers in the seventh century B.C.
A Pharaoh named Psammetik had employed Greek mercenaries
to assist him in establishing his claims to the throne of Egypt.
He rewarded their services by allowing their countrymen to
trade with the ports of the Nile delta. The city of Naucratis
was founded not far from the modern Rosetta, and became
almost a Greek colony. Nearly 200 years later Herodotus, a
native of Halicarnassus (a Greek settlement in Asia Minor),
1 The date was almost certainly the lotos of the ancients. It is much
more likely to have made a profound impression on them by its honey-
sweet pulp than the insipid berries of the Zizyphus.
^ The modern Santorin or Thira, the most southern of the Cyclades.
lO Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
visited Egypt and Cyrene. It is probable that he ascended the
Nile as far as the First Cataract. He found his fellow-country-
men settled as merchants and mechanics and also as soldiers
in the delta of the Nile, and he records that the whole coast of
Cyrenaica between Dernah, near the borders of Egypt, and Ben-
ghazi (Euesperides) was wholly occupied by Greek settlements.
Through Herodotus and even earlier Greek writers, like
Hecataeus (who derived his information from the Phoenicians),
vague rumours reached the Greek world of the Niger River, of
ostriches', the dwarf races of Central Africa (then perhaps
lingering about the Sahara and the south of Morocco), and
baboons, described as "men with dogs' heads'-."
The great development of the Persian Empire under Cyrus
brought that power into eventual conflict with Egypt ; and
under Cambyses the Persians actually conquered Egypt (in
525 B.C.), besides then and subsequently dominating the
western and southern parts of Arabia, from which they oc-
casionally meddled with Ethiopia. The Persians were followed
up more than two hundred years later by their great conqueror,
Alexander of Macedonia, who added Egypt to his empire in
332, and founded in that year in the westernmost reach of the
Nile delta that great city which bears his name, and which has
been at times the capital of Egypt. Alexander's conquest was
succeeded in 323 by the rule of his general, Ptolomaeus Soter,
who founded in 308 the famous Greek Monarchy of the Ptole-
mies over Eg)-pt, which lasted till near the commencement of the
Christian era, when it was replaced by the domination of Rome.
Subsequently the sceptre passed from Rome to Byzantium,
and Egypt again became subject to Greek influence. During the
Ptolemies' rule and under the Byzantine Empire the Red Sea
and the coast of Somaliland were to some extent explored, and
it is said that the Greeks settled on the island of Socotra. From
' The 'cranes' with whom the pigmies fought.
^ Other evidence goes to show that baboons were found wild in the
southern parts of Mauritania in ancient days.
I-], Mediterranean and Muliammadan. 1 1
these Greek explorations, coupled with Phoenician traditions,
the geography of Africa was hinted at as far as the neighbour-
hood of Zanzibar, and even the Comoro Islands ; while the
great lakes forming the head waters of the Nile were first placed
on the map with some possibility of this information being
based not on mere guesswork, but on information trans-
mitted by the natives to Greek traders.
Carthage fought with Rome and drew that power to North
Africa. After destroying Carthage (in 146 B.C.), Rome settled
in her place. She first allied herself with the Numidian and
Mauritanian kings, then fought with them, and eventually
annexed their countries. The name of Rome's first African
colony, "Africa'," has since become the name of the entire
continent in the speech of civilized peoples. Soon the Roman
conquest spread westward from Carthage to the Atlantic coast
of Morocco, eastward to Cyrene and Egypt, and southward to
the very heart of the Sahara Desert in Fezzan (Phazania).
Direct Roman rule however was chiefly observable in what is
now the Regency of Tunis and in Egypt. Tunis for the
number and magnificence of its Roman remains almost sur-
passes Italy. Although the Romans were constantly warring
with the Berbers, still the settled portions of the country
colonized by European immigrants must have been remarkably
prosperous, to judge by the high degree of civilization they
attained, and the vast sums they were able to spend on public
works — expenditure often due to the munificence of private
citizens. The Roman colonization of this part of North Africa
was thus a very real one. Latin became the tongue most
commonly spoken, and the settled portions of what is now the
Regency of Tunis and eastern Algeria became more like Italy
in their buildings, mode of life, laws, manners, customs, and
religion than any portion of Algeria has yet resembled France.
^ This word after the Arab invasion of Tunis has survived in the form
of "Ifrikiah." It was almost undoubtedly a Berber word in origin, which
in Latin mouths assumed the form of " Africa."
12 77^1? Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
But the Romans in the interior districts seem to have made
the mistake which the French have subsequently repeated of
regarding North Africa with its fairly abundant native popula-
tion (vigorous, warlike, and but little inferior in mind or body
to the European invaders) as a colony rather than a protected
state. They therefore aroused almost perpetually the hostility
of the aborigines, who in their hatred of foreign rule welcomed
any invader as a means of regaining their independence.
Throughout 500 years of Roman rule there was scarcely a
period so long as seventy years which passed without a Berber
war.
We have little evidence to entitle us to believe that the
Romans became well acquainted with tropical Africa beyond
the Sahara Desert', though a certain trade must have sprung
up in the hands of Hamites, who brought the products of
tropical Africa across the desert to exchange with Romanized
traders for the manufactures of the Mediterranean world. The
Romans (in the time of Nero) pushed their explorations up the
Nile valley beyond the junction of the Bahr al Ghazal and the
White Nile, but were soon discouraged.
While these events were taking place in Northern Africa,
and perhaps even before they began, peoples of Malay or
Polynesian stock had been drifting across the Malay archipelago
to Madagascar, carried thither by prevailing currents. These
Malays — found purest in the modern Hovas — wrested Mada-
gascar from the black man, whom they absorbed or exterminated,
' The only recorded instances of an apparent crossing of the Sahara by
a Roman expedition are those cited by Marinus Tyrius (who was edited by
Ptolemy the Alexandrian). Setting out from Fezzan (which the Romans had
occupied in B.C. ig), a general named Septimus Flaccus is said to have
reached the Black Man's country across the desert in three months' march-
ing. This occurred about the beginning of the Christian era. A few
years later Julius Maternus starting from Garama (southern Fezzan) with
the king of the Garamantes reached "Agisymba" (probably Kanem or
Bomu) after four months' march and found the country swarming with
rhinoceroses (which still abound there).
I.] Mediterranean and Mnhammadan. 13
and henceforth they remained as the dominant race, to be sub-
dued latterly, though not perhaps to be extinguished, by one
of Rome's daughters.
In the fifth century of the present era came the abrupt
invasion of North Africa by the Vandals, a Gothic people
supposed to be not far off in origin from the Anglo-Saxons.
Roman hold over North Africa, though infinitely more com-
plete and extensive than that of Carthage, had never succeeded
during more than five centuries in completely subduing the
Berbers, who still formed the bulk of the indigenous popula-
tion. The independent Berbers were always ready to side
with the enemies of Rome, and their adhesion made the
Vandal conquest easy and rapid ; just as their subsequent
defection afterwards assisted the defeat of the demoralized
Vandals by the Byzantine forces, after all North Africa had
been ruled by Teutonic kings for seventy years.
The Byzantine Empire, recovering by degrees portions of
the Western Empire, reconquered the province of Africa
(modern Tunis), and to some extent dominated all the north
African coast until the Muhammadan invasion.
When the first Muhammadan invasion took place in the
seventh century the Berbers at first sided with the Arabs, and
assisted in the defeat of the Byzantine forces, through which
action they did ultimately enjoy as a race several centuries of
quasi-independence.
The effect on Africa of the development of Muhammadanism
was almost more marked in its results than in Asia. Prior to
the Muhammadan invasions nothing was known of Africa
south of the Sahara which could be described as certain
knowledge. A few vague traditions and semi-fabulous stories
of Negro Africa reached and satisfied Greek and Roman
inquirers. But north of the tenth degree of north latitude the
Arab invaders and missionaries cleared a rough path across
Africa, letting in a dubious light on its geography and
humanity.
14 TIk Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
In 640 Amr-bin-al-Asi invaded Egypt from Arabia, and
he or his lieutenants pushed thence into Tripoh, and
even into Fezzan. A Httle later (647-8), under Abdallah-
bin-Abu-Sarh and Abdallah-bin-Zubeir, the Arabs invaded
Tripoli, and fought with a Byzantine governor known
as Gregory the Patrician (who had just before rebelled from
Byzantium, and proclaimed himself Emperor of Africa, with
his seat of government in central Tunisia). The battle lasted
for days, but Gregory was overmastered by a ruse and killed.
The Arabs pursued his defeated army into the heart of Tunisia,
and even into Algeria. For a payTnent of 300 quintals of gold
they agreed to evacuate Tunisia, but they left behind an agent
or representative at Suffetula (the modem Sbeitla), which had
been Gregory's capital.
In 661 the first dissenting sect of Islam arose, the Khariji.
These schismatics preached the equality of all good Moslems —
a kind of communism. As they were much persecuted some
of the Khariji fled at this period to the coast of Tunis, and in
the island of Jerba their descendants remain to this day, while
their doctrines were adopted by the bulk of the Berber popu-
lation of that island'.
In 669 the Arab invasions of North Africa were resumed.
Oqba-bin-Nafa overran Fezzan, and was appointed by the
Omeiyad Khalif governor of "Ifrikiah" (modern Tunis). The
Byzantines were defeated in several battles, and Kairwan^ was
founded as a Muhammadan capital about 673. Oqba was
^ Jerba, usually called Meninx bv the ancients, is supposed to have
been the Island of Lotos Eaters of Greek mjthology.
^ The origin of the name Kairwan has been much disputed. When I
visited this place I was told by an Arab that the word was the Arab name
for a small bustard-like courser (a bird which the French called Poule de
Kairouan), and that seeing this bird in large numbers — where it is still to
be found — in the marshy plain on which the city was built the Arabs gave
its name to the town. Kairwan was chosen as the site for the Muhammadan
capital by the early Arab invaders because it was considered sufficiently far
from the sea-coast to be beyond the reach of attack from a Byzantine fleet.
I.] Mediterranean and Miiliammadan. 15
replaced for a time by Dinar Bu'1-Muhajr, who pushed his
conquests as far west as Tlemsan, on the borders of modern
Morocco. Oqba resumed command in 681, and advanced
with his victorious army to the shore of the Atlantic Ocean,
and received a somewhat friendly reception from Count Julian
at Ceuta^ (Septa).
But now the Berbers began to turn against the Arab
invaders, finding them worse for rapacity than Roman or
Greek. A quondam ally, the Berber prince Kuseila, united
his forces with the Greek and Roman settlers, and inflicted
such a severe defeat on Oqba near Biskra that he was enabled
afterwards to rule in peace as king over Mauritania for five
years, being accepted as ruler by the European settlers.
Kuseila however was defeated and killed by another Arab
invasion in 688, though these same invaders subsequently
retired and suffered a defeat at the hands of the Byzantines in
Barka. Queen Dihia-al-Kahina^ succeeded her relative Kuseila.
The Arab general, Hassan-bin-Numan, was successful in taking
Carthage (698), but afterwards was defeated and driven out of
Tunisia by Queen Kahina. Unfortunately this brave woman
ordered a terrible devastation of the fertile province of Africa,
so that the want of food supply might deter the Arabs from
returning ; and this action on her part was the first step in the
deterioration of this magnificent country, now known as Tunis.
She was finally defeated and slain by the Arabs under Hassan-
bin-Numan in 705. Arab conquests then once more surged
ahead under Musa-bin-Nusseir. The whole of Morocco was
conquered except Ceuta, where they were repelled by Count
Julian. To some extent also Morocco was Muhammadanized ;
and no doubt through all these invasions the Arabs experienced
1 Count Julian appears to have been a Byzantine governor on the coast
of Morocco, who after the Byzantine do^vnfall to some extent attached
himself to the Romanized Gothic kingdom of Spain.
^ This is the Arab rendering of her name. Al-Kahina means "the
wise woman" or "prophetess."
1 6 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
little difficulty in converting the Berbers to Islam, even though
they might subsequently enrage them by their depredations.
Before the arrival of the Arabs the Berbers in many districts
had strong leanings towards Judaism'. Amongst the Berber
chiefs converted to Muhammadanism by the invasion of Mo-
rocco was a man of great gallantry known as Tarik, who
became a general in the Arab army. Tarik was left in charge
of Tangiers by Musa, and entered into friendly relations with
Count Julian at Ceuta. Count Julian having quarrelled with
the last Gothic king of Spain urged Tarik to invade that country.
After a recognizance near the modern Tarifa Tarik invaded
Spain at or near Gibraltar^ with 13,000 Berbers officered by
300 Arabs, and was shortly afterwards followed by Musa with
reinforcements ; and Spain was thus conquered.
For a few years longer all North Africa remained loosely
connected with the Khalifs of Bagdad ; then Idris, a descendant
of Ali, and consequently of Muhammad, established himself in
Morocco as an independent sultan, afterwards asserting his
claim to be Khalif and Imam. At his death he was succeeded
by his son Idris II, and his blood is supposed to have filtered
down through many generations and devious ways to the
present ruling family in Morocco. During the whole of the
ninth century Tunis was ruled by an independent dynasty
known as the Aghlabite from Aghlab, a successful soldier, who
founded it. This again was succeeded by the Arab Fatimite
dynasty, derived from the Fatimite Caliphate of Egypt'. All
this time the Arab element in North Africa was extremely
slight, represented by a few thousand bold, rapacious warriors,
'■ Jewish colonies began to settle in North Africa soon after the de-
struction of Jerusalem, or even as far back as the Ptolemaic rule over
- The rocky peninsula where Tarik landed was called by the Arabs
Jibl-al-Tarik, a name which subsequently became corrupted by the
Spaniards into Gibraltar.
' This dynasty had founded Cairo (Al-Kahirah) in 969 A.D.
I.] Mediterranean and Muliammadan. 17
who had in a marvellous manner, difficult to explain, forced
their religion, and to some extent their language and rule on
several millions of Berbers, and on some hundreds of thou-
sands of Romans, Greeks, Goths, and Jews. But in the
eleventh century took place those Arab invasions of North
Africa which have been the main source of the Arab element
in the northern part of the continent, and without which
Muhammadanism might have faded away, and a series of
independent Berber states have been formed once more under
Christian rule.
About 1045 two Arab tribes, the Beni-Hilal and the Beni-
Soleim (originally from Central Arabia, and deported thence
to Upper Egypt), left the right bank of the Nile to invade
Barbary. They had made themselves troublesome in Upper
Egypt, and the weakened rulers of that country to get rid of
them had urged them to invade north-western Africa. About
two or three hundred thousand crossed the desert and reached
the frontiers of Tunis and Tripoli. They defeated the Berbers
at the battle of Haideran, and then settled in southern Tunis
and western Tripoli. Eventually some portion of them was
unseated by the Berbers and driven westward into Morocco.
They were succeeded by fresh drafts from Egypt and Arabia,
but many of these later invaders settled in Barka and eastern
Tripoli. Later on other Arab tribes left the West coast of
Arabia, and settled on the central Nile (avoiding the Abyssinian
highlands, where they were kept at bay by their Christianized
relatives of far earlier immigrations). From the upper Nile
they directed many and repeated invasions of Central and
Western Africa. To this day tribes of more or less pure Arab
descent are found in the district of Lake Chad, in Darfur,
Wadai, and in the western Sahara north of Senegambia.
About the same time began the real revival of the Roman
Empire from the onslaught of Arabia and the prior Teutonic
invasions. The cities of Italy, forming themselves into repub-
lics, were tempted by their extending commerce to interfere
J. A. 2
1 8 TIi£ Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
with North Africa. The Venetians, in spite of the hare-brained
crusades, and the damage that they did by reviving Muham-
madan fanaticism, began to open up those commercial rela-
tions with Egypt, which for four and a half centuries gave
them the monopoly of the Levant and Indian trade. The
Normans, who had conquered the Saracens of Sicily and
Malta', and had founded the Kingdom of Naples, commenced
a series of bold attacks on the coasts of Tunis and Tripoli,
which did not however lead to permanent occupation. The
Pisans and Genoese began a series of sharp reprisals against
the Moorish pirates, and so inspired some respect for Italy in
the minds of Tunisians and Algerians. Afterwards they were
enabled to open up commercial relations, especially with the
north coast of Tunis, and these, to the advantage of both Italy
and Barbary, continued, with fitful interruptions, until the
1 6th century.
In the nth century another great Berber movement took
place — the rise of the "Almoravides." The name of this sect
of Muhammadan reformers is a Spanish corruption of Al-
Murabitin, which is the plural of Marabut, and Marabut is
derived from the place-name Ribat, meaning "the people
living at Ribat," though the word has since come to mean
in North Africa and elsewhere a Muhammadan saint. The
Almoravides owed their origin to one of the first of the African
Mahdis or Messiahs, of whom the tale has subsequently been
repeated and repeated with such servile imitation of detail
that one can only imagine the mass of African Muhammadans
to have been without any philosophical reflections on history
or any sense of humour, since Mahdi after Mahdi arises as an
ascetic saint, and dies a licentious monarch, whose powei
passes into the hands of a lieutenant, who is the first in the
' Malta is said to have been colonized by the Phoenicians and to hav(
retained Phoenician words in its dialect to the present day. Then cam(
Greeks, Sicilians, Romans and Arabs — the last invaders leaving thei:
tongue in Malta to be spoken to this day.
I-] Mediterranean and Mnhammadan. 19
line of a slowly crumbling dynasty. Far away across the
Sahara Desert, and near the Niger, was a tribe of Tawareq
Berbers known as the Lamta or Lemtuna, who had been
recently converted to Muhammadanism. The chief of this
tribe, returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, met a Berber of
South Morocco known as Ibn Yasin, who on his Meccan
pilgrimage had acquired a great reputation for austere holiness.
The chief of the Lemtuna invited Ibn Yasin to his court, and
the latter, after arriving in the Niger countries, established him-
self on an island named Ribat, on the upper Niger, where he
collected adherents round him and promulgated his puritanical
reforms. Gradually Ibn Yasin's influence extended over the
whole Lamta or Lemtuna tribe, and he urged these Berbers
towards the conversion of Senegambia. It was mainly through
his influence that the Berbers were carried by their conquests
into Senegambia and Nigeria. Then he led them north-west
across the Sahara Desert and they conquered Morocco, and
from thence mvaded Muhammadan Spain. By this time Ibn
Yasin, the teacher, was dead, but the warrior chief of the Lamta
tribe — Yussuf-bin-Tashfin — had become sovereign of Morocco
and Spain, and had assumed the title of Amir-al-Mumenin'.
A hundred years afterwards another Berber Mahdi arose in the
person of Ibn Tumert, who was "run" by Abd-al-Mumin of
Tlemsan, and the programme was the same — to start with
puritanical reform, afterwards degenerating rapidly into mere
lust of conquest. This small sect known by us as the "Almo-
hades" (from Al-Muahadim or "Disciples of the Unity of
God-") attacked the decaying power of the Almoravides.
Ibn Tumert — an exact parallel of all the Mahdis — died early
in the struggle, but was succeeded by the man who "ran" him,
Abd-al-Mumin, as " Khalifa," who pursued his conquests until
he had brought under his power all North Africa and Muham-
madan Spain, and had founded the greatest Berber empire
' Prince of the Faithful.
^ From the Arabic Wahad, "The One."
20 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
that ever existed. Concurrently, however, with the sway of his
overlordship the Ziri and Hamadi dynasties of Berber sultans
continued to exist at Tunis and in eastern Algeria. After ruling
for a century the Almohade empire broke up, and was succeeded
by independent rulers in Tunis and Tripoli, in Algeria, and in
Morocco. Remarkable among these was the Hafs dynasty,
which governed Tunis and part of Tripoli for 300 years, and
proved the most beneficent of all Muharamadan rulers in
North Africa. Abu Muhammad Hafsi was a Berber governor
of Tunis under one of the last of the Almohade emperors, and
eventually became the independent sovereign of Tunisia.
The Almohade rulers towards the end of the 12th century had
transported most of the turbulent Arabs of southern and
central Tunisia to Morocco, where for the first time the Arabs
began to form an appreciable element in the population.
About this time Kurdish and Turkish mercenaries commenced
finding employment in Tunisia and in Tripoli under chiefs
who rebelled against the Almohade empire. Concurrently
with the Hafs in Tunis the descendants of Abd-al-Wadi and
Ibn Merin ruled in Morocco and in western Algeria. They
also were Arabized Berbers. In 1270 that truly good but
erratic monarch, St Louis of France, deflected a crusade in-
tended for the Levant to Tunis, as being a Muhammadan
country much nearer at hand and more accessible. He landed
at Carthage, but owing to failing health his imposing invasion
was followed by military inaction. He died at Carthage, and
a capitulation subsequently took place by which the Crusaders
retired from Tunisia. After their departure the Muhammadans
entirely destroyed all that remained of Roman Carthage^, as
the buildings had afforded to the invaders the protection of
fortresses. Up till that time a good deal of Roman civilization
had lingered in Tunisia, but now the country became more
and more Arabized. Christian bishops, however, continued
to exist, and Christians were not much persecuted till the
i6th century, when the attacks of the Spaniards, and the
!■] Mediterranean and Miiliammadan. 21
intervention of tiie Turks roused Muhammadan fanaticism to
a degree which only began to abate within the memory of the
present generation.
During this time Spain, which had been once more riveted
with Muhammadan fetters by that extraordinary incursion of
the Berbers, was rapidly returning to Christian rule, and in
the 15th century the kings of Spain and Portugal felt them-
selves sufficiently strong to carry the war into the enemy's
country. In 1415 the Portuguese army, to which was attached
Prince Henry, afterwards known as the Navigator, captured
the Moorish citadel of Ceuta on the Morocco coast, and from
this episode started the magnificent Portuguese discoveries
initiated by Prince Henry which will be described in the next
chapter. The Portuguese subsequently captured Tangier,
Tetwan, and most of the ports along the Atlantic coast of
Morocco. Spain, bursting out a little later, when she had
conquered the last Moorish kingdom on Spanish soil (Granada),
seized Melilla in 1490, and, on one pretext or another, port
after port along the coasts of Algeria and Tunis, until by 1540
she had established garrisons at Oran, Bugia, Bona, Hunein,
and Goletta'; and instigated the Knights of Malta — the out-
come of the crusades — to hold for a time the town of Tripoli
in Barbary, and the Tunisian island of Jerba. The Portuguese
kings by the middle of the i6th century were practically
suzerains of Morocco. The penultimate ruler of the brilliant
House of Avis — young Dom Sebastiao — determined in 1578,
soon after his accession to the throne of Portugal at the age of
23, to thoroughly conquer Morocco. He landed with 100,000
men at Acila", then marched inland and took up a position
behind the Wed-al-Makhazen on the fatal field of Kasr-al-Kabir.
But he was utterly defeated by the Moors under Mulai Abd-al-
Malek (who died during the battle) and Abu'l Abbas Ahmad-
1 She also later on left traces of her temporary occupation on the island
of lerba, where a fine Spanish fortress remains intact to this day.
^ Arzila.
22 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
al-Mansur. The latter became Sultan of Morocco after the
defeat and death of the unfortunate Dom Sebastiao. Never-
theless, the Portuguese retained most of their fortified ports on
the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and also Ceuta. During the
60 years of the abeyance of the Portuguese monarchy these
places became nominally Spanish, but returned to Portugal
with the restoration of the House of Braganga, though Ceuta
and Melilla were subsequently ceded to Spain, and Tangier to
England. Thus ended what might very well have been, but
for the battle of Kasr-al-Kabir, the Portuguese Empire of
Morocco.
At the end of the 13th century, certain sharifs^ of Yanbu,
the coast port of the holy city of Medina in Arabia, who
professed to be descendants of Ali, the son-in-law of the
Prophet, following returning Moorish pilgrims, established
themselves at Sijilmassa or Tafilat in South Morocco, and one
of them, Hassan-bin-Kassim, increasing greatly in power, be-
came the founder of the present Sharifian dynasty of Morocco ;
though some centuries elapsed before these Sharifian sultans
succeeded in establishing universal rule. At the close of the
15th century a Muhammadan Negro dynasty had arisen on
the upper Niger, and in the western Sudan. One of these
Negro kings, who made a pilgrimage to Mecca, obtained from
the descendant of the Abbaside khalifs residing at Cairo the
title of " Lieutenant of the Prince of Believers in the Sudan."
He made Timbuktu^ his capital, and it became a place of
great learning and flourishing commerce. His grandson, Ishak-
bin-Sokya^, became rich and powerful, and attracted the rapacity
of the Sharifian emperor of :Morocco (Abu'l Abbas Mansur,
who had distinguished himself by wiping out the Portuguese
under Dom Sebastiao at the battle of Kasr-al-Kabir), who had
1 Sharif, plur. Shorfa, means in Arabic "nobly bom."
^ Timbuktu had been founded by a Tawareq (Berber) tribe about
IIOO A.D.
^ or Askia.
I.] Mediterranean and Muhammadan. 23
recently extended his rule across the Sahara to the oasis of
Twat'. The Moorish emperor attempted to pick a quarrel by
disputing this Negro king's right to the title of Lieutenant of
the Khalifs in the Sudan, demanded his vassalage, and a tax
on the Sahara salt mines along the route to Timbuktu. Ishak-
bin-Sokya refused, whereupon a Moorish army under Juder
Basha was despatched by Abu'l Abbas-al-Mansur in 1590 to
conquer the Sudan. This army crossed the Sahara, defeated
Ishak Sokya, and captured Timbuktu, but raised the siege of
Gaghu or Gao, lower down the Niger, whither Ishak had fled.
But a more vigorous commander, Mahmud Basha, completed
the Moorish conquest of the Sudan, a conquest which extended
in its effects to Bornu on the one hand and to Senegambia on
the other, and only faded away in the i8th century, mainly
owing to the uprise of the Fula, and the attacks of the Tawareq.
Gradually all Morocco was brought under Sharifian rule, all
European hold over the country was eradicated, and the reign
of culminating glory was that of the emperor Mulai Ismail, who
ruled for 57 years, and is said to have left living children to the
extent of 548 boys and 340 girls. Mulai Ismail died in 1727.
He had attained to and maintained himself in supreme power
by the introduction of regiments of well-drilled Sudan Negroes.
Once more, in fact, in African history the black man of the
Sudan was the indirect means of driving back the civilization
of Europe. Meantime, the Berber and the Arab power was
weakening in Tunis, Tripoli, and Egypt. The Turks, who had
replaced the Arabs of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor as
Muhammadan rulers, had captured Constantinople in 1453,
and had seized Egypt in 1517, and were becoming the rising
Muhammadan power. When the Muhammadans of North
Africa appealed to Turkey for help against the attacks of
the Christian Spaniards the Turks took advantage of their
^ Now in the hinterland of Algeria, and perhaps to be occupied some
day by the French.
24 TJie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
intervention to establish, through the Turkish Corsairs, Turkish
regencies in Algeria (1519), Tunis (1573), and TripoU (1551)',
while Eg)'pt came directly under Turkish rule through the
heterogeneous Mamluk guard, which furnished Circassian mili-
tary rulers. With the exception of Morocco, which still remains
to this day an independent Berber state, Turkish control re-
placed Arab influence in northern Africa, and extended by
degrees far into the Sahara Desert to the old kingdom of
Fezzan, and along the coasts of the Red Sea. " Plus 9a
change, plus c'est la meme chose " — no matter whether Turk,
Circassian, Albanian, Arab, Berber, or Arabized Negro ruled,
Muhammadan influence and Arab culture continued to spread
over all the northern half of Africa. Somaliland, Sennar, Nubia,
Kordofan, Darfur, Wadai, Bornu, Hausa-land, and the Sahara,
much of Senegambia, and most of the country within the bend
of the Niger and along the banks of the upper Volta were con-
verted to Muhammadanism, and became familiar with the Arab
tongue as the religious language, and with some degree of
Arab civilization.
The pre-Islamic settlements of southern Arabs along the
East coast of Africa were revived by fresh bands of militant
traders and missionaries of Islam. Arabs established them-
selves once more at Sofala, at Sena and Quehmane on the
lower Zambezi, at Mogambique, Kilwa, Zanzibar, Mombasa,
and various ports on the Somali coast. A colony of Muham-
madanized Persians joined them in the loth century at Lamu,
and Persian as well as Muhammadan Indian influence began
to be very apparent in architecture on the East coast of Africa.
^ Algeria and Tunis were conquered by Turkish pirates, quite as much
from the mild Berber dynasties possessing them as from the Spanish en-
croachments. TripoU was taken from the Knights of IVIalta. Gradually
all these three Regencies detached themselves from the Turkish Empire in
everything but the mere acknowledgment of suzerainty; but, in 1835, the
Turks abruptly resumed the direct control of Tripoli and Barka, to which
they added Fezzan in 1842.
I-] Mediterranean and Jllnhatninadan. 25
The powerful Sultanate of KiUva was founded in the loth
century, and exercised for some time a dominating influence
over the other Arab settlements on the East coast of Africa.
Arabs had also discovered the island of Madagascar, which
they first made clearly known to history. They had settled as
traders on its north and north-west coasts, while the adjoining
Comoro Islands or Islands of the "Full Moon" (Komr)
became little Arab sultanates practically in the hands of Arab-
ized Negroes. Until the coming of the Portuguese in the i6th
century these Arab East African states were sparsely colonized
by Himyaritic or south Arabian Arabs from the Hadhramaut,
Yaman, and Aden. But a development of power and enter-
prise amongst the Arabs of Maskat, which led to their driving
away the Portuguese from their own country, and subsequently
attacking them on the East coast of Africa, caused the Maskat'
Arab to become the dominant type. The Maskat Arabs
founded the modern Zanzibar sultanate, which quite late in the
present century was separated by the intervention of the
British Government from the parent state of 'Oman.
As the result of the Muhammadan invasion of Africa from
Arabia — only just brought to a close at the end of the 19th
century — it may be stated that Arabized Berbers ruled in north
and north-west Africa ; Arabized Turks ruled in north and
north-east Africa ; Arabized Negroes ruled on the Niger, and
in the central Sudan ; Arabs ruled more directly on the Nile,
and on the Nubian coast; and the .Arabs of south Arabia and
of 'Oman governed the East African coast, and eventually
carried their influence, and to some extent their rule, inland
to the great central African lakes, and even to the upper
Congo.
Muhammadan colonization of Africa was the first step in
the bringing of that part of the continent beyond the Sahara
^ or 'Oman. Maskat is the capital of the principality of 'Oman (a word
which is really pronounced 'Uman) in East Arabia, ruled by an "Imam" or
laicized descendant of a line of preacher-kings or "Prince Bishops."
26 TJie Colonization of Africa. [Chap. i.
and upper Egypt within the cognizance of the ^s'orld of civiliza-
tion and history. The Arabs brought with them from Syria
and Mesopotamia their architecture — "Saracenic" — which was
an offshoot of the Byzantine', with a dash of Persian or Indian
influence. This architecture received at the hands of the
Berbers and Egyptians an extraordinarily beautiful develop-
ment, and penetrated on the one hand into Spain, and less
directly into Italy, and on the other reached the lower Niger,
the upper Nile, the vicinity of the Zambezi, and the north
coast of Madagascar. They spread also certain ideas of Greek
medicine and philosophy and taught the Koran, which
admitted all those Berber and Negro populations into that
circle of civilized nations which has founded so much of its
hopes and philosophy and culture on the Semitic Scriptures.
And through their contact with Europeans, Arabs and Arabized
Berbers first sketched out with some approach to correctness
the geography of inner Africa, and of the African coasts and
islands. The direct and immediate result of this Muham-
madan conquest of Africa was the drawing into that continent
of the Portuguese, themselves but recently emancipated from
Muhammadan rule, and still retaining some conversance with
Arabic ; who, thanks to their intimate acquaintance with
Muhammadans, and with this far-spread language used in their
commerce and religion, were now able to take a step further
in the colonization of Africa by superior races.
' The architectural style known as Saracenic made its beginnings in
Inner Syria and Mesopotamia a century or nearly so before the Mu-
hammadan invasion; and the "Horseshoe Arch" or the arch prolonged
for more than half a circle was invented by Hellenized Syrians in the sixth
century of this era. The ' Mahrab ' of the Mosque and some of the doming
were added by the Arabs and actually descend from the symbols of phallic
worship.
MUHAMMADAN AFRICA
ira£Jain««i rCS.J.^'-
EXPLANAIORY NOTE
Barihc'iQsneyr.LSjj:^
\ Indicates approximate area over which Islam is the dominating religion at the present daj'
(N.B. The present area is larger than it has ever been in the past)
Dotted spots of colour illustrates sporadic estaJrlishments of Muhannnadanisjn
The Boundaries of?>zosl important Muhafn^nadan E.inpires uuhen at their greatest
extent are shoiun in. colxmred lines
CHAPTER II.
THE PORTUGUESE IN AFRICA.
The mother of Portugal was Galicia, that north-western
province of the present Kingdom of Spain. It was here at
any rate that the Portuguese language developed from a dialect
of provincial Latin, and hence that the first expeditions started
to drive the Moors out of that territory which subsequently
became the Kingdom of Portugal. A large element in the
populations of Galicia and of the northern parts of Portugal
was Gothic. The Suevi settled here in considerable numbers,
and their descendants at the present day show the fine tall
figures, flaxen or red hair, and blue eyes so characteristic of
the northern Teuton. Central Portugal is mainly of Latinized
Iberian stock, while southern Portugal retains to this day a
large element of Moorish blood. The northern part of
Portugal was first wrested from the Moors by a French
adventurer (Henry of Burgundy) in the service of the king of
Leon, and this man's son became the first king of Portugal.
Little by little the Moors were driven southward, till at last
the southernmost province of Algarve' was conquered, and at
the close of the 12th century the Moors had ceased to rule
any longer in the Roman Lusitania.
^ From the Arabic Al-gharb, the 'west,' the 'sunset.' The title of
the King of Portugal is "King of Portugal and the Algarves, on this side
and on the other side of the sea in Africa, etc."
28 The Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
But the Portuguese, like the Spaniards, not content with
ridding the Peninsula of the Moorish invaders, attempted to
carry the war into the enemy's country, urged thereto by the
irritating attacks of Moorish pirates. In 1415, as already
related, a Portuguese army landed on the coast of Morocco,
and captured the citadel of Ceuta — the Roman Septa.
Bit by bit the Portuguese continued conquering the
coast towns of Morocco, or building new settlements — till
in the second half of the i6th century the king of Portugal
was almost entitled to that claim over the Empire of Morocco
which still asserts itself in the formal setting-forth of his
dignities. Most of these posts were either abandoned some
years before or just after the defeat of the young king
"Sebastiao o Desejado" — Sebastian the desired — who at the
age of only 23 was defeated and slain by the founder of the
Sharifian dynasty of Morocco on the fatal field of Al Kasr-al-
Kabir in 1578. Ceuta was taken over by Spain in 1580, was
garrisoned, that is, by Spanish soldiers^: the two or three
other Morocco towns which remained in Portuguese hands
after the battle of Kasr-al-Kabir, being garrisoned by Por-
tuguese soldiers, reverted to the separated crown of Portugal in
1640. Of these Tangier was ceded to England in 1662, Saffi
was given up to the Moors in 1641, other points were snatched
by the Moors in 1689, and Mazagan was finally lost in 1770.
The second son of the king Dom Joao I (who reigned
from 1385 to 1433) and Philippa, daughter of the English
John of Gaunt, was named Henry (Henrique), and was
subsequently known to all time as " Henry the Navigator "
from the interest he took in maritime exploration. He was
present at the siege of Ceuta in 1415, and after its capture was
said to have inquired with much interest as to the condition of
Morocco and of the unknown African interior, and to have
heard from the Moors of Timbuktu.
' And was finally ceded to Spain by Portugal in 1668.
II.] The Portuguese in Africa. 29
On his return to Portugal he established himself on the
rocky promontory of Sagres, and devoted himself to the
encouragement of the exploration of the coasts of Africa.
Under his direction expedition after expedition set out. First
Cape Bojador to the south of the Morocco coast was doubled
by Gil Eannes in 1434'. In 1441-2 Antonio Gonsalvez and
Nuno Tristam passed Cape Blanco on the Sahara coast, and
reached the Rio d'Ouro or River of Gold°, from whence they
brought back some gold dust and ten slaves. These slaves
having been sent by Prince Henry to Pope Martin V, the
latter conferred upon Portugal the right of possession and
sovereignty over all countries that might be discovered between
Cape Blanco and India. In 1445 a Portuguese named Joao
Fernandez made the first over-land exploration, starting alone
from the mouth of the Rio d'Ouro, and travelling over
seven months in the interior. In the following year the river
Senegal was reached, and Cape Verde was doubled by Diniz
Diaz, and in 1448 the coast was explored as far as Sierra
Leone. In 1455-6 Cadamosto (a Venetian in Portuguese
service) discovered the Cape Verde Islands, and visited the
rivers Senegal and Gambia, bringing back much information in
regard to Timbuktu, the trade in gold and ivory with the coast,
and the over-land trade routes from the Niger to the Mediter-
ranean. It is asserted by the Portuguese that some years later
two Portuguese envoys actually reached Timbuktu ; but the
truth of this assertion is somewhat problematical, as had they
done so they would probably have dissipated to some extent
the excessive exaggerations regarding the wealth and import-
ance of that Negro capital. In 1462, two years after the
death of Prince Henry, Pedro Da Cintra explored the coast as
far as modern Liberia. By 147 1 the whole Guinea coast had
1 Though it had been known to Italian and Norman navigators a
century earlier.
2 Only an inlet in the Desert coast.
30 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
been followed past the Niger delta, and as far south as the
Ogowe.
In 1448, under Prince Henry's directions, a fort had been
built on the Bay of Arguin, to the south of Cape Blanco, and
a few years later a Portuguese company was formed for carry-
ing on a trade with the Guinea coast in slaves and gold. The
first expedition sent out by this company resulted in the
despatch of 200 Negro slaves to Portugal, and thenceforward
the slave trade grew and prospered, and at first resulted in
little or no misery for the slaves, who exchanged a hunted,
hand-to-mouth existence among savage tribes in Africa for
relatively kind treatment and comfortable living in beautiful
Portugal, where they were much in favour as house servants.
In 1481 the Portuguese, who had been for some years ex-
amining the Gold Coast, decided to build a fort to protect
their trade there. In 1482 the fort was completed and the
Portuguese flag raised in token of sovereignty. This strong
place, for more than a hundred years in possession of the
Portuguese, was called Sao Jorge da Mina'. In the same year
in which this first Portuguese post was established on the Gold
Coast ^ exploration of the African coast was carried on beyond
the mouth of the Ogowe by Diogo Cam, who three years later
— in 1485, discovered the mouth of the Congo, and_ sailed up
that river about as far as Boma. Diogo Cam's discoveries
were continued by Bartolomeu Diaz, who, passing along the
south-west coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope
in stormy weather without knowing it, and touched land at
Algoa Bay, whence, on his return journey, he sighted that
famous cape, which King John II christened " the Cape of
Good Hope."
1 Nowadays known as Elmina.
^ As will be seen in another chapter, there are traditions of Norman
merchants from Dieppe having established forts or trading stations along
the West African coast in the 13th century, especially at " La Mine d'Or" —
Elmina — where the Normans possibly preceded the Portuguese.
II.] TJie Portugicese in Africa. 31
Already the Portuguese were full of the idea of rounding
Africa and so reaching India. They had begun to hear from
the Arabs, who were now in full possession of the East African
coast, rumours of the circumnavigability of Africa'. A Por-
tuguese named Pero de Covilhao started for Egypt in i486,
and travelled to India by way of the Red Sea. On his return
he visited most of the Arab settlements on the East coast of
Africa as far south as Sofala. The information he brought
back decided the despatch of an expedition under Vasco da
Gama to pass round the Cape of Good Hope to the Arab
colonies, and thence to India. Vasco da Gama set out in
1497, and made his famous voyage round the Cape (calling at
and naming Natal on the way) to Sofala, where he picked up
an Arab pilot who took him to Malindi, and thence to India.
On his return journey Vasco da Gama took possession of the
island of Mozambique, and visited the Quellmane river near
the mouth of the Zambezi. Numerous well-equipped ex-
peditions sailed for India within the years following Vasco da
Gama's discoveries. While India was the main goal before the
eyes of their commanders, considerable attention was bestowed
upon the founding of forts along the East coast of Africa, both
to protect the Cape route to India, and to further Portuguese
trade with the interior of Africa. In nearly every case the
Portuguese merely supplanted the Arabs, who — possibly them-
selves supplanting Phoenicians or Sabaeans — had established
themselves at Sofala, Quelimane, Sena (on the Zambezi),
Mozambique, Kilwa, Zanzibar, Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, and
Magdishu. Sofala was taken by Pedro de Anhaya in 1505 ;
Tristan d'Acunha captured Socotra and Lamu in 1507, in
which year also Duarte de Mello captured and fortified
Mozambique. Kilwa and the surrounding Arab establish-
ments were seized between 1506 and 1508, and a little later
^ It was even alleged that certain Arab ships had been driven by stress
of weather past the Cape of Good Hope, and had brought back word
of the northward trend of the west coast.
32 Tlic Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
the remaining places already mentioned on the East coast
of Africa were in possession of the Portuguese, who had also
Aden on the south coast of Arabia, the island of Ormuz on the
Persian Gulf, and various places on the coast of 'Oman, includ-
ing Maskat. Pero de Covilhao had already, as has been
mentioned, visited the East coast of Africa (after travelling
overland to India) before Vasco da Gama's rounding of the
Cape. He then directed his steps to Abyssinia, of which he
had heard when in Cairo.
Before this period of the world's history, and from the time
of the earlier crusades, a legend had grown of the existence of
Prester John — some Christian monarch of the name of John,
who ruled in the heart of Asia or of Africa, a bright spot in the
midst of Heathenry. The court of Prester John was located
anywhere between Senegambia and China; but the legend had
its origin probably in the continued existence of Greek Chris-
tianity in Abyssinia, and towards Abyssinia several Portuguese
explorers and missionaries directed their steps from the time
of Pero or Pedro de Covilhao until the 17th century. Some
Portuguese Jesuit missionaries penetrated far south of Abys-
sinia into countries which have only been since revisited
by Europeans within the last few years. Portuguese civili-
zation distinctly left its mark on Abyssinia in architecture and
in other ways. The very name which we apply to this modem
Ethiopia is a Portuguese rendering of the Arab and Indian
cant term for 'negro' — Habesh — a word of uncertain origin.
About this time, also, the Portuguese visited the coasts of
Madagascar, as will be related in the chapter dealing with that
island. They also discovered (in 1507) the islands now known
by the names of Re'union and Mauritius, though they made no
permanent settlements on either.
On the AVest coast of Africa geographical discovery was
soon followed by something hke colonization. The island of
Madeira, which had been known to the Portuguese in the
14th century, was occupied by them in the 15 th, and a
II.] The Portuguese in Africa. 33
hundred years afterwards was already producing a supply of
that wine which has made it so justly famous '. The island of
St Helena — afterwards to be seized by the Dutch and taken
from them by the English East India Company — was dis-
covered by the Portuguese in 1502, and this island also, at
the end of a century of intermittent use by the Portuguese,
possessed orange groves and fig trees which they had planted.
When Diego Cam returned from the Congo in 1485 he
brought back with him a few Congo natives, who were bap-
tized, and who returned some years later to the Congo with
Diego Cam and a large number of proselytizing priests. This
Portuguese expedition arrived at the mouth of the Congo in
1491 and there encountered a vassal chief of the king of the
Congo who ruled the riverain province of Sonyo. This chief
received them with a respect due to demi-gods, and allowed
himself to be at once converted to Christianity — a conversion
which was sincere and durable. The Portuguese proceeded
under his guidance to the king's capital about 200 miles from
the coast, which they named Sa5 Salvador. Here the king and
queen were baptized with the names of the then king and queen
of Portugal, Joao and Leonora, while the crown Prince was
called Alfonso. Christianity made surprising progress amongst
these fetish worshippers, who readily transferred their adoration
to the Virgin Mary and the saints, and discarded their indi-
genous male and female gods. Early in the i6th century the
Congo kingdom was visited by the Bishop of Sao Thome, an
island off the Guinea coast, which, together with the adjoining
Prince's Island, had been settled by the Portuguese soon after
their discovery of the West coast of Africa. The Bishop of Sa5
1 The Canary Islands, inhabited by a race of Berber origin, had been
rediscovered (for Greek and Roman geographers knew of them) by
Normans and Genoese in the 14th century. They were conquered by a
Norman adventurer, Jean de Betancourt or Bethencourt, in the service of
Portugal. Portugal, however, after a brief occupancy transferred them to
Castile in 1479.
J. A. 3
34 TJie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
Thome being unable to take up his residence in the kingdom
of Congo procured the consecration of a native Negro as
Bishop of the Congo. This man, who was a member of the
Congo royal family, had been educated in Lisbon, and was, I
behave, the first Negro bishop known to history. But he was
not a great success, nor was the next bishop, in whose reign
in the middle of the i6th century great dissensions arose in
the Congo church among the native priesthood, which led to a
considerable lessening of Christian fervour. After the death of
Dom Diego a civil war broke out, and one by one the males
of the royal house were all killed except "Dom Henrique," the
king's brother. This latter also died soon after succeeding to
the throne, and left the state to his son, " Dom Alvares."
During this civil war many of the Portuguese whom the kings
of Congo had invited to settle in the country as teachers,
mechanics, and craftsmen were killed or expelled as the cause
of the troubles which European intervention had brought on
the Congo kingdom ; but Dom Alvares, who was an en-
lightened man, gathered together all that remained, and for
a time Portuguese civilization continued to advance over the
country. But a great stumbling-block had arisen in the way of
Christianity being accepted by the bulk of the people — that
stumbling-block which is still discussed at every Missionary
conference — polygamy. A relation of the king Dom Alvares
renounced Christianity and headed a reactionary party. Curi-
ously enough he has been handed down to history as Bula
Matadi, " the Breaker of Stones," the name which more than
three hundred years afterwards was applied to the explorer
Stanley by the Congo peoples, and has since become the
native name for the whole of the government of the Congo
Free State.
In the middle of the r6th century Portuguese influence
over the Congo received a deadly blow. That kingdom, which
must be taken to include the coast lands on either side of the
lower Congo, was invaded by a savage tribe from the interior
11.] The Portuguese in Africa. 35
known as the " Jagga " people, said to be a race related to the
Fans '. The Jagga were powerful men and ferocious cannibals,
and they carried all before them, the king and his court taking
refuge on an island on the broad Congo, not far from Boma.
The king of Congo appealed to Portugal for help, and that
ill-fated but brilliant young monarch, Dom Sebastiao, sent him
Franciso de Gova with 600 soldiers. With the aid of these
Portuguese and their guns the Jagga were driven out The
king, who had hitherto led a very irregular life for a Christian,
now formally married, but was not rewarded by a legal heir,
and had to indicate as his successor a natural son by a concu-
bine. About this time the king of Portugal pressed his brother
of Congo to reveal the existence of mines of precious metals.
Whether there are such in the Congo country — except as
regards copper — has not been made known even at the present
day, but they were supposed to exist at that time; and certain
Portuguese at the Congo court dissuaded the prince whom
they served from giving any information on the subject, no
doubt desiring to keep such knowledge to themselves. The
king of Congo, Dom Alvares, when the Jagga had retired,
made repeated appeals for more Portuguese priests, and sent
several embassies to Portugal; but Dom Sebastiao had been
killed in Morocco, and his uncle, the Cardinal Henrique, who
had succeeded him and who was the last Portuguese king of
the House of Avis, was too much occupied by the affairs of
his tottering kingdom to reply to these appeals. But when
Philip II of Spain had seized the throne of Portugal he
despatched a Portuguese named Duarte Lopes to report on the
country of the Congo. After spending some time in Congo-
land Duarte Lopes started to return to Portugal with a great
amount of information about the country, and messages from
the king of Congo. Unfortunately he was driven by storms to
^ Possibly a more purely Bantu tribe. Their descendants seem still to
be found living on the river Kwango behind Angola under the name of
Yaka.
36 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
Central America, and when he reached Spain the king was too
busy preparing the Great Arraada to listen to him. Therefore
Duarte went on a pilgrimage to Rome to appeal to the Pope,
but the latter for some reason gave him no encouragement.
Whilst staying in Italy, however, he allowed an Italian named
Filippo Pigafetta to take down and publish in 1591 his account
of the Congo kingdom, together with a recital of the Portu-
guese explorations and conquests in East Africa.
Although Portuguese priests — Jesuits probably — continued
for a hundred years longer to visit the kingdom of Congo, from
the end of the i6th century both Christian and Portuguese in-
fluence slowly faded, and the country relapsed into heathenism.
The Portuguese appear to have excited the animosity of a
somewhat proud people by their overbearing demeanour and
rapacity. They held intermittently Kabinda, on the coast to
the north of the Congo estuary, and occasionally sent missions
of investiture to Sao Salvador to represent the king of Portugal
at the crowning of some new king of Congo; and the king of
Congo was usually given a Portuguese name and occasionally
an honorary rank in the Portuguese army. But it was not
until the end of the present century that Portugal actually
asserted her dominion over the Congo countries. England had
during the last and nearly all the present century steadily
refused to recognize Portuguese rule anywhere north of the
Congo, but in 1884 proposed to do so under sufficient
guarantees for freedom of trade set forth in a treaty which was
rendered abortive by the opposition of the House of Commons.
If this treaty had been ratified it would have brought under
joint English and Portuguese influence the lower Congo,
besides settling amicably Portuguese and British claims in
Nyasaland. The foolish and unreasoning opposition of a
knot of unpractical philanthropists in the House of Commons
wrecked the treaty, and gave to the other powers of Europe an
opportunity for interfering in the affairs of the Congo. The
result to Portugal, nevertheless, was that she secured the
II-] The Portuguese in Afidca. 37
territory of Kabinda north of the Congo, and the ancient
kingdom of Congo south of that river.
Although the Portuguese discovered the coast of Angola in
1490 they did not attempt to settle in that country until 1574,
when, in answer to an appeal of the chief of Angola (a vassal
of the king of Congo), an expedition was sent thither under the
command of Paulo Diaz'. This expedition landed at the
mouth of the Kwanza river, and found that the chief of Angola
who had appealed to the king of Portugal was dead. His
successor received Diaz with politeness, but compelled him to
assist the Angolese in local wars which had not much interest
for the Portuguese. Diaz found in the interior of Angola
many evidences of Christian worship, which showed that
missionaries from the Congo had preceded his own expedition.
When Diaz was at last allowed to return to Portugal, the king
— Dom Sebastiao — sent him back as "Conqueror, Colonizer,
and Governor of Angola " with seven ships and 700 men.
His passage out from Lisbon in the year 1574 occupied three
and a half months — not a long time at that period for sailing-
vessels. Diaz took possession of a sandy island in front of
the bay which is now known as the harbour of Sao Paulo de
Loanda. Here he was joined by 40 Portuguese refugees from
the Congo kingdom. Eventually he built on the mainland of
Loanda the fort of Sao Miguel, and founded the city of Sao
Paulo, which became and remains the capital of the Portuguese
possessions in West Africa.
For six years perfect peace subsisted between the Portu-
guese and the natives ; then, afraid that the Portuguese would
eventually seize the whole country, the king of Angola enticed
500 Portuguese soldiers into a war in the interior where he
massacred them. But this massacre only served to show the
splendid quahty of Paulo Diaz, who was a magnificent repre-
sentative of the old Portuguese type of Conquistador. Leaving
1 Grandson of the explorer, Bartolomeu.
38 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
Loanda with 150 soldiers — nearly all that remained — he
marched against the king's forces near the Kwanza river, and
routed them with great loss, being of course greatly helped in
securing this victory by the possession of muskets and cannon.
The Angolese were defeated repeatedly before they gave up
the struggle; but at length in 1597 the Portuguese had estab-
lished themselves strongly on both banks of the river Kwanza.
In that year 200 Flemish colonists were sent out by the king
of Spain and Portugal. In a very short time all were dead
from fever. In spite of many reverses, however, the Portuguese
slowly mastered the country south of the Kwanza nearly as far
as Benguela. In 1606 an interesting but unsuccessful attempt
was made to open up communication across south-central
Africa between the Kwanza and the Zambezi settlements.
But this bold step had been preceded nearly a century earlier
by the despatch of an explorer — Gregorio de Quadra — to
travel overland from the mouth of the Congo to Abyssinia.
The unfortunate man was never heard of again; but what a
subject for romance ! If this hardy Portuguese penetrated far
into the upper Congo countries what extraordinary experiences
he must have had in these lands, at that time absolutely free
from the influence of the European — a condition which no
longer applied to the natives of Darkest Africa when Stanley
first made known the geography of those regions. For in the
three and a half centuries which had elapsed, even those
savages in the heart of Africa, who possibly knew nothing of
the existence of white men, had nevertheless adopted many of
the white man's products as necessities or luxuries of their
lives — such as maize, tobacco, yams, sweet potatoes, manioc,
the pine-apple, and the sugar cane.
We may here fitly consider the greatest and most beneficial
results of the Portuguese colonization of Africa. These
wonderful old Conquistadores may have been relentless and
cruel in imposing their rule on the African and in enslaving
him or in Christianizing him, but they added enormously to
II.] The Portuguese in Africa. 39
his food-supply and his comfort. So early in the history of
their African exploration that it is almost the first step they
took, they brought from China, India, and Malacca the orange
tree, the lemon and the lime, which, besides introducing into
Europe (and Europe had hitherto only known the sour wild
orange brought by the Arabs), they planted in every part of
East and West Africa where they touched. They likewise
brought the sugar cane from the East Indies and introduced it
into various parts of Brazil and West Africa, especially into the
islands of Sao Thome and Principe and the Congo and Angola
countries. Madeira they had planted with vines in the 15th
century ; the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands and St Helena
with orange trees in the i6th century. From their great
possession of Brazil — overrun and organized with astounding
rapidity — they brought to East and West Africa the Muscovy
duck (which has penetrated far into the interior of Africa, if
indeed it has not crossed the continent), chih peppers, maize
(now grown all over Africa, cultivated by many natives who
have not even yet heard of the existence of white men), tobacco,
the tomato, yam, pine-apple, sweet potato (a convolvulus tuber),
manioc (from which tapioca is made), ginger and other less
widely known forms of vegetable food. The Portuguese also
introduced the domestic pig into Africa, and on the West coast,
the domestic cat, possibly also certain breeds of dogs; in East
tropical Africa the horse is known in the north by an Arab
name, in the centre by the Portuguese word, and in the
extreme south by a corruption of the English. To the Arabs
also must be given the credit (so far as we know) of having
introduced into Africa from Asia the sugar cane, rice', onions,
cucumbers, here and there the hme and orange, wheat and
perhaps other grains"; among domestic animals, the camel, in
' Rice and sugar cane were in some cases brought by the Portuguese.
^ Such wheat as is cultivated in Africa north of 15° N. Latitude is
similar to the European and Egyptian kinds : the wheat introduced by the
Arabs into the Zambezi is red wheat apparently from India.
40 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
some parts the horse, and in a few places superior breeds of
domestic fowls and also the domestic pigeon'. The English-
man has brought with him the potato, and has introduced
into most of his colonies the horse, and in places improved
breeds of cattle, sheep, and goats, a good many European
vegetables and fruit trees ; the tea plant, the coffee plant
(which, however, has only been transferred from other parts of
Africa), and many shrubs and trees of special economic value;
but what are these introductions — almost entirely for his own
use — compared in value to the vast bounty of Portugal ? Take
away from the .African's dietary of to-day a few of the products
that the Portuguese brought to him from the far East and far
West, and he will remain very insufficiently provided with neces-
sities and simple luxuries. I may add one or two dates con-
cerning these introductions by the Portuguese: — the sugar
cane and ginger were first planted in the island of Principe, off
the coast of Lower Guinea in the early part of the i6th century.
Maize was introduced into the Congo (where it was called
maza manputo) about the middle of the i6th centuryl
^ Which however is a wild bird (the rock dove) in N. Africa.
^ De Lopes, who records this fact in his description of the Congo
region at the end of the i6th century, gives incidentally or directly other
interesting scraps of information, such as, that the coco-nut palm was
found by the Portuguese growing on the West coast of Africa. This palm,
we know, originated in the Asiatic or Pacific Archipelagoes. It is possible
to imagine that its nuts may have been carried over the sea to the coast of
East Africa and that it was thus introduced to that side of the continent ;
but, inasmuch as the coco-nut palm cannot grow further south than
Delagoa Bay omng to the cooling, of the climate, it is not very clear how
it reached the tropical West African coast. I believe it was introduced
on the tropical Atlantic coast of America by Europeans. De Lopes
mentions the banana for the first time under the name "banana," which
he applies to it as though' it were a Congo or African word. Hitherto
this fruit had only been known vaguely to Europe by its Arab name,
which was latinized into Musa. Lopes states that the zebra was
tamed and ridden by the natives. He must be referring to the zebra of
southern Angola, as any form of wild ass has probably always been
entirely absent from the forest countries near the Congo.
n.] TJie Portuguese in Africa. 41
In 162 1 a chieftainess, apparently of the Congo royal family,
known as Ginga Bandi, came to Angola, made friends with the
Portuguese, was baptized, and then returned to the interior,
where she poisoned her brother (the chief or king of Angola),
and succeeded him. Having attained this object of her am-
bitions, she headed the national party, and attempted to drive
the Portuguese out of Angola. For 30 years she warred against
them without seriously shaking their power, though on the
other hand they could do little more than hold their own. But
a much more serious enemy now appeared on the scene. The
Dutch, who took advantage of the Spanish usurpation' of the
throne of Portugal to include that unfortunate country in their
reprisals against Spain, made several determined attempts
during the first half of the 17th century to wrest Angola from
the Portuguese. They captured Sao Paulo de Loanda in 1641,
one year after Portugal had recovered her independence under
the first Bragan^a king. The Portuguese concentrated on the
Kwanza. The Dutch attempted by several very treacherous
actions to oust them from their fortresses on that river. At
last, however, following on the reorganization of the Portuguese
empire, reinforcements were sent from Brazil to Angola, and a
siege of Sao Miguel took place. The Portuguese imitated
with advantage the Dutch game of bluff, and by deceiving the
besieged as to the extent of their army they secured the sur-
render of 1 100 Dutch to under 750 Portuguese. In the pre-
liminary assault on the Dutch at Sao Paulo de Loanda the
Portuguese lost 163 men. After the recapture of this place
they proceeded methodically to destroy all the Dutch establish-
ments on the Lower Guinea coast as far north as Loango. In
the concluding years of the 17 th century nearly all the
remaining Portuguese missionaries in the kingdom of Congo
' Perhaps "usurpation" is harsh. Philip II of Spain had the best
claim to the Portuguese throne after the death without heirs of the
Cardinal-King Henrique- But the Portuguese disliked union with Spain
and would have preferred to elect a Portuguese king.
42 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
migrated to the more settled and prosperous Angola. In 1694
Portugal introduced a copper coinage into her now flourishing
West African colony — flourishing, thanks to the slave trade,
which was mightily influencing the European settlement of
West Africa.
In 1758 the Portuguese extended their rule northwards from
Sao Paulo de Loanda into the Ambriz country, where however
their authority continued very uncertain till within a few years
ago. About the same time Benguela was definitely occupied,
and Portuguese influence continued extending slowly southward
until, in 1840, it reached its present limits by the establishment
of a settlement (now very prosperous) called Mossamedes,
almost exactly on the fifteenth parallel of south latitude '.
Between 1807 and 1810 attempts were made to open up
intercourse with the kingdom of the Mwato Yanvo, and thence
across to the colony of Mozambique, but they proved un-
successful. In 1813 and in the succeeding years a renewed
vigour of colonization began to make itself felt in the creation
of public works in Angola. Amongst other improvements was
the bringing of the waters of the Kwanza by canal to Sao Paulo
de Loanda, which until then had no supply of good drinking
water. The Dutch had attempted to carry out this, but were
interrupted. The Portuguese efforts in the early part of this
century proved unsuccessful, but some ten years ago the canal
was at last completed, and it has made a great difference to
the health of the town. Portuguese rule inland from Angola
has waxed and waned during the present century, but on the
whole has been greatly extended. Livingstone even found
them established to some extent on the upper Kwango, an
affluent of the Congo, and for long the eastern boundary of
Angola. From this, however, they had to retire owing to
native insurrections ; though now their power and their in-
fluence have been pushed far to the east, to the river Kasai.
^ This place was named after the Baron de Mossamedes, a Portuguese
Governor of Angola ; afterwards Minister for the Colonies.
II.] The Portuguese in Africa. 43
In 1875 a party of recalcitrant Boers quitted the Transvaal
owing to some quarrel with the local government, trekked
over the desert in a north-westerly direction, and eventually
blundered across the Kunene river (the southern limit of
Portuguese West Africa) on to the healthy plateau behind the
Chella Mountains. It was feared at one time that they would
set the Portuguese at defiance and carve out a little Boer state
in south-west Africa. About this time, also, Hottentots much
under Boer influence and speaking Dutch invaded the district
of Mossamedes from the coast region ; but by liberal con-
cessions and astute diplomacy, joined with the carrying out of
several important works, like the waggon road across the Shela
(or Chella) Mountains, the Portuguese won over the Boers to
a recognition of their sovereignty, and they have ever since
become a source of strength to the Portuguese. Slavery was
not abolished in the Portuguese West African dominions until
1878; but the slave trade had been done away with in the
first quarter of the 19th century. Prior to that time the
slave trade had brought extraordinary prosperity to the islands
of Sao Thome and Principe, to the Portuguese fort on the
coast of Dahome, and to Angola, all of which countries were
more or less under one government. The abolition of the
slave trade however caused the absolute ruin of Principe
(which has not yet recovered), the temporary ruin of Sao
Thomd (since revived by the energy of certain planters, who
have introduced the cultivation of chinchona), and the partial
ruin of Angola, which began to be regarded as a possession
scarcely worth maintaining. Brazil (though it had been severed
from the crown of Portugal) did almost more than the Mother
Country to revive trade in these dominions. Enterprising
Brazilians such as Silva Americano came over to Angola in
the '6o's' and '70's,' started steam navigation on the river
Kwanza, and developed many industries. Through Brazilian,
United States, and British influence a railway was commenced
in the ' 8o's ' to connect Sao Paulo de Loanda with the rich
44 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
interior, especially with the coffee districts on the water-shed
of the Congo. The magnificent island of Sao Thom^, just
under the Equator, possesses mountains which rise high into a
temperate chmate. On these, flourishing plantations of cin-
chona and coffee have been established. Public works in the
shape of good roads and bridges have been carried out in many
parts of Angola, and this country is certainly the most success-
ful of the Portuguese attempts at the colonization of Africa.
Portuguese rule has been extended northwards to the
southern shore of the Congo, and over the small territory of
Kabinda, which is separated by a narrow strip of Belgian
territory from the other bank. On the other hand the Portu-
guese protectorate over Dahome — a protectorate which never
had any real existence — has been abandoned together with its
only foothold, Sao Joao d'Ajuda'. The Portuguese forts on
the Gold Coast had not been held very long before they were
captured by the Dutch at the beginning of the 17 th century.
Portugal, in spite of discovering and naming Sierra Leone,
never occupied it ; but in varying degree she continued to
maintain certain fortified posts amid that extraordinary jumble
of rivers in Senegambia, between the Gambia and Sierra Leone.
This is a district of some 20,000 square miles in extent, to-day
carefully defined, and known as Portuguese Guinea. But in
the ' 70's ' it was doubtful whether Portuguese sovereignty over
this country had not been abandoned. England, which exercised
exclusive influence in these waters, attempted to establish
herself in the place of Portugal, but the Portuguese protested
^ This fort, by the abortive Congo Treaty of 1884, was to have been
made over to England, the result of which would have been the prevention
of a French protectorate over Dahome. Although the Portuguese never in
any sense ruled over or controlled Dahome, their indirect influence and
their language were prominent at the Dahomean court because certain
Brazilians had during the first half of this century established themselves
on the coast and in the interior as influential merchants and slave traders.
Their coffee-coloured descendants now form a Portuguese-speaking
Brazilian caste in Dahome.
n.] Tlu Portuguese in Africa. 45
and proclaimed their sovereignty. The matter was submitted
to arbitration, and the verdict — of course — was given against
England. Consequently the Portuguese reorganized their
colony of Guinea, which in time was separated from the
governorship of the Cape Verde islands. These latter are a
very important Portuguese asset off the north-west coast of
Africa. They have been continuously occupied and adminis-
tered since their discovery in the 15th century. They possessed
then no population, but are now peopled by a blackish race
descended from Negro and Moorish slaves. In one or two of
the healthier islands are settlers of Portuguese blood. Owing
to the magnificent harbours which these islands offer to shipping
— especially Sao Vicente — and their use as a coaling station,
they may yet figure prominently in the world's history.
Both Ascension and St Helena were discovered and named
by the Portuguese. The first-named was never occupied until
England took possession of it as an outpost of Napoleon's
prison in 18 15. St Helena was taken in the early part of the
1 6th century by the Dutch, and passed into the hands of
the English in the middle of that century. Another Portuguese
discovery was the most southern of these isolated oceanic islets,
Tristan d'Acunha, which bears the name of its discoverer, but
which, so far as occupation goes, has always been a British
possession^.
On the East coast of Africa Portuguese colonization did
not commence until the i6th century had begun, and
Vasco de Gama, after rounding the Cape, had revealed the
' Most prominent features, and some countries on the west and south
coasts of Africa from the Senegal round to the Cape of Good Hope and
Mo9ambique, bear Portuguese names: Cape Verde is "The Green Cape,"
Sierra Leone (Serra Leoa) is "The Lioness Mountain," Cape /"a/waj- " The
Palm-trees Cape," Cape Coast is Cabo Corso " The cruising Cape,"
Lagos is "The Lakes," Cameroons is Camaroes "prawns," Gaboon is
Cabao "The Hooded Cloak" (from the shape of the estuary), Corisco is
"Lightning," Cape Frio is "The Cold Cape" and Angra Pequena is
" The Little Cove," and so on.
46 Tlie Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
existence of old Arab trading settlements and sultanates be-
tween Sofala and Somaliland.
The need of ports of call on the long voyage to India
caused the Portuguese to decide soon after Vasco de Gama's
famous voyage to possess themselves of these Arab settlements,
the more so because hostilities against the "Moors" were a
never-ending vendetta on the part of Spaniard or Portuguese,
while the conquest was at that date an easy one, as the
Portuguese had artillery and the East African Arabs had none.
By 1520, the Portuguese had ousted the Arabs and had
occupied in their stead Kilwa, Zanzibar, Pemba, Mombasa,
Lamu, Malindi, Brava (Barawa), and Magdishu (Magadoxo) :
all north of the Ruvuma river. South of that river they had
taken Sofala and Mozambique. Here they had — it is said — ■
established a trading station in 1503, but Mozambique island'
was not finally occupied by them till 1507, when the existing
fortress was commenced and built by Duarte de Mello. The
fort was then and is still known as " the Pra^a de Sao
Sebastiao." It had been decided before this that Mogambique
should be the principal place of call, after leaving the Cape of
Good Hope, for Portuguese ships on their way to India ; but
when in 1505 the Portuguese deliberately sanctioned the idea
of a Portuguese East African colony they turned their attention
rather to Sofala as its centre than to Mozambique. Sofala,
which is near the modern Beira, was an old Arab port and
sultanate, and had been for some 1500 years the principal port
on the south-east coast of Africa, from which the gold obtained
^ This is a little coral islet about i miles long by J of a mile broad,
situated between 2 and 3 miles from the coast [a shallow bay], in 15 degrees
south latitude, where the East African coast approaches nearest to Mada-
gascar. It commands the Mo9ambique ChanneL Its native name was
probably originally Musambiki. By the neighbouring East African tribes
it is now called Muhibidi, Msambiji, and Msambiki. It has sometimes
been the only parcel of land remaining in Portuguese hands during the
\'icissitudes of their East African empire.
II.] TJie Portuguese in Africa. 47
in the mines of Manika was shipped to the Red Sea and the
Persian Gulf. Consequently the first proposed Portuguese
settlement on the East coast of Africa was entitled " the
Captaincy of Sofala." But later on Mogambique grew in
importance, and eventually gave its name to the Portuguese
possessions in East Africa.
The Quelimane river, taken to be the principal exit of
the Zambezi by the Portuguese, was discovered and entered
by Vasco de Garaa in the early part of 1498, and was by him
called the "River of Good Indications." He stayed a month
on this river, where there seems to have been, on the site of the
present town of Quelimane, a trading station resorted to by the
Arabs, who were even then settled in Zambezia. The name
Quelimane (pronounced in English Kelimane) is stated by the
early Portuguese to have been the name of the friendly chief
who acted as intermediary between them and the natives, but
it would rather appear to have been a corruption of the
Svvahili-Arabic word "Kaliman," which means "interpreter."
The first " Factory " or Portuguese trading station at Queli-
mane was established about the year 1544, and by this time
the Portuguese had heard of the River of Sena (as they called
the Zambezi) and of the large Arab settlement of Sena on its
banks. They had further heard both from Quelimane and
from Sofala of the powerful empire of Monomotapa', and
especially of the province of Manika, which was reported to
be full of gold. Having found it too difficult to reach Manika
from Sofala, owing to the opposition of the natives, they resolved
to enter the country from the north by way of Sena, on the
Zambezi; and consequently, in 1569, an exceptionally powerful
expedition left Lisbon under the command of the Governor
^ A corruption of Mwene-mutapa "Lord Hippopotamus," according
to some authorities, for on the Zambezi above Tete the hippopotamus was
looked on as a sacred animal. I am inclined to think however that
Mwene-mutapa is really " Lord of the Mine, or gold mining," mutapo or
mtapo being a shallow pit dug in clay or sand for mining, or washing gold.
48 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
and Captain-General Francisco Barreto, and after a preliminary
tour up and down the East coast of Africa as far as Lamu, and
a rapid journey to India and back, Francisco Barreto with his
force, which included cavalry and camels, landed at Quelimane,
and set out for Sena- The expedition was accompanied, and,
to a certain extent, guided by a mischief-making Jesuit priest
named Monclaros, who wished to avenge the assassination of
his fellow-priest, Gongalo de Silveira, martyred not long pre-
viously in the Monomotapa territories. Francisco Barreto
found on arriving at Sena that there was already a small
Portuguese setdement built alongside an Arab town. These
Arabs appear to have got on very well with the first Portuguese
traders, but they evidently took umbrage at Barreto's powerful
expedition, and are accused of having poisoned the horses and
camels. What really took place, however, seems to have been
that the horses and camels were exposed to the bite of the
Tsetse fly, and died in consequence of the attacks of this
venomous insect. From Sena, Barreto sent an embassy to the
Emperor of Monomotapa, whom he offered to help against a
revolted vassal, Mongase. After receiving an invitation to
visit the emperor, a portion of the Portuguese force commenced
to ascend the right bank of the river Zambezi, but apparently
never reached its destination, because it was so repeatedly
attacked by the hostile natives that it was compelled to return
to Sena. Shortly afterwards there arrived the news of a revolt
at Mogambique, and consequently Barreto, together with the
priest .Monclaros, having handed over the command of the
expedition to a lieutenant, entered a canoe, descended the
Zambezi to the Luabo mouth, and from there took passage in
a dau to Mozambique. He and Monclaros subsequently re-
turned to Sena, but Barreto died soon after his arrival. The
Portuguese chroniclers of this expedition write with consider-
able bitterness of the Jesuit Monclaros, to whose counsels most
of the misfortunes and mistakes are attributed. The expedition
after Barreto's death returned to Mozambique, and attempted
II.] The Portuguese in Africa. 49
later on to enter Monomotapa by way of Sofala, but was
repulsed.
For some time to come further exploration of the Zambezi
or of the interior of Mogambique was put a stop to by the
struggle which ensued with the Turks. Towards the end of
the i6th century (in 1584), following on the conquest of
Egypt and at the instigation of Venice, the Turkish Sultan
sent a powerful fleet out of the Red Sea, which descended the
East coast of Africa as far as Mombasa, and prepared to dis-
pute with Portugal the dominion of the Indian Ocean. The
Turks, however, were defeated with considerable loss by the
Admiral Thome' de Sousa Coutinho, and Portuguese domination
was not only strengthened at Zanzibar and along the Zanzibar
coast, but was also affirmed along the south coast of Arabia
and in the Persian Gulf.
At the end of the i6th century the Portuguese had
terrific struggles with the natives in the interior of Monomotapa,
behind Kilwa, on the mainland of Mozambique', and in the
vicinity of Tete on the Zambezi ; and shortly afterwards
appeared the first Dutch pirates in East African waters, some
of whom actually laid siege to Mogambique. In 1609 there
arrived at Mogambique the first Portuguese Governor of the
East coast of Africa, and this province was definitely separated
from the Portuguese possessions in India, while at the same
time it was withdrawn from the spiritual jurisdiction of the
Archbishop of Goa, and placed under the Prelate of Mozam-
bique. Meantime the efforts to reach the gold-mines to the
south of the Zambezi had been so far successful that a con-
siderable quantity of gold was obtained not only by the officers,
but even by the private soldiers of the different expeditions ;
but the expectations of the Portuguese as to the wealth of gold
and silver (for they were in search of reported silver-mines on
' Where they are only now bringing the sturdy Makua tribe under
subjection.
J. A. 4
50 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
the Zambezi) were considerably disappointed, and later on,
in the 17th century, their interest in these East African
possessions waned, largely on account of the poor results
of their mining operations. In the middle of the 17th
century, however, a new source of wealth was discovered,
which for two hundred years following gave a flickering prospe-
rity to these costly establishments on the East coast of Africa
— I mean the slave trade. In 1645 ''"'^ first slaves were
exported from Mogambique to Brazil. This action was brought
about by the fact that the province of Angola had fallen for a
time into the hands of the Dutch, and, therefore, the supply of
slaves to Brazil was temporarily stopped.
In consequence of this Mozambique and the Zambezi for
some years replaced West Africa as a slave market. In 1649
the English first made their appearance on this coast, and two
years afterwards the Portuguese were perturbed by the definite
establishment of a Dutch colony at the Cape, and by the
establishment of French factories on the coast of Madagascar
— events which are prophetically described by a contemporary
writer as " Qaantos passes para a ruina de Mozambique ! " —
"So many steps towards the ruin of Mogambique!" At the
same time the Arabs in the Persian Gulf drove the Portuguese
out of Maskat, and towards the end of the 17th century
began to attack their possessions on the Zanzibar coast. By
1698 Portugal had lost every fortress north of Mozambique,
and in that year this, their last stronghold, was besieged straitly
by the Arabs and very nearly captured. In fact it was only
saved by the friendly treachery of an Indian trader who warned
the Portuguese of an intended night attack. All of these posts
on the Zanzibar coast were finally abandoned ' by the Portu-
guese in the early part of the i8th century by agreement with
the Imam of Maskat, who founded the present dynasty of
Zanzibar. In 1752 this fact was recognized by the formal
^ Except Mombasa, which was retaken and held till 1730.
11.] The Portioguese in Africa. 51
delimitation of the Portuguese possessions in East Africa at the
time when they were also removed from any dependency on
the Governor of Goa. In this decree of the 19th of April,
1752, the government of Mo9ambique was described as extend-
ing over " Mogambique, Sofala, Rio de Sena (Zambezi), and
all the coast of Africa and its continent between Cape Delgado
and the Bay of Lourengo Marquez (Delagoa Bay)." Hitherto
commerce in Portuguese East Africa had been singularly
restricted, and after being first confined to the Governors and
officials of the state, was then delegated to certain companies
to whom monopolies were sold; but in 16S7 there was a fresh
arrival, after a considerable interval, of Indian traders, who
established themselves on the Island of Mocambique, and by
degrees the whole of the commerce of Portuguese East Africa
was thrown open freely to all Portuguese subjects, though it
was absolutely forbidden to the subjects of any other European
power, and considerable anger was displayed when French and
Dutch endeavoured to trade on the islands or on the coast in
the province of Mogambique. In the middle of the i8th
century the principle of sending the worst stamp of Portuguese
convicts to Mozambique was unhappily adopted in spite of the
many protests of its governors. About this same time also
there occurred a series of disasters attributable to the deplor-
able mismanagement of the Portuguese officials. The fortresses
of the gold-mining country of Manika had to be abandoned,
like Zumbo' on the upper Zambezi. The forts of the mainland
opposite Mozambique were captured by an army of Makua,
and the Island of Mozambique itself very nearly fell into the
hands of the negroes of the mainland.
Towards the close of the last century, however, occurred a
great revival. In fact, the period which then ensued was the
only bright, and to some extent glorious phase of Portuguese
^ Zumbo was given up (though it was never much more than a Jesuit
Mission Station) in 1740.
52 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
dominion in South-east Africa. A remarkable man, Dr Francisco
lose Maria de Lacerda e Almeida, was first made Governor of
Zambezia at his own request, and commenced the first scientific
exploration of southern Central Africa. His journey resulted in
the discovery of the Kazembe's division of the Lunda empire, a
country on the Luapula and Lake Mweru. It is interesting to
note that in 1796, only one year after the British' had seized
Cape Town, Dr Lacerda predicted this action would lead to
the creation of a great British Empire in Africa, which would
stretch up northwards like a wedge between the Portuguese
colonies of Angola and Mogambique. But Dr Lacerda in time
fell a victim to the fatigues of his explorations, and Portuguese
interest in East Africa waned before the life-and-death struggle
which was taking place with France in Portugal itself Long
prior to this also, in the middle of the iSth century, the
Jesuits had been expelled from all Portuguese East Africa, and
with them had fallen what little civilization had been created
on the upper Zambezi. In fact, it may be said that after
Lacerda's journey the province of Mocambique fell into a state
of inertia and decay, until Livingstone, by his marvellous
journeys, not only discovered the true course of the Zambezi
river, but drew the attention and interest of the whole world
to the development of tropical Africa.
On all old Portuguese maps, indeed on all Portuguese
maps issued prior to Livingstone's journeys, there was but
scanty recognition of the Zambezi as a great river. It was
usually referred to as the "rivers of Sena," the general im-
pression being that it consisted of a series of parallel streams.
No doubt this idea arose from its large delta ; on one or two
maps, however, the course of the Zambezi is laid down pretty
correctly from its confluence with the Kafue to the sea ; but
the fact cannot be denied that its importance as a waterway
was quite unknown to the Portuguese, who usually reached
it overland from Quelimane and travelled by land along its
banks in preference to navigating its uncertain waters. The
>!•] Tlie Portuguese in Africa. 53
Shire was literally unknown, except at its junction with the
Zambezi. The name of this river was usually spelt Cherim,
but its etymology lies in the Maiianja word chiri, which means
"a steep bank." Captain Owen, who conducted a most
remarkable series of surveying cruises along the West and East
coasts of Africa in the early part of the 19th century, was
the first to make the fact clearly known that a ship of light
draught might enter the mouth of the Zambezi from the sea
and travel up as far as Sena.
Livingstone's great journey across the African continent in
the earlier ' 5 o's' attracted the attention of the British nation
and Government to the possibilities of this region, so highly
favoured by nature in its rich soil and valuable productions.
Livingstone was appointed Consul at Quelimane, and placed
at the head of a well-equipped expedition intended to explore
the Zambezi river and its tributaries. Prior to this the Portu-
guese had abolished the slave trade by law, though slavery did
not cease as a legal status till 1878, and had thrown open
Portuguese East Africa to the commerce of all nations, and
undoubtedly these two actions were an encouragement to the
British Government to participate in the development of South-
east Africa, especially as Livingstone's journeys had shown
conclusively that the rule of the Portuguese did not extend
very far inland, nor to any great distance from the banks of
the lower Zambezi. The second Livingstone expedition may,
therefore, be regarded as the first indirect step towards the
foundation of the present Protectorate of British Central Africa,
which dependency follows to a great extent in its frontiers the
dehmitations suggested by Dr Livingstone at the close of his
second expedition.
A jealous feeling, however, arose at the time of Living-
stone's explorations between Portuguese and British, and con-
siderable pressure was brought to bear on the British Govern-
ment to abandon the results of Livingstone's discovery ; and
these representations, together with other discouraging results
54 The Colonizaiioii of Africa. [Chap.
of British enterprise in East and ^^'est Africa, induced the
British Government during the later ' 6o's ' and earlier
'70's' to hold aloof from any idea of British rule in the
interior of the continent. Meantime the Portuguese were
making praiseworthy efforts to develop these long-neglected
possessions. Great improvements were made, and a wholly
modern aspect of neatness and order was given to the towns of
Quelimane and Mozambique, which in many respects compare
favourably with other European settlements on the East coast
of Africa. Large sums were spent on public works ; indeed,
in the year 1880, the sum of not less than ;,{^i5 7,000 was
provided by the mother countrv for the erection of public
buildings in Portuguese East and West Africa, and at this
period the handsome hospital in the town of Mozambique was
erected, together with a good deal of substantial road and
bridge making. A good many more military posts were
founded, and Zumbo, on the central Zambezi, at the con-
fluence with the Luangwa, was reoccupied. Nevertheless,
Livingstone's work, and especially his death, inevitably drew
the British to Zambezia. In 1S75 the first pioneers of the
present missionary societies travelled up the Zambezi and
arrived in the Shire highlands. In 1876 the settlement of
Blantyre was commenced, and the foundations of British
Central Africa were laid. These actions impelled the Portu-
guese to greater and greater efforts to secure the dominion to
which they aspired — a continuous belt of empire stretching
across the continent from Angola to Mozambique ; and an
expenditure exhausting for the mother country was laid out on
costly expeditions productive not always of definite or satis-
factory results. This policy culminated in the effort of Serpa
Pinto to seize by force the Shire highlands, despite the
resistance offered by the Makololo chiefs, who had declared
themselves under British protection. Thence arose the inter-
vention of the British Government and a long discussion
between the two powers, which eventually bore results in a fair
ii.] TJie Portuguese in Africa. 55
delimitation of the Portuguese and British spheres of influence,
and the annulling — it is to be hoped for all time — of any
inimical feeling between England and Portugal in their African
enterprises. Mocambique has proved a costly dependency to
the mother country. From the )'ear 1508 to 1893 there was
always annually an excess of expenditure over revenue, some-
times as much as an annual deficit of ^50,000. In the year
1893, for the first time since the creation of the colony, a small
surplus was remitted to Lisbon. It is questionable whether
this possession will ever prove profitable to Portugal. At the
present day nearly two-thirds of the trade is in the hands of
British subjects — Indians and Europeans. The remainder is
divided amongst French, German, Portuguese, and Dutch
commercial houses, and a small amount of commerce is
carried on by natives of Goa or other Portuguese Indian
possessions.
The chief article of trade in the Mogambique province is
ground-nuts — the oily seeds of the Arachis hypogma, a species
of leguminous plant, the seed-pods of which grow downwards
into the soil. These ground-nuts produce an excellent and
palatable oil which is hardly distinguishable in taste from olive
oil, and which indeed furnishes a considerable part of the so-
called olive oil exported from France. This, perhaps, is the
reason why the ground-nuts find their way finally to Marseilles.
The india-rubber of Mozambique is of exceptionally good
quality and fetches a good price in the market. Other exports
are oil-seeds derived from a species of sesamum, copra, wax,
ivory, and copper. A few enterprising people started coffee
plantations on the mainland near Mogambique some years ago;
but the local Portuguese authorities immediately put on heavy
duties and taxes, so that the coffee-planting industry was soon
killed. The same thing may be said about the coco-nut palm.
At one time it was intended to plant this useful tree in large
numbers along a coast singularly adapted for its growth ; but
owing to the fact that the local Portuguese Government
56 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
imposed a yearly tax on each palm the cultivation of the
coco-nut was given up. The ivory conies chiefly from Ibo
and Cape Delgado, and also from Quelimane, and is derived
from elephants still existing in the Zambezi basin and in the
eastern parts of Nyasaland. Nevertheless, most of the
products above alluded to, with the exception of ivory, are
only furnished by the fertile coast belt, for beyond the twenty
mile strip of cultivated land which extends more or less down
the whole coast of Mo9ambique, the interior of the country is
dry and arid except in certain favoured river valleys.
Unfortunately all the trade in the Mo(;ambique province is
terribly hampered by the very high import duties, which in
many cases are as much as 37 per cent, ad valorem ; there are
also export duties on some of the products of the country.
Were it not for this fiscal policy, undoubtedly this part of
Africa would be frequented by innumerable Indian traders
and by a very much larger number of Europeans than is at
present the case.
Portuguese influence, though not Portuguese rule, was
carried southward to the northern shore of Delagoa Bay at the
end of the 17th century. Here the settlement of Louren90
Marquez was founded as a trading station. At the beginning
of the i8th century this Portuguese station was abandoned, and
the Cape Dutch came and built a factory there, which however
was destroyed by the English in 1727. Nevertheless Portugal
continued to assert her claims to Louren^o Marquez ; and
when in 1776 an Englishman named Bolts (formerly in the
employ of the English East India Company), who had entered
the service of Maria Theresa in order to found an Austrian
Company to trade with the East Indies from Flanders, came
thither with a large band composed of Austrian-Italian subjects,
and made treaties with the chiefs at Delagoa Bay, the Portu-
guese protested and addressed representations to the Austrian
Government. These protestations would have been of but
little avail had not a terrible outbreak of fever carried off
II.] The Portuguese in Africa. 57
almost all the European settlers. The Austrian claim was
therefore abandoned, and the Portuguese continued at intervals
to make their presence felt there by a quasi-military com-
mandant or a Government trading establishment. When
Captain Owen's expedition visited Delagoa Bay between 1822
and 1824 they found a small Portuguese establishment on the
site of the present town of Lourengo Marquez'. Realizing
the importance of this harbour, and finding no evidence of
Portuguese claims to its southern shore, Captain Owen con-
cluded treaties with the King of Tembe by which the southern
part of Delagoa Bay was ceded to Great Britain. The Portu-
guese made an indirect protest by removing the British flag
during Captain Owen's absence, but the flag was rehoisted in
1824. Owen's action, however, was not followed up by effec-
tive occupation, though on the other hand the Portuguese did
nothing to reassert their authority over the south shore of the
bay until in the '6o's' when the growing importance of
South Africa led the Enghsh to reassert their claims. The
matter was submitted to arbitration, and Marshal MacMahon,
the President of the French Republic, was chosen as arbitrator.
His verdict — a notoriously biassed one — not only gave the
Portuguese the south shore of Delagoa Bay, but even more
territory than they actually laid claim to. England had to
some extent prepared herself for an unfavourable verdict by a
prior agreement providing that whichever of the two disputing
powers came to possess the whole or part of Delagoa Bay
should give the other the right of pre-emption.
Reading the vast mass of evidence brought forward and
preserved in Blue Books, it seems to the present writer that
any dispassionate judge would arrive at these conclusions :
That the Portuguese claims to the northern shore of Delagoa
Bay were vaHd, but that over the southern shore of that
^ The modern and existing town of that name was not founded till
1867.
58 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
important inlet they had exercised no occupation and raised
no claim until the arrival of Captain Owen and his treaty-
making, and that even after the action taken by Captain Owen
their only procedure was to remove the flag he had raised,
but not to follow up any such step by occupation or treaty-
making on their own account. Captain Owen's action was
not repudiated by the British Government, who besides had
other rights over the territory in question inherited from the
Dutch. Captain Owen's action was not, it is true, suc-
ceeded by immediate occupation, and the British case would
have been a very weak one judged by the severe rules of
the Berlin Convention of 1SS4. But then, if Portuguese
territory in East Africa had been delimited by the same
severe rules it would have been reduced to a few fortified
settlements. Great Britain had a fair claim to the south shore
of Delagoa Bay, and the award of Marshal MacMahon was a
prejudiced one, said to have been mainly due to the influence
of his wife, who was an ardent Roman Catholic, and had been
won over to the Portuguese cause in other ways.
Subsequent to the Delagoa Bay award, the Portuguese
made determined efforts to explore and conquer the South-east
coast of Africa and the countries along the lower Zambezi.
To the extreme north of their Mozambique possessions they
had a dispute with the Sultan of Zanzibar as to the possession
of Tungi Bay and the south shore of the mouth of the river
Ruvuma. After their disastrous struggle with the Arabs in
the 17th and i8th centuries the Portuguese had defined the
northern limit of their East African possessions as Cape
Delgado, and Cape Delgado would have given them the whole
of Tungi Bay, though not the mouth of the Ruvuma. It is
evident that the Sultan of Zanzibar was trespassing as a ruler
when he claimed Tungi Bay, though not when he claimed the
mouth of the Ruvuma. Portugal, losing patience at the time
of the division of the Zanzibar Sultanate between England and
Germany, made an armed descent on Tungi Bay in 1889, and
I1-] The Portuguese in Africa. 59
has since held it, though the Germans withdrew from her
control the Ruvuma mouth, which they claimed as an in-
heritance of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
The establishment of the British South African Compan)'
in 1889, and the consequent development of Mashonaland and
Matabeleland subjected the Portuguese territories south of
the Zambezi to a searching scrutiny on the part of these
merchant adventurers, who laid hands on behalf of Great
Britain on all territory where the Portuguese could not prove
claims supported by occupation or ruling influence. The
strongest temptation existed to ignore Portuguese claims on
the Pungwe river and push a way down to the sea at Beira ;
but a spirit of justice prevailed and no real transgression of
Portuguese rights was sanctioned by the British Government,
or indeed attempted by the Company. In June, 1891, after
several unsuccessful attempts, a convention was arrived at
between England and Portugal, which defined tolerably clearly
the boundaries of British and Portuguese territories in South-
east, South-west, and South-central Africa. Rights of way were
obtained under fair conditions both at Beira and at Chinde.
Since this time a friendlier feeling has been growing up
between the English and Portuguese. The Portuguese have
been making steady efforts to bring under control their richly
endowed East African province. For some time after their
settlement with Great Britain they were menaced in the south
by the power of Gungunyama, a Zulu king who ruled over the
Gaza country, and who had been in the habit of raiding the
interior behind the Portuguese settlements of Lourengo
Marquez and Inhambane. The Portuguese warred against
him for three years without satisfactory results, until Major
Mouzinho de Albuquerque by a bold stroke of much bravery
marched into Gungunyama's camp with a handful of Portuguese
soldiers and took the king prisoner. For this gallant action he
was eventually promoted to be Governor-General of Portuguese
East Africa, and has since done something towards bringing
CHAPTER III.
SPANISH AFRICA.
The enterprise of Spain in Africa was relatively so small
(the greater part of Spanish energy being devoted to founding
an empire in the New World, in the far East, in Italy and
Flanders) and was also politically so knit up at first with the
Portuguese colonial empire that the lictle there is to say about
it may be recorded in the shortest chapter of this book.
At the close of the isth century the Spaniards followed up
their expulsion of the Moors from Spain by attacking them on
the North coast of Africa. They established themselves at
Melilla', Oran, Algiers", Bugia, Bona, Hunein, Susa, Monastir,
Mehedia, Sfax, and Goletta^ The apogee of Spanish power in
North Africa was reached about 1535, at which time the
Spaniards alternately with the Turks dominated the Barbary
States. Then, owing to victory inclining to the Turkish
corsairs'*, the Spaniards' hold over the country began to
^ In 1490.
- Or the rock, or " Penon," overlooking the town, seized and garrisoned
by Cardinal Ximenez in 1509. It was taken by Khaireddin, the Turkish
corsair, in 1530.
^ Held by Spain from 1535 to 1574.
^ The following is a resiani of the history of the intervention of Turkey
in Barbary. In 1504 Uruj (Barbarossa I), a pirate of mixed Turco-Greek
origin, attracted by the rumours of American treasure-ships in the western
Mediterranean, captured Algiers (1516) and Tlemsan (1517); but he was
defeated and killed by the Spaniards coming from Oran. His younger
brother Khaireddin (Barbarossa II) appealed to Turkey, which had just
(1518) conquered Egypt, and received from Sultan Selim the title of
Turkish Beglerbeg of Algiers and a reinforcement of 2000 Turks. He
62 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
decline. A resolute attempt was made by Charles V in 1541
to take and hold the town of Algiers, the Spanish having lost
Penon, a rock fortress overlooking part of the town. This
attempt of 1541 (only less serious than the French expedition
of 1830) would probably have succeeded but for a torrential
downpour of rain, which made the surrounding country impass-
able to the Spanish guns and cavalry, and led to a terrible rout.
Had Algiers fallen at this time its capture might have resulted
in a Spanish empire of North Africa. As it was, this twenty-
four hours' downpour of rain changed the future of the northern
part of the continent, or rather prevented a change which
might have had very far-reaching results. Charles V had
invaded Tunis in 1535 at the appeal of the last sovereign but
one of the House of Hafs, who had been dispossessed by the
Turkish pirate, Khaireddin. Although his intervention was
ultimately unsuccessful, and his protege was killed and suc-
ceeded by his son — who more or less intrigued with the
Turkish corsairs — the Spaniards retained their hold on Goletta
till 1574, the Turks having then definitely intervened in the
affairs of Tunis. The Spaniards surrendered Goletta to the
renegade pirate, Ochiali, and with it went all their influence
over Tunis. An expedition which they had sent to the island
of Jerba in 1560, under the Duke de .Medina-Cceli and the
younger Doria, ended in a great disaster, a defeat at the hands
of the Moorish pirates who massacred, it is said, not less than
18,000 Spaniards (May, 1560). Their skulls were built into
a tower, which remained visible near the town of Humt Suk
till 1840, when the kindly Maltese settlers on this island
obtained permission from the Bey of Tunis to give Christian
burial to the Spanish skulls, which now are interred in the
mastered almost all Algeria; was made Admiral of the Turkish fleet
in 1533; captured Tunis in 1534; was driven out by Charles V; and
retired to Turkey in 1535. His successors were sometimes Sardinian,
Calabrian, Venetian, Hungarian renegades ; but among the more celebrated
was Dragut, a Turk of Caramania.
III.] Spanish Africa. 6^,
Christian cemetery at Humt Suk. For brief intervals the
Spaniards held other coast towns' of Tunis, but in retiring
from Goletta they withdrew from all their places in the
Regency.
They were finally expelled from Oran in 1791. They had
been turned out of this place in 1708, but recaptured it
after a period of 24 years, and held it for 59 years longer.
Spain only retains at the present day on the North coast
of Africa the little island of Melilla^, the island of Alhucemas,
the rock of Velez de la Gomera, the Chafarinas Islands",
and the rocky promontory of Ceuta. Ceuta (and Tetwan,
which she once possessed) she inherited from Portugal after
a separation had once more taken place between the two
monarchies in 1640. On the strength of some clause in an
old treaty Spain has also recently secured from Morocco the
town of Ifni, near Cape Nun on the Atlantic coast and nearly
opposite the Canary Islands.
The Canary Islands were discovered by a Norman adven-
turer, Jean de Bethencourt, were occupied by Portugal, but
ceded by that country to Spain (or rather, Castile) in 1479.
Prior to their occupation the islands were inhabited by a
Berber race of some antiquity known as the Guanches. These
were partly exterminated, and partly absorbed by the Spanish
settlers, to whom they were so much akin in blood that
complete race fusion was rendered easy, especially as the
Guanches had not been reached by Muhammadanism. The
Canary Islands now form politically part of Spain. They are
thoroughly civilized, and are well governed and prosperous.
The two principal islands, Tenerife and Grand Canary, are
favourite health resorts.
^ Susa, Sfax, and Monastir, which were lost to the Turks by 1550.
^ The oldest of her continental African possessions, dating from 1490.
' The Chafarinas Islands are off the mouth of the Muluya river, near
the Algerian frontier. They were seized by the Spaniards in 1849,
forestalling the French.
64 Tlu: Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
Curiously enough Spain allowed her influence over the
coast opposite the Canary Islands to lapse between the end of
the 1 6th centur)- and the scramble for Africa which com-
menced in 1884. Meantime an English trading firm with
agencies in the Canary Islands had been established at Cape
Tuby, south of the Morocco border, and British influence for a
time dominated the coast immediately opposite the Canary
Islands, and arrested Spanish action in that neighbourhood.
When the scramble for Africa took place in 1884, however, the
Spanish, who were greatly interested in the North-west coast,
raised their flag at an inlet called the Rio d'Ouro', and de-
clared a Protectorate over the Sahara coast between Cape
Blanco and Cape Bojador and for a varying distance inland.
This Protectorate has since been extended slightly to the
north beyond Cape Bojador, but the Empire of Morocco now
extends to the south of Cape Juby to meet the Spanish
frontier, the Moorish Government having bought up the claims
of the English company. The inland boundary of this Spanish
Protectorate is not yet settled as between France and Spain.
The only settlement of any importance or size is at the Rio
d'Ouro.
In 1778 Spain, which had become very much interested in
the slave trade on the West coast of Africa, on account of the
need for a regular supply of slaves to her South American
possessions, obtained from Portugal the cession of the island
of Fernando Po, and also took over the island of Anno Bom
— the last of this series of equatorial volcanic islands and the
smallest. About the same time the Spaniards made a settle-
ment at Corisco Bay". The Spanish claims extend some
distance up the river Muni. No boundaries have as yet been
^ This Portuguese name becomes in Spanish Rio de Oro.
^ This also, lil:e so many other places on the West coast of Africa, was
named by the Portuguese; Corisco meaning "sheet lightning," a name
applied to the place because it was first seen during a violent thunder-
storm.
in.] Spanish Africa. 65
settled with the French. This very interesting strip of Equa-
torial West African Coast is emphatically the home of the
gorilla.
At the end of the i8th century the Spanish island of
Fernando Po was almost abandoned. When the British under-
took to put down the slave trade off the West African Coast,
Fernando Po became their head-quarters (in r829), and in
time they were allowed to administer it by the Spanish
Government, the British representative or "Superintendent"
being made at the same time a Governor with a Spanish
commission. But in 1844 the Spanish decided to resume the
direct administration, and refused to sell their rights to Great
Britain, though overtures were made to that end. Until ten
years ago nothing had been done to develop the resources
of this densely forested, very fertile, but unhealthy island. Of
late, however, some encouragement has been given to planters.
From the island having been for so long under British control,
English is understood in Fernando Po much better than
Spanish, and a number of freed slaves from Sierra Leone are
settled there who talk nothing but an English dialect The
indigenous inhabitants are a Bantu tribe of short stature
known as the Bube\ This tribe is distantly related to the
people of the northern part of the Cameroons, and speaks a
Bantu dialect.
' Bube is said to be a cant term meaning "male" (from the Bantu
root, -ume, -lume) and the real name of this race is Ediya.
J. A.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DUTCH IN AFRICA.
Although, as will be seen in Chapter VI, British explorers
were the first adventurers of other nationalities to follow the
Portuguese in the e.xploration of Africa, the Dutch, as
settlers and colonists, are almost entitled to rank chronologi-
cally next to the Portuguese and Spanish. The Dutch made
their first trading vo3'age to the Guinea Coast in 1595, 16 years
after throwing off the yoke of Spain. On the plea of warring
with the Spanish Empire, which then included Portugal, they
displaced the latter power at various places along the West
coast of Africa — at Arguin, at Goree (purchased from the
natives 1621), Elmina (1637), and at Sao Paulo de Loanda
about the same time ; while they also threatened Mozambique
on the East coast, and possessed themselves of the island of
Mauritius, which had been a place of call for Portuguese ships.
On the West coast of Africa, besides supplanting the Portu-
guese, the Dutch established themselves strongly on the Gold
Coast by means of 16 new forts of their own\ in most cases
^ Their "capital" A\as at Elmina; they held — when in full vigour —
Fort Nassau (built before they took Elmina from the Portuguese),
Kormantin, Secondee, Takorari, Accra, Cape Coast Castle, Vredenburg,
Chama, Batenstein, Dikjeschopt (Insuma), Fort Elise Carthage (Ankobra),
Apollonia, Dixcove, Axim, Prince's Fort near Cape Three-points, Fort
Wibsen, and Pokquesoe. Before the abolition of the slave trade, Dutch
Guinea was very prosperous. It was governed by a subsidized Chartered
Chap, iv.] The Dutch iri Africa. 6j
alongside British settlements, which were regarded by the
Dutch with the keenest jealousy.
Dutch hold on the Gold Coast produced an impression in
the shape of a race of Dutch half-castes, which endures to this
day, and furnishes useful employes to the British Government
in many minor capacities. But after the abolition of the slave
trade Dutch commerce with the Guinea Coast began to wane,
and their political influence disappeared also: so that by 1872
the last of the Dutch ports had been transferred to Great
Britain in return for the cession on our part of rights we
possessed over Sumatra. Meantime Dutch trade had begun
to take firm hold over the Congo and Angola Coast, and it is
possible that, had the cession of the Gold Coast forts been
delayed a few years longer, it would never have been made, for
Holland possesses a considerable trade with Africa, and there
has been a strong feeling of regret in the Netherlands for
some time past at the exclusion of that country's flag from
the African continent.
But a far more important colonization than a foothold on
the Slave-trade Coast was made indirectly for Holland in the
middle of the 17th century; the Dutch East India Company,
desirous of making the Cape of Good Hope something more
than a port of call, which might fall into the hands of Portugal,
France, England, or any other rival, decided to occupy that
important station. The Dutch had taken possession of St
Helena in 1645, but a Dutch ship having been wrecked at
Table Bay in 1648, the crew landed, and encamped where
Company — the Dutch West India Co. — under the control of the States
General, and the local government consisted of a Governor-General at
Elmina, a chief Factor (or trader), a chief Fiscal (or accountant-general),
an under-fiscal (or auditor) and a large staff of factors, accountants,
secretaries, clerks and assistant clerks. There was a chaplain ; there were
Dutch soldiers under Dutch officers who garrisoned the forts. After the
wars of the French Revolution the Dutch Government took over the
management of these establishments on the Gold Coast.
5—2
68 TJie Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
Cape Town now stands. Here they were obliged to live for
five months, until picked up by other Dutch ships ; but during
this period they sowed and reaped grain, and obtained plenty
of meat from the natives, with whom they were on good terms.
The favourable report they gave of this country on their return
to Holland decided the Dutch Company, after years of hesita-
tion, to take possession of Table Bay. An expedition was
sent out under Jan van Riebeek, a ship's surgeon, who had
already visited South Africa. The three ships of Van Riebeek's
expedition reached Table Bay on the 6th of April, 1652^
At different periods in the early part of the i6th century
the Dutch had consolidated their sea-going ventures into two
great chartered companies — the Dutch Company of the West
Indies, and the Dutch Company of the East Indies. The
West Indian Company took over all the settlements on the
West Coast of Africa, and had the monopoly of trade or rule
along all the Atlantic Coast of tropical America. The East
India Company was to possess the hke monopoly from the
Pacific Coast of South America across the Indian Ocean to
the Cape of Good Hope. The head-quarters of the East
India Company, where their Governor-General and Council
were established, was at Batavia, in the island of |ava It was
not at first intended to establish anything like a colony in
South Africa — merely a secure place of call for the ships
engaged in the East Indian trade. But circumstances proved
too strong for this modest reserve. The inevitable quarrel
arose between the Dutch garrison at Table Bay and the
surrounding Hottentots. At the time of the Dutch settlement
of the Cape all the south-west corner of Africa was in-
habited only and sparsely by Hottentots and Bushmen; the
prolific Bantu Negroes not coming nearer to the Dutch than
' As Mr Lucas points out in his Historical Geography of tlu British
Colonies, "165 years after Bartolomeu Diaz had sighted the Cape of
Good Hope."
IV.] The Dutch in Africa. 69
the vicinity of Algoa Bay. A little war occurred with the
Hottentots in 1659, as a result of which the Dutch first won
by fighting, and subsequently bought, a small coast strip of
land from Saldanha Bay on the north to False Bay on the
south, thus securing the peninsula which terminates at the
Cape of Good Hope. French sailing vessels were in the habit
of calling at Saldanha Bay, and in 1666 and 1670 desultory
attempts were made by the French to estabHsh a footing there.
Holland also about this time was alternately at war with
England or France or both powers. Therefore the Dutch re-
solved to build forts more capable of resisting European attack
than those which were sufficient to defend the colony against
Hottentots. Still, in spite of occasional unprovoked hostilities
on the part of the Dutch, they were left in possession of the
Cape of Good Hope for more than a hundred years. The
English had St Helena as a place of call (which they took
from the Dutch in 1655), and the French had settlements
in Madagascar and at Mauritius, where they succeeded a
former Dutch occupation. On the other hand, the officials of
the Dutch Company were instructed to show civility to all
comers without undue generosity ; they might supply them
with water for their ships, but they were to give as httle as
possible in the way of provisions and ships' stores. It was to
the interest of both France and England that some European
settlement should exist at the Cape of Good Hope for the
refreshment of vessels and the refuge of storm-driven ships.
After several attempts, which continued down to 1673, to
dispossess the English of St Helena, the Dutch finally sur-
rendered the island to them. They had also in 1598
taken the Island of Mauritius, and commenced a definite
occupation in 1640. But this island was abandoned in 17 10,
and became soon afterwards a French possession. So that the
French at Mauritius on the one hand (and also at the Island
of Bourbon) and the English on the other at St Helena, had
places of call where they could break the long voyage to and
70 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
from India, and were therefore content to leave the Dutch
undisturbed in South Africa.
The Government of the Netherlands East India Company
was thoroughly despotic. It was administered by a Chamber
of 17 directors at Amsterdam, with deputies at Batavia. The
Commandant at the Cape, who was alternately under the
orders of Amsterdam and Batavia — and who might be over-
ruled by any officer of superior rank who called at his station
in passing — was the slave of the Company, and had to carry
out its orders implicitly. He was advised in his local legis-
lation by an executive council, which consisted of a number of
officers, who assisted him in the administration, and who
legislated by means of proclamations and orders in council
without any representation of popular opinion among the
colonists, who, however, in time were allowed to elect mem-
bers of the Council of Justice (i.e. High Court).
After the first three years' hesitation, strenuous efforts were
directed to the development of agriculture, especially the
cultivation of grain. Wheat was sown in suitable localities,
and vines were planted on the hillsides at the back of Cape
Town. Nevertheless the colonists were terribly hampered by
restrictions, which made them almost slaves to the Company.
White labour proving expensive and somewhat rebellious, an
attempt was made to introduce Negro slaves from .Angola and
Guinea, but they were not a success as field labourers. The
Dutch therefore turned towards Madagascar, and above all, to
the Malay Archipelago, and from the latter especially workers
were introduced who have in time grown into a separate
population of Muhammadan freemen of considerable pros-
perity'. As Dutch immigrants still held back from settling
the Cape with an abundant population {owing to the greed
and despotic meddlesomeness of the Company), it became
more and more necessary to introduce black labour, and in
' The " Cape ^^alays."
IV.] The Dutch in Africa. 71
the first half of the i8th century many negro slaves were
imported from West Africa and from Mogambique. The
Cape became a slave-worked colony, but on the whole the
slaves were treated with kindness ; their children were sent to
school, and some attempt was made to introduce Christianity
amongst them. The people really to be pitied, however, were
not the imported slaves, but the Hottentots, who had become
a nation of serfs to the Dutch farmers, and whose numbers
began greatly to diminish under the influence of drink and
syphilis, and from being driven away by degrees from the
fertile, well-watered lands back into the inhospitable deserts.
After the colony had been established 30 years a census
showed a total of 663 Dutch settlers, of whom 162 were
children. For about the same period few if any attempts were
made to explore the country 100 miles from Cape Town; but
the coast from Little Namaqualand on the West to Zululand
on the East had been examined by the end of the 17th cen-
tury. Indeed the Bay of Natal was purchased by a represen-
tative of the Netherlands Company in 1689, but the ship
bringing back the purchase deed was lost, and no further
attempt was made to push the claim. In 1684 the first export
of grain to the Indies took place, and in 1688 some Cape wine
was sent to Ceylon. In 1685 and in subsequent years repre-
sentations were made to the directors in Amsterdam that the
colony consisted mainly of bachelors, and that good marriage-
able girls should be sent out. The result of this appeal was
that in 1687 many of the free Burghers (namely, persons more
or less independent of the Company) had been furnished with
wives, and they and their famihes amounted to nearly 600, in
addition to 439 other Europeans, who were mainly employes
of the Company.
In 1685, Louis XIV unwittingly dealt a fearful blow to
France in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which resulted
in thousands of French Protestants emigrating to other countries
where they might enjoy freedom of religion. The Protestant
72 Tlie Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
Dutch sympathized with the homeless Huguenots, and the
Netherlands Company decided to give free passages and grants
of land to a number of these refugees. By 1689 nearly
200 French emigrants had been landed at the Cape and
settled in the mountain country behind Cape Town. Here,
however, they were not allowed to form a separate community.
They were scattered amongst the Dutch settlers, their children
were taught Dutch, and in a few years they were thoroughly
absorbed in the Dutch community ; though they have left
ineffaceable traces of their presence in the many French sur-
names to be met with amongst the South African Dutch at
the present day (always pronounced however in the Dutch
way), and in the dark eyes, dark hair, and handsome features
of the better type of Frenchman. Handsomer men and women
than are some of the Afrikanders it would be impossible to
meet with, but this personal beauty is almost invariably trace-
able to Huguenot ancestry. The French settlers taught the
Dutch improved methods of growing corn and wine, and
altogether more scientific agriculture. Towards the latter end
of the 17th century the Dutch introduced the oak tree into the
Cape Peninsula and the suburbs of Cape Town, where it is
now such a handsome and prominent feature. All this time
the Hottentots gave almost no trouble. They were employed
here and there as servants ; but they attempted no insurrection
against the European settlers, though they quarrelled very
much amongst themselves. In 17 13 large numbers of them
were exterminated by an epidemic of smallpox. The Dutch
had not yet come into contact with the so-called Kafftrs'.
Towards the middle of the i8th century the Dutch Com-
pany ceased to prosper — suffering from French and English
competition. Already, at the beginning of the i8th century,
1 It will be no doubt remembered that this term is derived from the
Arab word "unbeliever." The Arabs of south-east Africa applied this
term to the Negroes around their settlements. The Portuguese took it up
from the Arabs, and the Dutch and English from the Portuguese.
IV.] Tlie Dutch in Africa. 73
its oppressive rule, and the abuse of power on the part of its
governors, who used its authority and its servants to enrich
themselves, resulted in an uprising amongst the settlers, and
although some of these were arrested, imprisoned, and exiled,
the Company gave some redress to their grievances by for-
bidding its officials in future to own land or to trade. Even
before this the Company had found it necessary to place a
special official, answering to an Auditor-General and an in-
dependent judge combined, alongside the Commandant or
Governor, directly responsible to the Directors and independent
of the Governor's authority; but this institution only led to
quarrels and divided loyalty. Amongst the governors there
were some able and upright men, and special mention may be
made of Governor Tulbagh, who ruled without reproach and
with great ability for twenty years (1751-71)'.
In spite of licences and monopolies, tithes, taxes, and
rents, the Company could not pay its way in Cape Colony.
In 1779, it was more closely associated with the State in
Holland by the appointment of the Stadhouder (or Head of
the State) as perpetual Chief Director. With this change, the
Company, partly supported by the State, managed to continue
the direction of its affairs, and there was possibly some lessen-
ing of restrictions, which enabled settlers to live further afield.
Until the beginning of the i8th century a standing order had
forbidden trading between the settlers and the natives, but
this order being abolished, the farmers commenced to buy
cattle from the Hottentots, and the population became more
scattered. In leasing land to the farmers the Company laid
down the rule that clear spaces of three miles should intervene
between one homestead and the next, and this rule brought
about a wider distribution of European settlers than was con-
templated in the Company's policy.
^ Tulbagh deserves special remembrance not only from his geo-
graphical explorations, but from the fact that he was the first person
to send specimens of the giraffe to Europe.
74 The Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
By the beginning of the i8th century the Dutch settlers
had begun to cross the mountains which He behind the narrow
belt of coast land that forms a projection into the ocean on
either side of the Cape of Good Hope. Seventy years later
the boundaries of Cape Colony on the north and west were
the Berg River and the Zwartebergen Mountains, and on the
east the Gamtoos River. A few years later the pioneers of
colonization had crossed the Berg River, and had established
themselves as far north as the Olifants River, so named be-
cause earlier explorers had seen on its banks herds of hundreds
of elephants. The Orange River was first discovered in 1760,
and in 1779 Captain Gordon, a Scotchman in the service of
the Dutch Company, had traced it for some distance down to
its mouth, and had named it after the head of the Dutch State.
Hitherto, the Dutch Government was confined to a narrow
coast strip, but in 1785 the district of Graaf Reinet ' was formed,
and the same name was given to the village which formed its
capital. Then the Dutch boundary crept up to the Great Fish
River, which rises far away to the north, near the course of the
Orange River. This Great Fish River remained the eastern-
most boundary of the Colony in Dutch times. To the north
its limits were vague, and in one direction reached nearly to
the Orange River, beyond the second great range of South
African mountains — the Sneeubergen. But beyond the imme-
diate limits of Cape Colony the Dutch displayed some interest.
They attempted to seize Mogambique from the Portuguese in
1643. They opened up a furtive and occasional trade with
the Portuguese coast of East Africa, which at first began for
slaves (numbers of Makua were brought from MoQambique to
Cape Town) and continued for tropical products, and, with
many interruptions, resulted in the establishment at the present
^ Named after Van de Graaf, who "was Governor at the time
"Reinet" means in Dutch "a goat's beard," but I have not been abl(
to discover why this term should have been added to the name of th(
Governor.
IV.] The Dutch in Africa. 75
day of important Dutch commercial firms along the Mozambique
coast. In 1720, after abandoning Mauritius, an expedition
was sent from Cape Colony to Delagoa Bay, which, though
claimed by the Portuguese, had been abandoned by them at
the beginning of the i8th century, so far as actual occupation
was concerned. (See above, p- 56.) A fort was built by the
Dutch which was named Lydzaamheid, and tentative explora-
tions were made in the direction of the Zambezi, from which
gold dust was procured. During ten years of occupation,
however, the deaths from fever were so numerous that the
settlement was given up in 1730.
In 1770 the total European population in Cape Colony
was nearly 10,000, of whom more than 8000 were free colonists,
and the remainder " servants " and employes of the Company.
All this time, although the prosperity of the Cape increased and
its export of wheat, wine, and live-stock progressed satisfactorily,
the revenue invariably failed to meet the expenditure, and if
other events had not occurred the Dutch Company must soon
have been compelled by bankruptcy to transfer the administra-
tion of the Cape to other hands. But towards the close of the
18th century, the Dutch, too weak to resist the influence of
France and Russia, were showing veiled hostility towards
England, with the result that England — which on the other
hand was secretly longing to possess the Cape, owing to the
development of the British Empire in India — declared war
against the Netherlands at the end of 1780. In 1781 a British
fleet under Commodore Johnstone left England for the Cape
of Good Hope with 3000 troops on board. Johnstone, how-
ever, from storms and other reasons not so apparent, but
possibly due to a certain indecision of mind, delayed his fleet
at Porto Praya, in the Cape Verde Islands, and news of the
expedition having been treacherously imparted to France by
persons in England who were in her pay. Admiral Suffren —
one of the greatest of seamen — surprised the British fleet at
the Cape Verde Islands with a squadron of inferior strength,
76 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
and gave it such a sound drubbing that Johnstone was dela)'ed
for several months in reaching Cape Town, where the French
had preceded him, and had landed sufficient men to make a
British attack on Cape Town of doubtful success. Johnstone
therefore contented himself in a not very creditable way with
destroying the unarmed Dutch shipping in the port, and then
left Cape Town without effecting a landing. The result was the
garrisoning of Cape Town by a French regiment for two more
years, during which time however another attempt was made
by the British to seize the Cape, which was nearly success-
ful. During this war, however, England apparently made
up her mind that the possession of the Cape of Good Hope
and of Trincomalee in Ceylon was necessary to the welfare
of her Indian possessions, and did not lose sight of this policy
when the next legitimate opportunity presented itself to make
war upon Holland. On the other hand, the French, though
they withdrew their troops in 1783, were equally alive to the
importance of the Cape, and in the great duel which was to
take place between the two nations it is tolerably certain that
South Africa would never have remained in the hands of the
Dutch ; if it had not become English it would have been taken
and kept by the French.
About this time the Dutch came into conflict with the
Kaffirs. This vanguard of the great Bantu race had been
invading southern Africa almost concurrently with the white
people. Coming from the north-east and north they had — we
may guess — crossed the Zambezi about the commencement of
the Christian Era, and their invasion had brought about the
partial destruction and abandonment of the Sabaean or Arab
settlements in the gold-mining districts of south-east Africa.
The Semitic inhabitants of Zimbabwe and other mining centres
had been driven back to the coast at Sofala. The progress of
the black Bantu against the now more concentrated Hottentots
and Bushmen was then somewhat slower, delayed no doubt by
natural obstacles, by the desperate defence of the Hottentots,
IV-] Tlic Dutch in Africa. yj
the tracts of waterless country on the west, and internecine war-
fare amongst themselves. Overlaying the first three divisions
of Bantu invaders came down across the Zambezi from the
districts of Tanganyika the great Zulu race, akin to the Maka-
laka and Bechuana people who had preceded them, but less
mixed with Hottentot blood, and speaking a less corrupted
Bantu language'. By the beginning of the i8th century this
seventh wave — as one may call it — of Bantu invasion had
swept as far south as the Great Kei River, and some years
later had pushed the Hottentots back to the Great Fish River.
In 1778 they came into direct contact with the Dutch, and the
Governor of the Cape entered into an agreement with the
Kaffir chiefs that the Great Fish River should be the boundary
between Dutch rule and Kaffir settlement. Nevertheless, this
agreement was soon transgressed by the Kaffirs, who com-
menced raiding the Dutch settlers. In 1781 the first Kaffir
war ended disastrously for the Bantu invaders, who were
driven back for a time to the Kei River. Eight years later
they again invaded Cape Colony. A foolish policy of con-
cihation was adopted, which ended by the Kaffirs being
allowed to settle on the Dutch side of the Great Fish River
in 1789.
In 1790 the Netherlands East India Company was prac-
tically bankrupt, and in the following year (when it was com-
puted that the European population of the Cape numbered
14,600 persons, owning 17,003 slaves) the Dutch Governor was
recalled to Europe, and the country was for a year left in a
state of administrative chaos, until two Commissioners, sent out
by the States General, arrived and took over the government.
But the next year these Commissioners went on to Batavia,
' Nevertheless, by their final and more complete contact with the
Hottentots the Zulu-Kaffirs adopted three of the Hottentot clicks ; whereas
earlier invaders — Makalaka, Bechuana, and Herero — though adopting a
few Hottentot terms, kept clear of Hottentot phonetics, and use no clicks
to this day.
78 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
and the Burghers of the interior districts became so dissatisfied
with the mismanagement of affairs that they expelled their
magistrates and took the administration of their district into
their own hands, calling themselves '• Nationals," and becoming
to some degree infected with the spirit of the French Revolution.
Meantime, in the same year, 1793, the Dutch Government had
joined England and Prussia in making war upon France. Two
years afterwards — in 1795 — the French troops had occupied
Holland, and had turned it into the Batavian Republic, a state
in alliance with France. The Prince of Orange, hereditary
Stadhouder of the Netherlands, had fled to England, and in
the spring of 1795 he authorized the British Government to
occupy Cape Colony on behalf of the States General in order
to obviate its seizure by the French. In June 1795 a British
fleet carrying troops commanded by General Craig arrived at
False Bay. The Dutch were not very willing to surrender
Cape Town at the first demand, even though the interior of
the country was in revolt against the Company. Both the
officer administering the Compan3's Government and the dis-
satisfied Burghers sank their differences in opposition to the
landing of the British. The latter were anxious to avoid
hostilities, and therefore spent a month in negotiations, but
on the 14th of July the British forcibly occupied Simon Town,
and three weeks later drove the Dutch from a position they
had taken up near Cape Town. In September 3000 more
troops arrived under General Clarke, and in the middle of that
month marched on Cape Town from the south-east. A capi-
tulation was finally arranged after an attack and a defence
which had been half-hearted. Thenceforth for eight years the
English occupied Cape Town and administered the adjoining
colony. At first their rule was military, just, and satisfactory ;
afterwards when a civilian governor was sent out a system of
corruption and favouritism was introduced which caused much
dissatisfaction. The British also had made it known that they
only held the colony in trust for the Stadhouder, and this made
IV.] Tlie Diitcli in Africa. 79
the Dutch settlers uncertain as to their allegiance. Meantime,
however, the British administration gave some satisfaction to
the settlers by its policy of free trade and open markets, and
by certain reliefs in taxation ; also by the institution of a
Burgher Senate of six members. But the Boers of the interior
remained for some time recalcitrant. The Dutch, moreover,
made an attempt to regain possession of the Cape by despatch-
ing a fleet of nine ships with 2000 men on board, which, how-
ever, was made to surrender at Saldanha Bay by Admiral
Elphinstone and General Craig without firing a shot. Kaffir
raids recommenced, and the British having organized a
Hottentot corps of police, the other Hottentots who were
serfs to the Dutch rose in insurrection against their former
rhasters. When in 1803 the British evacuated Cape Town
they did not leave the colony in a sufficiently satisfactory
condition to encourage the Dutch settlers to opt for British
rule. From 1803 to 1806 the Dutch Government ruled Cape
Colony as a colony, and not as the appendage of a Chartered
company, which had now disappeared. The Cape ceased to
be subordinate to Batavia, and possessed a Governor and
Council of its own. A check was placed on the importation
of slaves, and European immigration was encouraged. Postal
communication and the administration of justice were organized
or improved. In fact, the Commissioner-General De Mist and
Governor Janssens, in the two years and nine months of their
rule, laid the foundations of an excellent system of colonial
government. But the march of events was too strong for
them. The great minister Pitt, in the summer of 1805, secretly
organized an expedition which should carry nearly 7000 troops
to seize the Cape. In spite of delays and storms, this fleet
reached Table Bay at the beginning of January, 1806. Six
British regiments were landed 18 miles north of Cape Town.
Governor Janssens went out to meet them with such poor
forces as he could gather together — 2000 in all against 4000
British. The result of course was disastrous to the Dutch,
8o The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
whose soldiers mainly consisted of half-hearted German mer-
cenaries. On the 1 6th of January, Cape Town surrendered,
and after some futile resistance by Janssens in the interior,
a capitulation was signed on January i8, and Janssens and
the Dutch soldiers were sent back to the Netherlands by the
British Government.
By a Convention dated August 13, 1814, the Dutch
Government with the Prince of Orange at its head ceded Cape
Colony and the American possession of Demerara to Great
Britain against the payment of ^6,000,000, which was made
either by the actual tendering of money to the Dutch Govern-
ment, or the wiping off of Dutch debts.
On the other hand, the surrender of the Cape to Great
Britain induced the latter power to give back to Holland most
of the Dutch possessions in the East Indies, which we had
seized and administered during the Napoleonic wars. If
Holland lost South Africa — which she had only directly ruled
for three years — she was enabled by our friendly attitude of self-
denial to build up an empire in the East only second in wealth
and population to the Asiatic dominions of Great Britain.
Yet, in an indirect fashion, Dutch Africa exists still, though
the flag of Holland no longer waves over any portion of
African soil as a ruling power. The old rivalry between the
English and the Dutch, which had begun almost as soon as
the Dutch were a free people, and competitors with us for the
trade of the East and West Indies, had created a feeling of
enmity between the two races, which ought never to have
existed, seeing how nearly they are of the same stock, and how
closely allied in language, religion, and to some extent in
history — also how nearly matched they are in physical and
mental worth. Curiously enough, there is far greater affinity
in thought and character between the Scotch and the Dutch
than between the Dutch and the English. The same thrifti-
ness, bordering at times on parsimony, oddly combined with
the largest-hearted hospitality, the same tendency to strike a
i\'-] Tlie Dutch in Africa. 8i
hard bargain, even to overreach in matters of business, and
the same dogged perseverance characterize both Dutch and
Scotch ; while in matters of religion, almost precisely the same
form of Protestant Christianity appeals to both ; so much so,
that there is practically a fusion between the Dutch Reformed
Church and the Presbyterians. Had Scotchmen been sent
out to administer Cape Colony in its early days, it is probable
that something like a fusion of races might have taken place,
and there would have been no Dutch question to cause
dissension in South African politics in the 19th century. The
Scotch would have understood the Boer settlers and their
idiosyncracies, and would not have made fun of them or been
so deliberately unsympathetic as were some of the earlier
English governors. Slavery would have been abolished all the
same, but it would have been abolished more cautiously, in a
way that would not have left behind the sting of a grievance.
But after Cape Colony had been definitely ceded to Great
Britain its governors in the early days were mostly Englishmen,
who, though often able and just men, were at little pains to
understand the peculiarities of the Boer character, and to
conciliate these suspicious, uneducated farmers. Another
source of trouble was the influx of British missionaries, who
found much to condemn in the Dutch treatment of the
natives, which resembled that in vogue amongst Britons of the
previous century, before the spirit of philanthropy was abroad.
Curiously enough, some of these missionaries were Scotchmen,
though belonging to Protestant sects of more distinctly
English character. At any rate, the missionaries no doubt
had so much right on their side in condemning the Boers
for their conduct towards the natives, that their feelings in
this respect overcame their national affinity for the Dutch.
The Boer settler at no time showed that fiendish cruelty to the
natives he was dispossessing which was so terribly character-
istic of the Spanish colonization of Mexico, or of some of the
English, French, and Portuguese adventurers on the West
J. A. 6
82 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
coast of Africa in the 17th century ; but he was determined to
make of the native a serf, and denied him the rights of a man
hke unto himself. If the native revolted against this treat-
ment he was exterminated in a business-like fashion ; but if he
submitted, as did most of the Hottentots, he was treated with
patriarchal kindness and leniency. The Dutch settlers appear
from the first to have dissociated their dealings with the
Hottentots from their ordinary code of morals. It was not
thought dishonest to cheat them, not thought illegal to rob
them, not thought immoral to use their women as concubines.
So entirely without scruples were the Dutch on this last point,
that whole races arose, and have since become nations likely
to survive and prosper, whose origin was the illicit union of
Dutch men and Hottentot women. These " bastards," as
they were frankly called, were well treated by the Dutch — they
were not disowned, were usually converted to Christianity,
taught to lead a more or less civilized life, and to talk the
Dutch language, which they speak in a corrupt form at the
present day. In short, the morals of the South African Dutch
were the morals of the Old Testament, as were those of
Cromwell's soldiers, and in this and many other modes of
thought the Dutch Afrikanders hved still in the 17th century,
whereas the British missionaries were of the early 19th, in the
red-hot glow of its as yet disillusioned, and somewhat frothy
philanthropy. The Dutch settlers were denounced at Exeter
Hall and on every missionary platform, and the fact that many
of the accusations were true in great measure did not make
them more palatable to the accused.
As the Government policy at the Cape was for the first
half of the century greatly influenced by Exeter Hall, the
Dutch with some justice regarded the attacks of the mis-
sionaries as the result of a British Government, and hence
withdrew from or rebelled against our rule. The dissentient,
dissatisfied Boers began to trek away from the settled portion
of Cape Colony into the wilderness behind, where they might
IV.] The Dutch in Africa. 83
still lead the pleasant, unfettered, patriarchal life they had
grown to love. They passed beyond the Orange River, which
had come to be the northern limit of British influence, and,
avoiding the deserts of Bechuanaland, passed north-eastwards
into the better-watered territories now known as the Orange
Free State and the Transvaal. They also sought a way out
towards the sea in what is now the colony of Natal. Here
they came into conflict first with the Kaffirs and Basuto on
the West, and then with the Zulus on the East. The former
were to some extent under British protection, therefore the
British Government was read)- to espouse their cause if they
were unjustly dealt with. The Zulus, on the other hand, were
strong enough and numerous enough to prevent a Boer settle-
ment on their land. Nevertheless, the Boer invasion of Natal
from the north was at that time a transgression into territory
recently conquered and depopulated by one of the most
abominable shedders of blood that ever arose amongst Negro
tyrants — Chaka, the second' king of the Zulus. This latter
saw the danger, and lured the pioneers of the Boers into a
position where he was able to massacre them at his ease.
With splendid gallantry — one's blood tingles with admiration
as one reads the record of it — the few remaining Boers
mustered their forces and avenged this dastardly murder by a
drastic defeat of the Zulus. But this was in the early "forties,"
when British adventurers — more or less discouraged or unen-
couraged by the Home Government — had founded a coast
settlement in Natal, on the site of what is now the town of
Durban. The usual shilly-shally on the part of the British
Government misled the Boers into thinking that they could
' If Dingiswayo, his master, can be regarded as the first. Dingiswayo
was rather the paramount chief of a Kaffir confederation, of which the
Zulu tribe was a member. Chaka was the younger son of the Zulu chief,
but was eventually elected chief in his father's place and then succeeded to
the paramount sway of Dingiswayo. Racially and linguistically there is
very little diflference between Zulus and Kaffirs.
6—2
84 Tlu Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
maintain themselves in Natal against our wishes. As they had
further broken an agreement with us by attacking the Basuto
and the Kaffirs, a British force was despatched against them in
1842 which, after a brief struggle, induced them to capitulate.
Natal was then secured as a British colony, and the Boers with
bitter disappointment had to seek their independent state to
the north of the Orange River. But here also they were
followed up, and had the Governor of the Cape — Sir George
Grey — been supported from Downing Street, the Orange River
sovereignty would never have become the Orange Free State,
and it is probable that even the territory beyond the Vaal
River might in like manner have been subjected to British
control.
But Downing Street for eighty years from the cession of
the Cape of Good Hope persistently mismanaged affairs, now
blowing hot with undue heat, now blowing cold, and nipping
\vise enterprise in the bud. The action of the Governor was
repudiated, and the Sand River Convention unratified. In the
most formal manner the Boers north of the Orange River
were accorded absolute independence, subject to certain pro-
visions about slavery, and the like privilege had been previously
accorded to those who had further trekked across the Vaal
River at a time when the Orange River state was likely to
become a British Colony. So from 1852 and 1854 respectively',
the South African Dutch have formed two states entirely inde-
pendent of British rule in their internal affairs, and but
dubiously governed by us in their external relations. The
Orange Free State, which contained a considerable British
element dating from the period of British sovereignty, has had
^ The Sand River Convention, recognizing the independence of the
Transvaal, was signed in January, 1852; the Bloemfontein Convention,
which loosed the Orange Free State from British control, was signed in
February, 1854. In 1858, Sir George Grey laid before the Cape Parlia-
ment proposals from the Orange Free State for reunion in a South African
Federation, and was recalled by the Home Government for advocating
this policy.
IV.] The Dutch in Africa. 85
latterly an uneventful career of steady prosperity', due in
large measure to the wisdom of its chief magistrates. When
the diamond fields were discovered on its borders towards the
end of the " sixties " it had some cause for complaint against
the British Government, since, taking advantage of the un-
defined rights of a Griqua (Bastard Hottentot) chief, we
extended our rule over this arid territory north of the Orange
River, which was suddenly found to be worth untold millions
of pounds. But the amount of territory under dispute with the
Orange Free State was relatively small, and if we had trans-
gressed their rightful borderland to some slight degree, we
atoned for it by paying them an indemnity of ^90,000.
Great Britain also intervened several times to prevent the
warlike Basuto (who dwell in that little African Switzerland be-
tween the Orange Free State and Natal) either from raiding
the Orange Free State, or from being themselves raided and
conquered by Boer reprisals. Eventually Basutoland, whose
affairs had been somewhat mismanaged by the Cape Parlia-
ment, was taken under direct imperial control, and ever since
there has been a complete cessation of trouble in that quarter
with the Orange Free State.
The career of the Transvaal Republic was much less
successful in its earl}' days. The territory was vaster, in many
places not so healthy, and the native population — especially in
the eastern districts- — was turbulent, and strongly averse to
accepting Boer rule. The existence of gold, though occasion-
ally hinted at by unheard pioneers, was unknown to the world
at large, and absolutely ignored by tlie Boers ; there was little
or no trade, and the European population was scanty. By
1877 the condition of this state had become so hopeless with a
bankrupt treasury and the menace of a Zulu invasion, that it
' For the first few years of its existence it had much fighting with the
Basuto.
- Zulus and Kaffirs under Msilikazi in the east ; Bechuana tribes in the
west.
86 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
was annexed, somewhat abruptly, by the Imperial represen-
tative, Sir Theophilus Shepstone. No doubt this step was
consonant with the enlightened policy then favoured by the
Imperial Government and subsequently by that far-sighted man.
Sir Bartle Frere, who was to become Governor of the Cape
during the latter part of the late Earl Carnarvon's tenancy of
the Colonial Office. Lord Carnarvon himself was resolutely
intent on carrying out in Africa south of the Zambezi a scheme
of federation similar to that which had in 1866 consolidated
the Dominion of Canada. But the actual method by which the
Transvaal was taken over was not a well considered one, and
unhappily it was followed by the appointment of an officer to
rule over that country whose demeanour was wholly unsym-
pathetic to the Boer nature. At the end of 1880 the Boers
revolted. After a short military campaign, conspicuous for its
utter lack of generalship on the part of the English, and for
the disastrous defeats inflicted on our forces by the Boers at
Lang's Nek and Majuba Hill, the British Government of the
day (who a few months before had absolutely refused the
Boers' appeal for the reversal of the annexation) concluded a
hurried armistice, and gave back (1881) its independence to
the Transvaal, subject to a vague suzerainty on the part of
the British Crown, and later on to a British veto which might
be exercised on treaties with foreign powers. The best plea
that can be urged on behalf of this surrender, which sub-
sequent British Governments have had such cause to regret,
was the belief that a stern prosecution of the war, and
the eventual Boer defeat, would lead to the uprising of the
Dutch settlers in Cape Colony and the intervention of the
Orange Free State. It is doubtful whether there was much
foundation for this fear, or whether it would not have been
much easier at that time to settle British supremacy once and
for all over aU Africa south of the Zambezi, even if it led to
some degree of internecine fighting : the more so as there
would have been no danger of European intervention at that
IV.] TJie Dutch in Africa. 87
date. But the chance was let slip, and the Boers acquired an
independence the more justly won, and the less easily dis-
turbed since it. was the result of their sturdy valour.
The restraining conditions of the 1881 Convention were
still further attenuated by the London Convention of February
27, 1884, in which with further fatuity the Government of the
day accorded unnecessarily to the Transvaal state the extrava-
gant title of "The South African Republic." Perhaps this is
the most remarkable act of abnegation which has ever occurred
in the history of the British Empire, and it must have
seemed to the inhabitants of British South Africa like the
admission of a rival ruling power into the British sphere south
of the Zambezi. By this 1884 Convention (worthless for that
purpose, as are all treaties and conventions when the force to
maintain them is not apparent) the geographical limits of the
Transvaal state were clearly defined, and the Boers engaged to
keep within them.
Encouraged by this diplomatic success, and the feeble
manner in which the Imperial Government had permitted
them to carve out a fresh state in the heart of Zululand, the
Boers of the Transvaal now determined to add Bechuanaland
to their dominions, and possibly to cut off British expansion to
the Zambezi, and to make their western frontier coincident with
the natural limits of that Protectorate which Germany had just
established, north of the Orange River. But public opinion in
Great Britain was becoming intolerant of any farther sacrifices
of British aspirations in South Africa, and of breaches of faith
on the part of the Boers, and forced the Government of the
day to assert itself. A strong expedition was sent out under
Sir Charles Warren at the end of 1884, which finally secured
for Great Britain the Protectorate of Bechuanaland, and the
restraining of the Transvaal within its proper Hmits. Never-
theless, in 1894 a fresh concession was made to that state by
the withdrawal of British opposition to its absorption of a little
enclave of Zulu country known as Swaziland. In excuse for
88 77/r Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
the British Government it must be pointed out that the Swa/.i
chiefs had previously made over to Transvaal subjects so many
rights and concessions that any other solution than the further
cession of the administration was rendered difficult under the
existing conditions.
Soon after the conclusion of the London Convention of
1884, the vast wealth in gold, which for more than ten years
back had been hinted at by uneducated pioneers, and denied
by mining experts', began to be made known; the develop-
ment of the marvellous Witwatersrand brought about the
foundation of Johannesburg, and directed to the Transvaal an
enormous influx of outsiders, mainly English — at any rate,
mainly British subjects, though many of them were Jews from
England, or from France and Germany who had become
naturalized British subjects. Mines were also opened in the
east and in the north of the Transvaal On the other hand,
to counteract the influence of this British element, the Trans-
vaal Government had almost ever since its establishment in
1 88 1 been strengthening the Dutch element by inviting the
settlement of Hollanders from the Netherlands, who were
employed in its Government offices, in its schools, its churches,
and on the construction of its railways. These natives of
Holland showed themselves very hostile to British influence,
and through their eflforts a great deal of sympathy with the
South African Dutch was aroused in Holland and Germany.
On the other hand, the Outlanders, who settled round
Johannesburg and other mining centres and who soon came
to outnumber the Boer element in the Transvaal population to
the extent of five to one, became dissatisfied with their position
under the Boer Government, who ruled them autocratically,
without giving them any voice in the administration or in the
spending of the heavy taxes levied on their industries. (It
should be noted that the Boer Government had attempted to
■ About as trustworthy guides in mineralogy as experts in handwriting !
IV.] The Diitcli in Africa. 89
wall itself in from contact with the surrounding British and
Portuguese states by an exceedingly high tariff of import
duties, which rendered many articles of necessity or luxury
extremely expensive, and made civilized life five times as dear
as in the adjoining Cape Colony.) It was again the contact
between the very end of the 19th century and the manners,
customs, language, and puritanical religion of the 17th century.
To some extent this recalcitrant attitude of the Boers was
condemned and deprecated by their much more enlightened
brethren, the Cape Dutch. In time, probably, these latter
might have encouraged and supported the inter\-ention of the
Imperial Government in securing fair terais to the Outlanders,
and as these fair terms must have given the Outlanders a
preponderating voice in the Government, the Transvaal might
have been brought within the South African Federation under
the British aegis. But the Right Hon. Cecil John Rhodes,
then Prime Minister of the Cape and Managing Director of
the British South Africa Chartered Company, saw in this dis-
content at Johannesburg the means and excuse for his personal
intervention in the Transvaal. He hurried on the movement,
and even carried it beyond the limits indicated by the more
disinterested Reformers. The administrator of the Chartered
Company's territories, Dr Jameson, invaded the Transvaal
(Dec. 29, 1895) with a small force of between 500 and 600
mounted police, and endeavoured to reach Johannesburg, the
centre of unrest, with a half-avowed intention of subsequently
marching on Pretoria, and upsetting the Boer Government.
But the Boer forces intercepted Dr Jameson before he could
reach Johannesburg, and after an engagement in which a few of
his men were killed, and after which further progress would have
meant annihilation, he surrendered. The High Commissioner
of South Africa hurried to Johannesburg ; Dr Jameson and his
officers were handed over to the British Government to be
dealt with, and afterwards underwent a short term of imprison-
ment. On the other hand, the Reformers of Johannesburg
90 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap. iv.
were treated by the Pretoria Courts with inexcusable harsh-
ness, seeing that they had not taken an active part in
Dr Jameson's inroad, and had surrendered their city to the
Boer Government. Enormous fines, amounting eventually to
nearly half a million sterling, were inflicted on them, after a
somewhat burlesque trial in which they had been condemned
to death, only to be subsequently imprisoned or expelled.
For the time being this wanton aggression on the part of
Mr Rhodes alienated all sympathy for the grievances of the
Outlanders, and provoked strong expressions of opinion in
certain European states, who, until they were assured that the
British Government was dissociated with Mr Rhodes' scheme,
were not unnaturally prone to imagine that their own territories
in Africa might some day be exposed to a British raid. The
immediate outcome, therefore, of this ill-advised action on the
part of the Cape Premier (though that official was admittedly
actuated by the same desire which has inspired some British
statesmen, to bring about the Britannicizing of all Africa south
of the Zambezi) was the strengthening and intensifying of the
separatist character of the two Dutch republics still existing in
South Africa. Whether the power gained by these indepen-
dent Dutch states will be wisely used, or whether they will
overreach their strength and misuse their influence, and so
draw down on them their eventual absorption within the
adjoining British Empire, remains to be seen. These brave,
sturdy Dutchmen have played a great part in Africa, a part of
which their mother country, Holland, may well be proud.
They are so nearly of our own blood' and tongue, and history,
that we may, without any more sting of bitterness than that
with which we recall the revolt of the American Colonies, take
pride in their achievements and smile grimly at the stout blows
they have dealt us in their own defence.
^ For if we are Celts and Teutons dashed with French, so are these
descendants of the old Frisians and Batavians, mingled as they are with
Huguenot emigrants.
SLAVE TRADE OF AFRICA
Sm-XLEUolmrrffia SC-S d^
EXPLANATORY NOTE
The 7iiap shows the slave hunting or trading areas shaded
according to degree of ifUeftsiiy of slave traffic
The red lines indicate the prificipaL routes of the slave
ships Or Caravans and the desiiTiation of the slaves
CHAPTER V.
THE SLAVE TRADE.
Man had not long emerged from the monkey before he
conceived the idea of enslaving instead of or as well as eating
his enemies or his inferiors. Slavery and the slave trade,
however — mere servitude — need not excite great horror or pity
when it occurs among people of the same race or the same
religion, or in countries which are not far from the home of
the enslaved. It is where the state of servitude exists between
widely divergent races that it gives rise to abuses, which are
obyifms even to those who are not sensitive philanthropists.
The Negro, more than any other human type, has been
marked out by his mental and physical characteristics as the
servant of other races. There are, of course, exceptions to the
general rule. ''There are tribes like the Kruboys of the West
African coast, the Mandingo, the Wolof, and the Zulu, who
have always shown themselves so recalcitrant to slavery that
they have generally been let alone j'Vhile the least divergence
from the Negro stock in an upward direction — such as in the
case of the Gallas and Somalis — appears to produce a resolute
attachment to freedom. But the negro in general is a bom
slave. He is possessed of great physical strength, docility,
cheerfulness of disposition, a short memory for sorrows and'
cruelties, and an easily aroused gratitude for kindness and just
dealing. He does not suffer from home-sickness to the over-
bearing extent that afflicts other peoples torn from their homes,
and, provided he is well fed, he is easily made happy. Above
all, he can toil hard under the hot sun and in the unhealthy
92 77/1? Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
climates of the torrid zone. He has little or no race-fellow-
ships — that is to say, he has no sympathy for other negroes ;
he recognizes and follows his master independent of any race
affinities, and, as he is usually a strong man and a good fighter,
he has come into request not only as a labourer but as a
soldier.
Negro slaves were imported into Lower Egypt as servants.
A few ma\' have reached Carthage and Rome ; but the deter-
mined e.xploitation of the black races did not begin on a large
scale till the Muhammadan conquest of Africa. The Arabs
had swept across Northern Africa, and become directly ac-
quainted with the Sudan '. Before the promulgation of Islam
they traded with the East coast of Africa, and after the Islamic
outburst they ruled there as sultans. The secluding of women
in harems guarded by eunuchs had come into vogue during the
Byzantine Empire, but it was probably a custom of Indian
origin. It was adopted with emphasis among the civilized
Mussulmans, and the Negro eunuch proved the most efficient
and faithful guardian of the gynseceum. So the slave trade
developed mightily in the Muhammadan world. Household
slaves and eunuchs were imported into North Africa, Arabia,
Turkey, and Persia from the Sudan ; while in a later century
the Sultan of Morocco established his power firmly by import-
ing fighting negroes from Nigeria. Arabia, Persia, and India
obtained negroes from the Egyptian Sudan, Abyssinia, and the
Zanzibar coast. Into the West coast of India negro slaves were
imported from East Africa to become the guards of palaces
and the fighting seamen of navies. In the Bombay Presidency
these negroes became so useful or powerful that they carved
out states for themselves, one or more of which, still ruled by
negro princes, are in existence at the present day as de-
pendencies of the Government of India".
• Sudan means in Arabic " Black men " or the " Land of the Blacks."
^ As for example, Janjira in Konkan, which has an area of 325 sq. m.,
and Jafarabad in KathiaAvar 42 sq. m. in extent.
V.J Tlie Slave Trade. 93
The final impetus was given to this traffic by the European.
When the Spanish, Portuguese and English discovered and
settled America they found the native races too small in
numbers, too fierce, or too weakly to be suited for agricultural
work, and as early as 1503 African slaves were working in the
mines of San Domingo, of Mexico, and even of Peru, brought
thither by the Spaniards and Portuguese. In 15 17 the slave
trade between Africa and America was regularly established,
Charles V of Spain having granted to a Flemish merchant the
exclusive privilege of importing into America 4000 slaves a
year. This monopoly was subsequently sold by the conces-
sionaire to a company of Genoese merchants.
English adventurers, who had first found their way out in
Portuguese ships to investigate the spice trade, soon deter-
mined to take up the traffic in negro labourers for the planta-
tions in America as being more profitable. Sir John Hawkins,
one of the famous seamen of the Elizabethan era, in 1562
took over to the West Indies the first cargo of slaves trans-
ported under the British flag ; but Sir John Hawkins, who
afterwards adopted a " demi-Moor in his proper colour, bound
with a cord " as his crest, only made, I believe, one direct
voyage to the coast of Guinea on his own account, and usually
shipped his slaves at the Canar)' Islands, acting thus as a
transport agent for the Spaniards. England had not been
engaged largely in the slave trade until she commenced to
possess Jamaica and other West Indian islands, and to
develop the tobacco plantations of Virginia. Then she almost
outdid rival nations. The late Dr Robert Brown, in his
interesting work, " The Story of Africa," computes that in a
little more than a century, from 1680 to 1786, 2,130,000 negro
slaves were imported into the English-American colonies,
Jamaica in the course of 80 years absorbing 610,000. To-
wards the latter end of the i8th century the various European
powers interested in America imported on an average over
94 TJie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
70,000 slaves a year, the British bringing more than one half,
and sometimes a still greater proportion. At first the slaves
came chiefly from the Gambia and the other rivers southward
to Sierra Leone, and also from the Congo and the Portuguese
possessions of Angola and the Zambezi. Then, as the demand
grew, a rich field was tapped in the Bights of Biafra and Benin,
especially in that network of swampy rivers, which, unknown
to Europeans of those days, is the delta of the Niger river.
But slowly there grew up in England and in the Scandinavian
States a feeling that there was something wrong in this system
which imposed so much misery on beings, who, though in
some degree inferior to ourselves, were yet our fellow-men,
since they could interbreed with us and learn to talk our
language. That such feelings must have existed at all times
was evident from the desire of good men when dying to grant
freedom to their slaves. But the feehng as a national one
remained dormant, and was not general in England until the
close of the i8th century. Here and there cases of a negro
prince being sold into slavery attracted attention and sympathy
and caused a searching of consciences among enlightened men.
In 1772 a great-minded Englishman, Granville Sharp, succeed-
ed by pushing a test case in getting a judicial decision that
slavery could not e.xist in England, and that therefore any
slave landing in England became free, and could not be taken
back into slavery. In 1787 Wilberforce, Clarkson, and other
philanthropists formed themselves into an association to secure
the abolition of slavery, and by their exertions in Great Britain
a bill was passed in 1788 which did not go to the lengths they
desired, but which subjected the slave trade to severe restric-
tions. Yet it is doubtful whether, before this act was passed,
the hardships of the slaves transported by sea were so terrible
as they became after the restrictions placed on the trade
rendered it necessary to carry large numbers of human beings
on a single voyage more or less concealed from sight in the
v.] Tlie Slave Trade. 95
hold of the vessel with an utter disregard for sanitary con-
ditions '. In these later days, when it was necessary to evade
tiresome regulations or to carry on the trade in the face of
direct prohibition, the sufferings of the slaves were so appalling
that they almost transcend belief. It would seem as though
the inhuman traffic had created in Arabs and negroes and
white men a deliberate love of cruelty, amounting often to a
neglect of commercial interest ; for at first sight it would
appear obviously to be to the interest of the slave raider and
the slave trader and transporter that the slaves should be
landed at their ultimate destination in good condition — cer-
tainly with the least possible loss of life. Yet, as the present
writer can testify from what he has himself seen, a slave gang
on its march to the coast was loaded with unnecessarily heavy
collars or slave-sticks, with chains and irons that chafed and
cut into the flesh, and caused virulent ulcers. They were half
starved, over-driven, and insufficiently provided with drinking
water, and recklessly exposed to death from sunstroke. If
they threw themselves down for a brief rest or collapsed from
exhaustion they were shot or speared or had their throats cut
with fiendish brutality. I have seen at Taveita (now a civilized
settlement in British East Africa) boys and youths left in the
bush to die by degrees from mortification and protrusion of
the intestines owing to the unskilful way in which they had
been castrated by the Arabs, who had attempted to make
eunuchs of them for sale to Turkish and Arab harems.
Children whom their mothers could not carry, and who
could not keep up with the caravan, had their brains dashed
out. [Many slaves (I again wTite from personal knowledge)
1 It was asserted by Winwood Reade, however, who no doubt derived
his statement from good authority, that the close confinement of the slaves
on board the tiny vessels of the i6th century adventurers, developed and
introduced into tropical America that dread disease, the yellow fever —
a malady which appears to be a variant of the haematuric bilious fever
indigenous to Africa.
96 Tlu Colo7iizatioii of Africa. [Chap.
committed suicide because they could not bear to be separated
from their homes and children. They were branded and
flogged, and, needless to say, received not the slightest
medical treatment for the injuries resulting from this rough
usage. So much for the overland journey which brought them
to the depot or factory of the European slave trader on the
coast ; then began the horrors of the sea passage, the descrip-
tion of which, it must be admitted, refers almost entirely to the
ships of civilized nations, like the English, Dutch, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Americans, and not to the Arabs and Indians,
who carried slaves across from the East coast of Africa to
Arabia or India. In the latter case the sailing vessels were
not often overcrowded, and the slaves were allowed a fair
degree of liberty. In the slave trade with America, especially
when it was placed under restrictions and finally penalized, it
was the aim of the masters to pack as many slaves as possible
on board the vessel, the peril of making one run being only
half of what was entailed in making two. Very often the
slaves were sent on board stark naked. They were packed
like herrings in the hold or on the middle deck, and in times
of bad weather, or for reasons of security, were often kept
under hatches. The stench they produced then was appalling,
and many died asphyxiated. On some ships, and where the
captain was a humane man, the slaves were occasionall}-
allowed to go on deck, and were watered with a hose, and
where the skipper's commission made it profitable to him to
land the slaves in good condition, they received better food,
and occasional lu.xuries like tobacco; but if the slaver were
chased by a British cruiser, no scruple was shown in throwing
the slaves overboard to drown.
Denmark has the credit of being the first European power
to forbid the slave trade to her subjects (1792). Two years
later the United States of America forbade their subjects to
" participate in the exportation of negroes to foreign coun-
tries," and in 1804 an act (first promulgated in 1794) was
v.] Tlie Slave Trade. 97
revived, which prohibited the introduction of any more slaves
into the United States. A long struggle had taken place in
Great Britain (many of whose Liverpool and Bristol merchants
were deeply interested in the slave trade) before, in 1807, an act
of Parliament was passed abolishing the slave trade as far as
British subjects were concerned. At the Congress of Vienna,
1814, France agreed in principle that the slave trade should be
done away with, and even signed a treaty providing that whilst
the slave trade continued with French colonies it should only
be carried on by French subjects. During Napoleon's hundred
days of rule in 1815 a decree was issued ending the slave trade
for good and all. In the same year Portugal subjected the
slave trade to certain restrictions, but did not finally abolish
it till 1830. In 1836 England paid Portugal the sum of
_;^3oo,ooo in order to get the export of slaves from any
Portuguese possession prohibited. Great Britain had also in
1820 paid ,3^400,000 to Spain to purchase a promise from the
Spaniards that they would cease to buy negroes in Africa.
Both contracts, though ostensibly agreed to by the Govern-
ments concerned, were frequently violated by individuals. In
1 8 14 and 181 5 the Dutch and Swedes respectively prohibited
the slave trade to their subjects, and a few years later most of
the Spanish South American states abolished the slave trade
on attaining their independence. Slavery was abolished as a
legal condition in all parts of the British dominions in the
'30's' — in Jamaica and the West Indies in 1833, in South
Africa 1834-1840, and in India about the same time'.
Besides the sums mentioned which England paid to Spain and
Portugal to induce them to give up the traffic in slaves, she
distributed twenty millions of pounds amongst slave owners of
the West Indies as compensation for the abolition of slavery,
and ;i^i, 250,000 to those who possessed slaves in Cape
' Natives of British India, however, continued to hold slaves on the
East coast of Africa until it was made a criminal offence in 1873.
J. A. 7
98 Tlu Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
Colony when they were emancipated. Add to these sums the
millions of money we have spent in founding Sierra Leone as a
slave settlement, in helping Liberia' (from the same motive),
in patroUing the East and West coasts of Africa and the
Persian Gulf, and it will be admitted that we have here a
rare case of a nation doing penance for its sins, and making
that real reparation which is evidenced by a monetary sacri-
fice.
In 1840 and in previous years the French had abolished
slavery in all their possessions, the Dutch a little later,
and later still most of the South American states ; but in
the Portuguese possessions slavery was not abolished till
1878 and in the United States of America till 1863, while
Brazil remained a slave-holding country until 1888, the final
and somewhat abrupt abolition of slavery being one of the
causes which led to the downfall of the Emperor. However,
long after any British or French possession had ceased to
offer inducements to the slave trader to run illegal cargoes
there were quite sufficient countries in the Western Hemisphere
to provide an excellent market, while the Muhammadan world
in the East continued to make greater demands than ever on
the Central African slave preserves ^
To counteract the attempts to evade the law a powerful
British squadron swept the West coast of Africa ; but in spite of
British efforts to intercept slave-trading vessels, these latter
continued to run cargoes across to the United States, Cuba
and Brazil, and it was not possible for this traffic to be wholly
> Liberia commenced «ntli an attempt made by philanthropic Americans
(the Washington Colonization Society) in 1820 to repatriate free negroes
from the United States. It was formally recognized as an independent
state under joint British and United States protection in 1847.
2 Slavery was abolished in the Turkish dominions after the Crimean
War, but exists still to some degree on account of the harems, which
demand a supply of eunuchs. Slavery also continues to be in force in the
independent states of Arabia, and in the Persian dominions.
^'■] The Slave Trade. 99
vanquished until the abolition of slavery in those countries
closed the last markets to the slave trader. A most interesting
light is thrown on the vastness of the area covered by these
slave-trading operations in a work by the Rev. S. W. Koelle (a
missionary of the Church Missionary Society) entitled " Poly-
glotta Africana." Mr Koelle established himself at Sierra
Leone for some years and busied himself in collecting from the
slaves who were landed there from British cruisers vocabularies
of the languages they spoke in their own homes. In this way
he took down over 200 languages, which represented most of
the tongues of the West coast of Africa, of the upper Niger, of
Senegal, of Lake Chad, the South-west African coast as far as
Benguela, Nyasaland, the Zambezi delta and the South-east
coast of Africa, and even Wadai.
When, at the close of the i8th century, British philan-
thropists were desirous of repatriating negroes who wished to
return to Africa, the Sierra Leone Company was started,
which purchased from native chiefs the nucleus of the present
colony of Sierra Leone. Here, for three-quarters of a century,
British cruisers landed and set free the slaves that were
captured off the West coast of Africa. Zanzibar, on the
other side of the continent, became about twenty years ago
the eastern analogue of Sierra Leone. Since the British
occupation of Egypt slavery has practically ceased to exist in
that country ; and owing to the French occupation of Algeria
and Tunis, and the influence brought to bear by England on
Turkey in regard to Tripoli, there is not much trafiSc in slaves
across the Sahara Desert to those countries ; though anybody
visiting the south of Tunis will be surprised at the large
number of negroes in all the villages, showing that quite
recently constant supplies must have been received from Bornu
and the Hausa states. The shocking slave raids of the
Matabele Zulus have been abolished by the British South Africa
Company, and similar raids of the Angoni have been put an
end to by the Imperial Government in British Central Africa.
7—2
lOO Tlie Colonization of Afi'ica. [Chap.
The Arabs of Zanzibar had acquired an evil fame for their
gigantic slave raids in East-central Africa. The British
Government, which had separated Zanzibar from Maskat as an
independent state in 1862, began to concern itself a few years
later with the slave trade which flourished in those dominions.
By 1873 the Sultan of Zanzibar had, after considerable pres-
sure, been induced to make the slave trade illegal in his
Sultanate, though it continued to flourish in an illegal manner
until the administration of his territories by England and
Germany.
Arabs from 'Oman in South-west Arabia and from Zanzibar
pushed ever further and further into Central Africa from the
East coast until they reached the Upper Congo, where they
established themselves as sultans amongst the negroes, and
enslaved millions. Here and there they JNIuhammadanized a
tribe like the Wa-yao, Manyema, or Awemba, whom they
provided with muskets and made worse slave raiders than
themselves. These slave raids in the districts of Lakes Nyasa
and Tanganyika, revealed to the world by Livingstone, greatly
concentrated the attention of Great Britain on these regions,
and one of the intentions of the British Government in estab-
Hshing a protectorate in South-central Africa was the abolition
of the slave trade, which was brought about by six years'
campaigns with a tiny force of Indian soldiers^ and the placing
of several gunboats on Lake Nyasa. At the same time the
Belgian officers of the Congo Free State had attacked and
broken up the Arabs, who were expelled from the Congo.
The Germans under the brilliant Major Von Wissmann had
hung several Arab slave raiders in East-central Africa, and had
completely broken up the traflic of the others. In short,
though slavery still exists, avowed or disguised, in many parts
of Africa, the slave trade is almost at an end, and slave raids
1 Sikhs from the Indian Army. I have fully described these campaigns
in my work on British Central Africa.
v.] TJic Slave Trade. loi
are confined to those regions in North-central Africa, which
are for a few years yet to come wholly free from European
intervention.
Abominable as the slave trade has been in filling Tropical
Africa with incessant warfare and rapine, it has added much
to our knowledge of that continent, and has been the excuse
or cause of European intervention in many cases, resulting
sometimes in a vastly improved condition of the natives when
European rule has taken the place of that of Negro or Arab
sultans. Its ravages will be soon repaired by a decade of
peace and security during which this prolific, unextinguishable
race will rapidly increase its numbers. Yet about the African
slave trade, as with most other instinctive human procedure,
and the movements of one race against another, there is an
underlying sense of justice. The White and Yellow peoples
have been the unconscious agents of the Power behind Nature
in punishing the negro for his lazy backwardness. In this
world Natural Law ordains that all mankind must work to a
reasonable extent, must wrest from its environment sustenance
for body and mind, and a bit over to start the children from a
higher level than the parents. The races that will not work
persistently and doggedly are trampled on, and in time dis-
placed, by those who do. Let the Negro take this to heart ;
let him devote his fine muscular development in the first place
to the setting of his own rank, untidy continent in order. If
he will not work of his o\vn free will, now that freedom of
action is temporarily restored to him ; if he will not till and
manure and drain and irrigate the soil of his couritrj' in a
steady, laborious way as do the Oriental and the European;
if he will not apply himself zealously under European tuition
to the development of the vast resources of Tropical Africa,
where hitherto he has led the wasteful unproductive life of a
baboon; then force of circumstances, the pressure of eager,
hungry, impatient outside humanity, the converging energies
of Europe and Asia will once more relegate the Negro to a
I02 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap. v.
servitude which will be the alternative — in the coming struggle
for existence — to extinction. The Negro has been given back
his freedom that he may use it with a man's sense of respon-
sibility for the waste of time and opportunities; not that he
may squander away his existence with the heedlessness of those
anthropoid apes to whom in a minute fractional proportion he
is more nearly allied than are we, his present guardians.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BRITISH IN AFRICA, I.
( Wes^ Coast, Morocco, North-Central^i
From very early days in the history of the Portuguese
monarchy close and friendly relations had been established
between England and Portugal. A large body of English
troops on their way out to the Crusades had assisted the first
king of Portugal to capture Lisbon from the Moors in the 12th
century. A later king of Portugal married a daughter of John
of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and his sons, among them the
great Prince Henry the Navigator, were half English in blood.
These friendly relations were no doubt partly to be accounted
for by the French origin of both ruling houses.
Therefore, when the eflfect began to be felt in England of
Portuguese discoveries in West Africa by the extension of the
spice trade (hitherto a monopoly of Venice), and the dawning
idea that negro slaves from Africa would be an excellent com-
modity for American plantations, British seamen-adventurers
were prompt to follow in the path of the Portuguese. Curiously
enough, the trade in spices seems to have been the first
inducement, more powerful than gold or slaves. Englishmen
had previously shipped on board Portuguese vessels before they
ventured to sail to West Africa in craft of their own. Quite
early in the i6th century several Englishmen thus found their
way to Benin in company with the Portuguese. But their
I04 TJw Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
proceedings were looked upon with suspicion, and friendly
relations between the two nationalities soon cooled under the
influence of rivalry in what the Portuguese would have liked to
make their monopoly of West African trade. At the end
of the reign of Edward VI (1553), and during that of Mary,
English ships ventured out timidly to the Gambia, the Grain
Coast, and even the Gold Coast of 'West Africa, bringing back
gold, ivory, Guinea pepper' and "grains of Paradise"" for
spice making. At first these ventures were rendered very
hazardous by the hostility of the Portuguese ; but when, in the
latter part of the i6th century, Portugal was absorbed by Spain
and Spain went to war with England, Queen Elizabeth had no
hesitation in granting charters to two companies of merchant
adventurers to trade with the West coast of Africa. In 1585
the first charter was granted to a body of London adventurers
for the carrying on of commerce with Morocco and the Barbary
States; in 1588 another charter was given to Devonshire
merchants, who had been for some time previously endeavour-
ing to trade on the Senegambia coast. Thus in 1588 were
laid the foundations of the British settlement of the Gambia.
This river, which was at first, and probably more accurately,
known as the " Gambra," is remarkable among African rivers
in that it has a mouth with a deep bar, which can be crossed
at any time of the tide. Next to the Congo, it is probably the
safest river to enter on all the West African coast ; and as its
navigability extends for over 200 miles into the interior of
Senegambia, it is a very valuable means of access to the heart
of the fertile regions of North-west Africa. When the British
arrived on the Gambia, and for two centuries afterwards, the
banks of the river were thickly studded with Portuguese
trading settlements. Curiously enough, however, the Portu-
guese never seem to have made any difficulties about its passing
^ Made from various aromatic seeds.
^ The seeds of the Amoinum, a ziiigiberaceous plant, allied to the
banana.
\'i.] The British in Africa. 105
under British control. It was the French from Senegal who
made the most determined attempts to oust the British from
the Gambia.
In 1592 Queen Elizabeth chartered a further association
for trading on the coast between the Gambia and Sierra Leone.
As regards the subsequent history of the Gambia, it may be
mentioned that the first consolidated company formed to work
the trade and administer the British settlements was incorpo-
rated in 1618, but it was not successful and the association
following it also failed. In 1664 a fort, subsequently called
Fort James, was built on the island of St Mary, off the south
bank of the mouth of the Gambia. This was the nucleus of
the present capital of Bathurst, named centuries after from the
same Colonial Secretary whose name was given to the Australian
town. In the 17th century the French made determined
attacks on the Gambia, and in 1696 succeeded in destroying
the British settlement, which however was reoccupied and
restored four or five years later. During the i8th century the
Gambia settlement became rich and prosperous owing to the
slave trade. The Gambia was the starting place of the first
serious British explorations in Western Africa and Nigeria.
In 1783 the intermittent struggle with France was concluded
by the French recognition of exclusive British trading rights on
the Gambia, with the exception of the French factory at
Albreda, in return for a similar concession to themselves
of the commercial monopoly of the river Senegal ; but as a
set-off against the French factory on the Gambia the British
retained the exclusive right to trade with the Moors of
Portendik (near Cape Blanco) for gum. [In 1857 these two
rights were exchanged.] During the Napoleonic wars England
seized the French settlements at the mouth of the river
Senegal, and British merchants went thither to trade. Upon
the surrender of Senegal to France in 181 7 these merchants
left the Senegal and founded the town of Bathurst, now the
capital of the Gambia colony. In 1807, this tiny colony, now
lo6 The Coloni::ation of Africa. [Chap.
much impoverished by the abohtion of the slave trade, was
subjected to the newly-founded government of Sierra Leone.
In 1843, its prosperity having somewhat revived owing to the
growing trade in ground-nuts, and its area having been in-
creased by various additions of territory along the banks of
the river, it was rendered independent of Sierra Leone ; but
again in 1866 was attached to that colony until once more it
was given a separate administration in 1888. In the early
'70's' attempts had been made to assert British claims
to the coast separating the Gambia and Sierra Leone, where
Portuguese rule had lapsed ; but Portugal having succeeded in
asserting her claims (p. 44), the project was dropped, and
during the period of discouragement which followed France was
allowed to extend her sway over all the country on either side
of the lower Gambia. Several times during the present century
the project was mooted of exchanging the Gambia with France
first for her possessions on the Gaboon coast, and later on for
Porto Novo, and Grand Bassam. The first project, which
would have ultimately given us French Congo, was opposed
and defeated by the British merchants on the Gambia; and
the second, which would have eventually led to a continuous
British coast line from Sierra Leone to the Niger, was upset
by the opposition of Marseilles trading houses at Porto Novo.
In 189 1 the best was made of a bad position, and a delimita-
tion agreement was come to with France, which at any rate
secured to Great Britain both banks of the river Gambia to
the limits of its navigability.
The words " Sierra Leone " are a kind of compromise
between Spanish, Italian and Portuguese due to the dull
hearing and careless spelling of foreign names so character-
istic of the English until the present generation. Projecting
into the sea on this part of the coast (a coast otherwise flat
and swampy) is a mountainous peninsula with bold hills facing
the sea front. If these mountains are not sufficiently high to
be the "Theion Ochema" of the Greek translators of Hanno's
VI.] Tlie British in Africa. 107
journal, they were at any rate sufficiently striking to make an
impression on the early Portuguese explorers, who dubbed
them "Serra Leoa" or "Mountain Range of the Lioness,"
either because a lioness was killed there, or because the
outlines of the range recalled the shape of a couchant lioness.
The Spanish form would be Sierra Leona, and it was appar-
ently the Spanish term that the English navigators adopted.
The British hung about this coast with ideas of founding
trading settlements and occasionally shipped slaves thence.
Towards the end of the i8th century the fine harbour — the
one good harbour on the West coast of Africa — attracted the
attention of the British Government, who obtained the cession
of the Sierra Leone peninsula in 1787. Four years later a
charter was granted and the territory was transferred to a
philanthropic association known as the " St George's Bay
Company," which decided to establish in that part of West
Africa a settlement for freed negro slaves from the West Indies
and Canada.
Upon the granting of the charter the name was changed to
the "Sierra Leone Company." To Sierra Leone were brought
loyal free negroes, who had fought on the British side during
the American War of Independence, and were therefore given
their liberty, but whom it was thought better to deport to a
climate more suitable to Africans than that of Canada. Then
were sent out about 400 masterless negroes picked up in
England after the judicial decision obtained by Granville
Sharp as to the illegality of slavery in England. These
were known as the " Granvilles." To them were added the
■'Maroons'" — Jamaica negroes mixed in a slight degree with
the blood of the extinct West Indian natives, who had taken
to the bush in Jamaica, and were making themselves trouble-
some. Further, as soon as Sierra Leone was adopted as the
dumping ground of the slaves set free from the captured slave-
' 'Maroon' was a corruption of the Spanish "Cimarron," an outlaw
frequenting the summits (Ciinas) of the mountains.
io8 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
trading ships, there were added to these ex-slaves of America
and England the heterogeneous sweepings of West, Central,
and South-east Africa, generally known as "VVillyfoss Niggers,"
because their freedom was originally due to the exertions of
Mr Wilberforce. Then of course there were the original
Temne and Mendi inhabitants, so that altogether the negro
population of modern Sierra Leone is an extraordinarily mixed
stock, to which a large colony of Kruboys from the Liberian
coast has since been added.
The philanthropic company which started this settlement
had some quaint notions in its inception. Sixty London
prostitutes were sent out to Sierra Leone to marry with the
negroes and become honest women, while numbers of English,
Dutch, and Swedes were invited to go there as free settlers,
under the belief that West Africa was as suited for European
colonization as Cape Colony. The result was of course that
nearly all these European immigrants died a few years after
their arrival, though not before they had left their impression
upon the strangely mixed population of Sierra Leone.
In 1807 the rule of the colony was transferred to the
Crown, and in 182 1 Sierra Leone was for the first time joined
with the Gold Coast and the Gambia into the " Colony of the
West African Settlements." In 1843 the Gambia was de-
tached, in 1866 joined again; and in 1874 the Gold Coast
and Lagos were separated from the supreme control of Sierra
Leone. Finally in 1888, the Gambia having been made a
separate administration, Sierra Leone became an isolated
colony. Between 1862 and 1864 its territory was consider-
ably extended along the coast, and a treaty of delimitation
with France in 1894, though it cut off the access of Sierra
Leone to the Niger, still extended the influence of the colony
a considerable distance inland. During the ' 8o's ' there
were considerable difficulties with turbulent tribes, especially
the ' Yonnis,' who were subdued by an expedition under Sir
Francis de Wintonj.and during the present year, 1898, an
VI.] Tlie British in Africa. 109
uprising of the natives of the interior in opposition to the
suppression of the slave trade and the levying of a hut tax has
seriously disturbed the colony.
Although British traders in gold and in slaves came in the
wake of the Portuguese in the i6th century, they established
no form of administration until 1672, when Charles II gave a
charter to the Royal African Company and the monopoly of
trade between Morocco and Cape Colony. The Royal African
Company built forts at various places on the Gold Coast, and
at Whyda' on the coast of Dahome. It was succeeded in
1750 by the African Company of merchants, a company
subsidized by the Government, which continued to exist until
182 1, at which date the British forts on the Gold Coast were
placed under the government of the West African settlements,
and the fort at Whyda was abandoned. In 1824, while on a
tour of inspection, the Governor of Sierra Leone, Sir Charles
Macarthy, landed at Cape Coast Castle, then the head-quarters
of British administration on the Gold Coast, and unfortunately
embarked on a war with the Ashanti without properly or-
ganized forces. He was defeated and killed. The Imperial
Government carried on the war for three years, finally inflicting
a defeat on the Ashanti near Accra, which led three years later
to a peace. But this lengthy campaign had disgusted the
Imperial Government with rule on the Gold Coast, and as
soon as peace was concluded with the Ashanti they handed
over these settlements to a committee of London merchants.
This committee selected and sent out an excellent man as
Governor — Mr Charles Maclean. This administrator contrived
with a yearly subsidy of ^^4000 and a force of 100 police to
extend British influence over an area nearly coincident with
the present Gold Coast Colony. But in 1843 the rule of the
merchants was replaced once more by that of the Crown,
though Maclean was taken into the service of the new Imperial
administration.
' Properly ' Hmda.'
I lo The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
The Danes and Swedes in the full swing of the slave
trade had estaWished forts on the Gold Coast in the 17 th
and 1 8th centuries respectively to supply their West Indian
islands with slaves. The Swedes soon abandoned their
trading forts, but Denmark still retained four down to the
middle of the 19th century, all of which she then sold to
England in 1850 for ;^io,ooo. For the same modest pay-
ment Denmark transferred to England the protectorate over a
considerable area to the east of the Gold Coast Colony, along
the river Volta. The Dutch during the 17 th and i8th cen-
turies had planted forts on the Gold Coast in rivalry with the
English, and in most cases alongside of them. After the
abolition of the slave trade Holland lost interest in her West
African possessions. Their existence was very awkward to the
English, as it prevented the collection of customs duties. In
1868 a partition of the coast was negotiated between England
and Holland, the Dutch taking over all the forts west of a
certain line, and the English those which lay to the east of this
boundary. In this manner the English acquired at last the
whole of the town of Accra, which is now the capital of the
Gold Coast. In 1871-2 the Dutch agreed to abandon to the
English all their remaining possessions on the Gold Coast in
return for the cession of certain British claims over Sumatra
and Java. Unfortunately, the transfer of territory from the
Dutch entailed a quarrel with the powerful negro kingdom of
Ashanti, situated behind the coast tribes of this region but
striving always to reach the sea. The Ashanti kingdom was
rather a confederacy of small negro states, with the King of
Kumasi at its head, than a homogeneous monarchy. In 1872
this paramount King of Kumasi despatched an army of 40,000
men to invade the British Protectorate and assert his claim to
domination over the Fanti tribes of the colony. A large force
of Fantis was to some extent armed and organized by the
British Government, but the Ashantis defeated them twice
with great slaughter, and then attacked the British fort of
VI.] The British in Africa. 1 1 1
Elmina, where the Ashanti army sustained such a serious
repulse that it avoided any further attacks on British fortified
settlements. A year afterwards, Sir John Glover (as he sub-
sequently became) marched with Hausa levies to attack the
Ashanti from the east, while Sir Garnet Wolseley\ arriving in
the winter of 1873 "^^^^ a strong expedition composed of
British soldiers, contingents of the West Indian regiments,
British seamen, and marines, drove the enemy back into their
country, reached the capital, Kumasi, and captured and burned
that place. A somewhat dubious peace was arrived at, the
king never afterwards fulfilling the terms of the treaty, which
he was supposed to have signed with a pencil cross ; and for
twenty-one years to follow Britisli relations with Ashanti
(which was also devastated by civil war) were unsatisfactory.
At last in 1895 another strong expedition marched on the
capital without firing a shot and took the king prisoner. The
result has been that thenceforth Ashanti has been administered
by the government of the Gold Coast.
Although the Gold Coast is perhaps the most unhealthy of
the British West African possessions, it is prosperous in its
finances, and has made great progress in trade. In the last
ten years the total value of its trade has more than doubled,
and stands now at ;^i,5oo,ooo in approximate yearly value.
The colony of Lagos came into existence in 1863^. It
was afterwards added to the government of the West African
Settlements, then attached to the Gold Coast ; and finally in
1886 made an independent colony. Lagos, as its name shows,
was originally a discovery of the Portuguese, who so named it
from the large lagoon, which until recently was a harbour of
very doubtful value, even on this harbourless coast, but is now
by a vast expenditure of money rendered safe for exit and
entrance at high tide. In the days of the early Portuguese
adventurers the modem territory of Lagos was partly under
' Afterwards Viscount Wolseley.
^ The territory was ceded in 1861.
1 1 2 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
the influence of Dahome, partly under the rule of Benin ; and
the Portuguese and subsequently the British came there to buy
slaves which native warfare rendered so abundant. In prose-
cuting the crusade against the slave trade in the middle of the
present century the British Government came into contact with
the king of Lagos, who had become one of the most truculent
slave traders on the coast. This king, Kosoko, was expelled
by a British naval expedition in 185 1, and his cousin was
placed on the throne after having made a treaty with the
British binding himself to put down the slave trade. A British
consul was appointed to superintend the execution of this
treaty, but neither the king who signed it nor the son who
succeeded him kept faithfully to its provisions. At length, in
1861, the king of Lagos ceded his state to the British Govern-
ment in return for a pension of ^^looo a year, which he drew
until his death twenty-four years later. Under British rule
Lagos attained remarkable prosperity, though unhappily its
extremely unhealthy climate has caused great loss of life
amongst the officials appointed to administer the colony.
Owing to the great commercial movement in its port (the
adaptation of which to ocean-going steamers proved very
difficult and very expensive) it is called, with some justice,
the " Liverpool of West Africa."
At any time between the annexation of Lagos and, say,
1880, the small strip of coast which separates Lagos from the
Gold Coast might easily have been taken under British
protection, the only power with any intervening rights being
Portugal with one fort on the coast of Dahome ; but the
Home Government would never agree to this procedure until
it was too late and France and Germany had intervened.
Latterl}', during the last fourteen years, there was growing
trouble with France owing to her extending her protection or
colonization over the little kingdom of Porto Novo and the
large negro state of Dahome. These disputes as to delimita-
tion of the frontier were settled in 1889 as far north as the
vt-] The British in Africa. 113
9th parallel. Then ensued in 1897 and 1898 a strenuous
attempt on the part of the French to cut across the Lagos
hinterland up to the Niger, but this difference has again been
happily solved by the Convention signed between the two
countries in the summer of this year (1898).
Beyond Lagos, and indeed connected with it by half
choked-up creeks, begins the great delta of the Niger, which
extends along an elbow of the coast about 200 miles to the
eastward, and ends — so far as direct connection with the Niger
is concerned — at the mouth of the river Kwo-ibo, though
there are possibly creeks inside the coast-line which would
carry on the connection of the delta to the Old Calabar river.
These innumerable branches of the Niger estuary were taken
to be independent rivers (which indeed they are to some
extent, receiving as they do many streams rising independently
of the main Niger) until well into the present century, when it
was at last made clear that they constituted the outlets of the
third greatest river of Africa. Together with the adjoining
rivers of Old Calabar and the Cameroons, they became known
as the " Oil Rivers," because they produced the greater part
and the best quality of the palm oil sent to the European
market. The Portuguese first came here in the 17th and i8th
centuries (after falling out with the king of Benin) to trade in
slaves, and the English followed them at the end of the i8th
century and displaced them altogether. Evidence of former
Portuguese interest in the Niger Delta is sufficiently shown by
the fact that some of these rivers have Portuguese names, or
Portuguese corruptions of native names. The remaining
names are chiefly those of naval officers or ships that surveyed
them, or occasionally a native name more or less corrupted.
By the time the slave trade was rendered illegal, the won-
derful virtues of palm oil had been discovered, chiefly in con-
nection with its value as a lubricant for machinery, especially
locomotives. It is also of especial value for making candles
and soap. Therefore the development of railways in England
J. A. 8
114 T^^^^ Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
and other European countries, the new cleanliness, which
coincidently was preached as a British gospel, and the spread
of education and love of reading made the fortune of the Oil
Rivers and those merchants who settled there at imminent
risk of death from fever. Already in the '40's British trading
interests had become so important in the Niger Delta that
a consul was appointed. The British Government, for the
purpose of putting down the slave trade, had, with the consent
of Spain, occupied during the first half of the 19th century the
Spanish island of Fernando Po, and the administration of this
island was for some time connected wth the consular post
for the Bights of Biafra and Benin. Afterwards, when Spain
resumed the possession of Fernando Po, the British consul for
the Bights was also consul for the Spanish island ; but little by
little his duties obliged him to reside more on the Oil Rivers
than on the adjoining island. With the exception of the
brilliant Richard Burton, who for four years was consul for the
Bights of Biafra and Benin, the post was usually held by a
gentleman who had been to some extent previously connected
with African trade, and whose purview was not much extended
politically; but in 1880 the late Mr E. H. Hewett, C.M.G.
(formerly Vice-Consul in Angola, and brother of the late
Admiral Hewett), a man of some distinction, was appointed
to the post. He took up his residence at Old Calabar, and his
reports aroused great interest in the Government of that period,
which was disposed to accede to the petitions of the chiefs and
to take all the coast under British protection from Lagos to
the Gaboon. But the plans of the Ministry were not fully settled
until the end of 1883, and when Mr Hewett returned to the
coast with full powers he was slightly delayed by ill-health and
still more so by the beginning of the Niger Question, and the
importance of securing a hold over the lower Niger. Con-
sequently, the German Government, taking advantage of Mr
Hewett's difficulties, suddenly pounced on the Cameroons,
though only a very small portion of the Cameroons river was
VI.] The British in Africa. 115
actually secured by the German envoy. By dint of rapid move-
ments, the British flag was erected over all the remaining territory
in the Oil Rivers district. Had the German Government been
taken literally, and merely allowed to hold the four or five
square miles of territory it had legally secured, its action in
forestalling Mr Hewett would have been scarcely noticed ; but
Germany was determined to have a large slice of West Africa,
and the British Government, being embarrassed by difficulties
elsewhere in foreign affairs, had to withdraw its flag eventually
from the vicinity of the Cameroons river and mountain. The
last patch of Cameroons territory which was given up to Ger-
many was the interesting little settlement of Ambas Bay on the
flanks of the mighty Cameroons mountain, founded by the
English Baptist Mission when e.xpelled from Fernando Po.
Mr Hewett annexed this territory in 1884, and the author
of this book administered it from 1885 until the time of its
surrender to Germany in 1887.
The limits of the Oil Rivers Protectorate were then drawn
at the Rio del Rey on the east, and the boundary of Lagos
Colony on the west. The eastern boundar}' was subsequently
extended by agreement with Germany to the upper waters of the
river Benue and to the shores of Lake Chad. This acquisi-
tion — now known as the Niger Coast Protectorate — was at
first administered by consular_,authority and b y the author of
t his bo ok, who f ound _ himself oblige d to fa ce a seri ous difficulty
in the determined -opposition of certain coa st chi efs_ta_the_
carrying on of direct trade I'i'ithjihejnterior. These w ere t he
""middle men7'~who had for several centuries prevented the
penefratioiTor Africa from the West coast by Europeans, in the
dread that they would lose their lucrative commission on the
products of the interior which they retailed on the coast.
Some of these chiefs were of long established ruling families ;
others again had commenced life as slaves and had risen
to be wealthy merchant-kings with incomes of ;£3o,ooo to
^50,000 a year, derived from their profits on the goods from
the interior wliich passed through their hands. Foremost
8—2
Ii6 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
among^these-obstaichvp inrliKiduals^v_as_Ja-Ja,^a slave from
the Ibo country, who as servant, trader and counsellor to chiefs
of Bonny had risen to such a position of wealth and influence
that he had armed a large force of fighting men and a flotilla
of war canoes, and made himself the most powerful chief in
the Niger Delta. He resided on the river Opobo, and was
very jealous of his independence, only signing a qualified treaty
of protection with the British Government from the well-
grounded fear that if he did not do so the French would take
his country as an access to the Niger. As Ja-Ja at last went
to the length of forcible opposition to trade between the
British merchants and the natives of the interior, the present
writer was convp elled to remnvp hini —tQ, the OnhjjT'nasf-tnJip
trie d before a commissioner. As a result of the trial he was
deposed and sentenced to five years' banishment in the West
Indies. He did not live to return to his country ; but with
his disappearance the principal resistance of the middle-men
was broken, though at Benin and behind Old Calabar similar
actJonJiasj2adJojDejaJcenJo_secure^_freg ^ade.
The Niger Coast Protectorate is now governed to all
intents and purposes like a Crown colony, though for the time
being it is still under the direction of the Foreign Office.
So much for the delta of the Niger. A keen rivalry had
taken place about the same time between Great Britain and
France for the possession of that great stream above the delta.
The Niger had been discovered from its source to the last
rapid at the head of its seaward navigability by Mungo Park,
one of the greatest of British explorers. The rest of the
exploration from Busa to the sea had been completed by other
British travellers ; from the point of view of discovery the
whole Niger was British from source to mouth. The naviga-
tion of the river from the sea to above its confluence with the
Benue was first organized by a Scotchman, MacGregor Laird,
in 1832 ; and in 1841, 1854 and 1857 the British Government
despatched various expeditions to explore and make treaties ;
they also established a consul (Dr Baikie) to reside at Lokoja,
VI.] TJu British in Africa. 117
where the Benue meets the Niger. The loss of life from the
effects of the climate was so great in those days that the British
Government became discouraged. The consulate at Lokoja
was abolished in 1866, and on the other hand no attempt
whatever was made to attach to the interior of Sierra Leone
the rich countries lying beyond the sources of the Niger.
But for independent action on the part of British traders
the Niger would have become either entirely French, or in
the main a French river with a German estuary. During
the '8o's' the French Government of Senegal pushed forward
to the Upper Niger. Earlier still, by the influence of Gambetta,
two powerful French politico-commercial companies were
formed to establish trading houses all along the Lower Niger.
In spite of much discouragement, however, the numerous British
firms that traded with the Niger had stuck to the river ; but
although they were doing a great deal of trade their profits
were reduced by excessive competition. The hour had come
to strike for the Niger ; where was the man ? A Captain
George Goldie Taubman' (a Royal Engineers officer) had
been left several thousand pounds' worth of shares in one of
these small Niger Companies. Having spent some time in
Egypt, he resolved to go to the Niger and see whether his
shares were worth retaining. Like an analogous great man in
South Africa, he decided on working for amalgamation. With
untiring energy and great tact he brought about the consolida-
tion of all the British companies trading on the Niger. Then
he bought out the French company, discouraged as they were
by Gambetta's death, and boldly applied to the Imperial Govern-
ment for a charter, being able to show them that no other
trading firm but his own existed on the Niger. England was
just about to take part at that time in the Conference of Berlin.
She lost the Congo but won the Niger. When the British
claim to a protectorate was acceded to in principle at the
Berlin Conference, a charter was granted to the National
' Afterwards Sir George Taubman Goldie.
1 18 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
African Company founded by Captain, now the Right Hon.
Sir George Taubman Goldie, who changed the name of his
association to that of the Royal Niger Company. The main
course of the river Niger down to the sea was placed under the
administration of this chartered company, but the Benin district
to the West, and the Brass, Bonny, Opobo, and Old Calabar
districts to the East were, as already related, eventually organized
as the Niger Coast Protectorate under direct Imperial adminis-
tration, because in these countries the Niger Company had no
predominating interests. In all probability the administration
of the Niger and of the Niger Coast will one day be unified and
possibly joined with the neighbouring colony of Lagos.
When Sir George Goldie's Company had expended nearly
all its available capital in buying out the French and purchasing
governing rights from the native chiefs (all of which expen-
diture would have been unnecessary if their Government had
adopted at the first the bold policy of declaring the Lower
Niger a British Protectorate), a fresh obstacle had to be over-
come : German rivalry came into play. The Germans had
just taken the Cameroons but had failed to secure the Oil
Rivers. Herr Flegel was sent to obtain concessions beyond
the limits of the Royal Niger Company's immediate jurisdic-
tion in the Nigerian Sudan. But Flegel was forestalled in
his principal object by the explorer Joseph Thompson, who
most ably conducted a mission to the court of the emperor
of Sokoto, and secured a treaty with that important Fula
potentate which brought his territories under exclusive British
influence. In 1890 British claims to a vast Niger empire were
recognized by France and Germany. Unhappily the French
recognition was allowed to remain too vague in regard to the
northern and western boundaries of British Nigeria, thus
rendering it possible for France in the ensuing eight years to
strive to cut into the British sphere from two directions, if not
three. On the north it was sought to push back the boundary
of the empire of Sokoto, so as to bring the French sphere as
^'i-] Tlie British in Africa. 119
far as possible to the south, though this assertion went little
beyond map-making. On the south, Lieutenant Mizon made
the most persistent, hostile, and, as it would seem, unpractical
attempts to secure for France a large sphere of influence on
the river Benue, which could hardly be approached from
French territory because the German sphere would stand in
the way. Finally as the delimitation in the Anglo-French
agreement of 1890 merely carried the British boundary from
Lake Chad to Say on the middle Niger, and did not provide a
western boundary, the French (though unofficially according us
in 1890 a straight line drawn from Say due south to the
boundary between Lagos and Dahome) gradually pushed their
acquisitions eastward from Senegambia until they had secured
all the right bank of the Middle and Lower Niger as far as
Busa, which is at the end of the Niger cataracts and at the
commencement of its navigabihty seawards. A British pro-
tectorate over Busa had been announced to France in 1894,
so that this act on the part of the French was a distinct
trespass on British rights and caused considerable excitement
at the time ; but, as may be seen by the recently signed
convention, the French finally yielded to British claims.
They had some time before tacitly disowned the enterprise of
Lieutenant Mizon, which had been rendered the more hope-
less, firstly by the agreement between England and Germany
in 1893 (which provided for a continuous Anglo-German
boundary from the Rio del Rey on the coast to the southern
shores of Lake Chad), and secondly by the subsequent P'ranco-
German agreement of 1894 by which a wedge of German
territory was interposed between the French claims in Congo-
land and on the river Shari, and the British sphere on the
Benue; though nevertheless the Germans admitted the French
to a point on the extreme upper waters of the Benue in return
for German access to one of the Congo tributaries.
Besides being hampered by the conflicting ambitions of other
European powers, the Niger Company has had to conduct a
I20 TJie Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
very important campaign against the Amir of Nupe. Like most
great Muhammadan empires, Sokoto consisted of a bundle of
vassal states owing a varying degree of allegiance to the domin-
ant power. The fact is that British Nigeria contains four
important, slightly civilized negro peoples, and an indefinite
number of savage tribes who are politically of no account
whatever. These four great peoples are the Songhai on the
North-west, the Hausa occupying all the centre, the Bornu or
Kanuri on the North-east, and the Nupe on the South-west.
Over three of these (excepting the Kanuri) the Fula conquests
of a century ago had established Fula rule wich its head-
quarters in the Hausa States. But the kingdom of Nupe,
though ruled by a Fula dynasty, held its allegiance to the
court of Sokoto but cheaply, and requested at the hands of the
Niger Company a recognition of its complete independence,
which for political reasons the Company could not give. This
powerful kingdom, however, stood in the way of all access to
Sokoto, and in its defiance of the Niger Company raided for
slaves far down on the Lower Niger. Unless a way was to be
opened for successful foreign intrigue by allowing Nupe to assert
its independence of Sokoto and the Royal Niger Company, it
was necessary to subdue its pretensions. Therefore Sir George
Goldie, with the aid of a well chosen staff of British officers, of
Hausa troops and machine guns, inflicted a crushing defeat on
the Fula forces of Nupe, captured their capital, and success-
fully asserted the sovereign rights of the Company as conferred
on them by the Sultan of Sokoto. Subsequently other turbu-
lent and slave-raiding tribes were dealt with, and the Company
is gradually rendering itself master of a great empire in West-
central Africa, which it will in time hand over to direct
Imperial administration.
Interest in these regions of the Western Sudan was evinced
by the British Government early in the present century, and it
was at the expense of our country that numerous expeditions
set out from Tripoli across the Sahara Desert to discover Lake
VI.] The British in Africa. I2i
Chad and to reveal the existence of the river Benue. At one
time British influence was so strong with the semi-independent
Basha of Tripoli, that it seemed possible that British protection
might be accorded to that state, seeing that France in a
similar manner had ignored equally valid Turkish claims to
the suzerainty of Algiers. But the uprising of Muhammad Ali
in Egypt awakened the Turks to the necessity of reenforcing
their claims to Tripoli, and British projects in that direction
were abandoned.
As regards Morocco, the Portuguese fortress of Tangier
had been ceded to England in 1662, the British having desired
it as giving them a port of call close to the Straits of Gibraltar.
It vifas found difficult however to maintain it against the con-
tinual attacks of the Moors, and it was therefore surrendered
to the Emperor of Morocco in 1684; though it is pretty
generally understood that were the Empire of Morocco to
break up or come under the influence of a European power,
Tangier would be re-occupied by England. During the long
period in which the late Sir John Drummond Hay represented
England at the court of Morocco British influence not only
saved that country from conquest by France and by Spain, but
made it almost a vassal state of the British Empire, as was the
case with Zanzibar under Sir John Kirk, and Tunis under Sir
Richard Wood. A British factory was established, without
much encouragement, it is said, from the British Government,
at Cape Juby, opposite the Canary Islands, on a stretch of
coast to the south of Morocco, which was without definite
attachment to any recognized state. It seemed at one time as
though the establishment of this trading company might lead
to some assertion of British political rights, but other counsels
prevailed, and at the instigation of the British Government the
Sultan of Morocco acquired the company's rights, and took
under his flag the coast between the river Draa and the
boundary of the Spanish Rio de Oro protectorate, which
begins a little distance to the south of Cape Juby.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FRENCH IN WEST AND NORTH AFRICA.
It has been asserted with some degree of probabiUty that
certain seamen-adventurers of Dieppe found their way along
the West coast of Africa as far as the Gold Coast in the
14th century, a hundred years before the Portuguese ; and
that they established themselves on the Senegal river, built two
settlements (Little Paris, and Little Dieppe) on the Liberian
coast, and established trading stations at "La Mine d'Or"
(Elmina), at Accra, and at Kormantin, on the Gold Coast.
The Dieppois station at Elmina was said to have been
founded in 1382, but forty years later, owing to the wars in
France having distracted Norman commerce from over-sea
enterprise, these settlements were abandoned. There may
have been some truth in these accounts of Norman discoveries
on the West coast of Africa. A Norman adventurer un-
doubtedly discovered the Canary Islands in the 14th century,
and it is probable that the Rio d'Ouro was known to Italian
seamen before it was placed on the map by the Portuguese.
When, three centuries later, the French founded a settlement
at the mouth of the Senegal, they are said to have discovered
the remains of a Norman fort (built there by these adventurers
from Dieppe) and to have made it the nucleus of the modern
town of St Louis.
At any rate, soon after the Portuguese had laid bare the
coast of Guinea, ships began to sail from the Norman ports to
resume or to commence the West African trade, though no
Chap, vii.] TJie French in West and North Africa. 123
attempt was made to found any political settlements ; for in
the matter of founding colonies in Africa, France was con-
siderably behind Portugal, Holland, and England. However,
a young Frenchman named Claude Jannequin de Rochefort
was pacing the quays at Dieppe in 1637 with vague aspirations
to be "another Cortes." Happening to ask where a certain
ship was going, and being told in reply that she was bound for
the "Senaga" river in Africa, near Cape de Verde, he instantly
resolved to go, and before many hours were over was entered
on the ship's book as a soldier ; he afterwards performed the
duties of clerk to the captain. It would seem that this vessel,
which had not only soldiers but monks on board, must have
been despatched by some far-seeing authority, since before the
Sieur de Rochefort joined its company it had been determined
to stop on the West African coast north of the Senegal river,
cut down trees, build a small boat, and use it to explore
the Senegal. This plan had been formulated in complete
ignorance of the fact that the coast north of the Senegal and
south of Morocco contains no timber for boat-building. Find-
ing this to be the case, the Dieppe expedition, under the
command of Captain Lambert, with the Sieur de Rochefort
among its soldiers, went on to the Senegal and put together a
small boat out of timber they had brought from France. Into
this small vessel they transferred a portion of their crew,
including De Rochefort, and the Senegal river was explored
for no miles from its mouth. Although the Dieppe adven-
turers were said to have built a fort on the site of St Louis in
1360, and the Portuguese had a few trading posts on its lower
reaches in the 15th century, there were no Europeans on the
river when it was visited by De Rochefort, though the Dutch
had established stations on the coast not far off. After obtain-
ing concessions from the natives. Captain Lambert's expedition
returned to France (experiencing many delays and adventures
on the way), and six years after he had started from Dieppe De
Rochefort published an interesting account of their adventures.
124 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
But this pioneer expedition was not soon followed up,
owing to the hostility of the Dutch. The Norman Company
sold its rights to the French West India Company, and the
latter again transferred them to a subsidiary association after-
wards called the " Royal Senegal Company." This last-named
corporation sent out a very able man to attend to its affairs —
Andr^ de Briie — who made his head-quarters at Fort St Louis,
which had been founded by De Rochefort's party. This
remarkable person, Briie, combined the qualities of a man of
science and a far-sighted trader, and he may be said to have
really laid the foundations of the French empire in West
Africa. Briie made two important journeys up the Senegal
and into the interior. He remained eighteen years on the coast
of Senegal, and visited the Gambia in 1700, finding EngHsh,
Portuguese, and Spanish there, the first named trading at the
mouth of the river, and the two last settled some distance up
its course as flourishing slave traders. According to Briie, the
Portuguese slave trading settlements exhibited some degree of
civilization, but also of rowdiness among the European ele-
ment, not unlike the proceedings of the " Mohocks " in the
streets of London. In his writings Briie expresses his amaze-
ment at the enormous number of bees inhabiting the mangrove
swamps and coast lands of Guinea. In the early part of the
1 8th century Briie sent out agents to extend French influence
up the Senegal and towards the " Gold " country of Bambuk,
the mountainous region on the upper Senegal. Briie finally
returned to France in 1715 and lived quietly for a long time
afterwards on the large fortune he had accumulated. His is a
name to be well remembered in the annals of the French
Empire. He was a far-sighted, cultivated man, who had also
the gift of choosing and employing good associates. Among
these may be mentioned the Sieur Campagnon, the beau-
ideal of a good-tempered, good-looking, supple, kind-hearted,
valorous Frenchman. Only the charm of Campagnon's win-
ning ways enabled him to penetrate the recesses of Bambuk,
VII.] The French in West and North Africa. 125
whose secrets as a gold-bearing country were jealously guarded
by the natives. One little incident of Campagnon's life on the
Senegal depicts his disposition. Walking round the outskirts
of St Louis he came across an unfortunate lioness that had
belonged to an inhabitant of the town, but had been thrown
out on the rubbish heaps to die. The unfortunate beast had
been suffering from some malady of the jaw which would not
permit mastication, and was therefore nearly dead from hunger.
When Campagnon saw the lioness her eyes were glazing and
her mouth was full of ants and dirt. He took pity on the
unfortunate creature, washed her mouth and throat clean, and
fed her with milk. This saved her life, and the grateful animal
conceived a warm affection for him, and would afterwards
follow him about like a dog and take food from no one else.
Dr Robert Brown, who unearthed this charming anecdote,
further informs us that after his romantic career in Africa
Campagnon returned to France, and died after a long and
prosperous life, a master mason and undertaker in Paris.
The French continued to develop their Senegal settlements
with some prosperity until 1758, when they were captured by
the British, who held them until 1778, and acquired them
again for a time by the peace of 1783 ; after this they were in
British hands a few years longer, but were French again by
1790. In 1800 the British took the island of Goree, which
the French had acquired from the Dutch at the end of the
1 7th century (from whom also they had taken Arguin, a httle
island near Cape Blanco, in 172 1). By the peace of 1783 the
English had secured from the French the exclusive right to
trade with the Arabs or Moors of Portendik for grain. Por-
tendik was a place on the Senegal coast about 120 miles north
of St Louis. All the French possessions in Senegal which
were held by the British from time to time during the
Napoleonic wars were given back to France at the peace of
181 5, though at that time the British hold over the Gambia
was more clearly defined (the French only retaining one post
126 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
on that river, given up in 1857 in return for the British trade
monopoly with Portendik). The French had already resumed
their explorations of Senegambia at the end of the i8th cen-
tury, and after the final recovery of the Senegal river in 1817
these researches were pushed with some degree of ardour. In
1818 Mollien discovered the sources of the Gambia, and De
Beaufort explored the country of Kaarta. In 1827 Rene
Cailhd started from the river Nunez with help derived from the
colony of Sierra Leone (for which he was subsequently very
ungrateful) and descended the Niger to Timbuktu, thence
making his way across the desert to Morocco. His journey,
however, did not do much to lure the French Nigerwards at
that time, especially as a great Fula conqueror had arisen,
El Hadj 'Omar, whose conquests not only blocked the way to
the Niger, but later on threatened the very existence of the
French settlements on the Senegal. But after a long period of
inaction and lack of interest, the French colony of the Senegal
was to receive great extension. General Faidherbe, who for
political reasons was rather distrusted by the newly-formed
Second Empire, was exiled to Senegal in 1854 in the guise of
an appointment as Governor-General. He was a man of great
enterprise and intelligence, and immediately began to study
the resources and extension of the Senegal colony. He first
punished severely the Moorish tribes to the north of the river
Senegal, who had again and again raided the settled country.
Before he had been a year in Senegambia, Faidherbe had
annexed the Wuli country, and had built the fort of Medina to
oppose the progress of El Hadj 'Omar. 'Omar sent an army
of 20,000 men against Medina, but they were repulsed by the
officer in coiiimand, and finally had to retreat before Faid-
herbe's advance. Following on the repulse of the Fulas came
the annexation of many countries along the Upper Senegal,
and in the direction of the Gambia. A year later the country
between St Louis and the mouth of the Gambia, past Cape
Verde, had been annexed. Then the Casamanse river, between
VII.] The French in West and North Africa. 127
the Gambia and Portuguese Guinea, was taken ; then, in the
'6o's,' the coast between Portuguese Guinea and Sierra Leone
was added to the French possessions, under the name of
" Rivieres du Sud."
A suspension of French activity occurred after the disas-
trous Franco-German war, but it was resumed again in 1880.
Captain GalHdni surveyed the route for a raihvay to connect
the navigable Senegal with the Upper Niger, which he reached
in that year at Bamaku. But he and other French officers had
to contend with the imposing forces of king Ahmadu, the son
and successor of El Hadj 'Omar, who ruled over the country
between the upper Senegal and the Niger. However Ahmadu's
capital of Kita was taken by Colonel Desbordes, and a treaty
was made with Ahmadu which placed his territory under
French protection. By 1883 the post of Bamaku on the
Upper Niger had been definitely founded and fortified. The
French then came into conflict with the forces of Samori, a
negro (probably Mandingo) king who had risen from a very
humble position to that of conqueror and ruler of the countries
about the source of the Niger. Both Samori and Ahmadu
commanded hordes of Muhammadan negroes, whose conquests
were often undertaken from propagandist motives, and who
were to some extent in sympathy with the Muhammadan tribes
of the Lower Niger. Roughly speaking, Ahmadu may be said
to represent the dying Fula power on the western Niger — that
power which at the beginning of this century founded an
empire stretching from the Senegal to Lake Chad and the
Benue — while Samori's forces were mainly recruited from
among the Mandingo races, Muhammadan negroes who have
long played a very important part in the commerce and
development of West Africa. In 1885-6 a campaign was
undertaken by Colonel Frey against Samori, which did some-
thing to check the power of that raiding chief. Subsequently
the French had to suppress a formidable insurrection among
the Muhammadan populations of the newly protected countries.
1 28 TJie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
In 1887 Colonel Gallieni returned, and made a further and
more ample treaty with Ahmadu. He constructed a railway
round the cataracts of the Senegal. He also concluded
another treaty with Samori by which the latter recognized as
under French rule a small portion of the Upper Niger.
Gallieni further despatched Lieutenant Caron in 1887 to visit
Timbuktu on a gunboat. Caron reached the port of Timbuktu
(Kabara), but the hostility of the natives prevented his visiting
the city, and he returned without effecting more than an
ominous reconnaissance. In 1881 France had taken, some-
what forcibly, Futa-jalon, the home of the Fulas', under her
protection. This treaty in 1887 was extended and ratified.
The British had been repeatedly invited to extend their pro-
tection to Futa-jalon, but had declined, though at one time it
would have been easy enough to have connected the colonies
of the Gambia and Sierra Leone, through this mountainous
region. In 1888 Captain Binger commenced an exploring
journey for France which had the most remarkable results.
He was the first to enter the unknown country included within
the great northern bend of the Niger. He secured by treaty
French protection over Tieba, Kong, and other countries lying
between the Niger and the Ivory Coast. In 1890-91 Ahmadu,
the Fula king, had been attempting to shake himself free from
French control. Colonel Archinard conducted campaigns
against him which ended in adding to the French Senegalese
dominions Kaarta, Bakhunu and Segu, and thus freed from
obstruction the road to Timbuktu. Later on Colonel Archi-
nard defeated the raider-king Samori and occupied his capital,
Bisandugu, near the frontiers of Liberia. Samori then moved
further to the east, thus coming into contact with the advanced
' The Ftilas — a most interesting race — are negroid rather than negro in
physical type and seem to be the result of a cross between the Berbers of
the Sahara and the negroes of the Sudan; they dwelt originally in the
countries north of the Senegal, but crossing that river they seized on
Futa-jalon as their home.
VII.] The F.rench in West and North Africa. 129
posts of the Gold Coast colony. An attempt was made in
1894-5 to attack him in his new kingdom, and Colonel
Monteil (who had previously ioumeyed from Senegal to the
Niger, and from the Niger to Bornu, and thence overland to
Tripoh) led a military expedition against him from the Ivory
Coast. Colonel Monteil was very unsuccessful, and was re-
called by the French Government. Finally in the autumn of
1898, Lieutenant Woelfel and Other French officers advancing
from the Ivory Coast inflicted the most crushing defeats on
Samori's forces and reduced his power to a nullity.
During the reign of Louis Philippe a somewhat feeble
revival of colonial enterprise had taken place, during which
France made half-hearted attempts to establish herself in
New Zealand, and secured New Caledonia and Tahiti in the
Pacific. At this time also she thought of ■ extending her
possessions in unoccupied districts along the West Coast of
Africa, and had acquired rights over Grand Bassam and Assini
to the west of the British Gold Coast. During the '6o's some
efforts were made by the Second Empire to stake out claims
in Africa, and Porto Novo was accorded French protection in
1868. These claims however had been allowed to lapse to
some degree, and the places acquired would at one time have
been willingly handed over to England for a small compensa-
tion. But in the scramble for Africa that commenced in 1884
they suddenly acquired immense value in the eyes of the
French as footholds upon which to commence an expansion
northwards from the Gulf of Guinea to the Niger empire of
which France had begun to dream. In 1884 therefore Grand
Bassam and Assini, on the Gold Coast, and Porto Novo, a
tiny little vassal kingdom of Dahome, were effectively occupied.
The journey of Captain Binger from the Niger to the Gold
Coast gave Grand Bassam a hinterland, and the consequence
was that the Ivory Coast between Grand Bassam and Liberia
was annexed by France in 1891. Hitherto this coast, the
interior of which was then and is still one of the least known
J. A. 9
130 The Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
parts of Africa, had been of great importance to British trade,
which was carried on chiefly by Bristol sailing ships. Moreover,
from the Ivory Coast come the bulk of the celebrated Kru-
boys, who are the best labour obtainable along the West
Coast of Africa from the Gambia to the Orange River. Never-
theless, although the petty chiefs of the Ivory Coast had often
offered their friendship and vassalage to Great Britain, no
steps were taken on the part of the British Government, and
therefore no protest was offered when France annexed the
Ivory Coast and became next neighbour to Liberia- In 1894
a somewhat stringent treaty was concluded between France
and Liberia, by which, in the event of the latter coming
under the influence or protection of any other power, France
would have the reversion of much of her hinterland. The
occupation of Porto Novo soon led to a quarrel with Dahome,
a kingdom of singular bloodthirstiness, which had defied both
England and Portugal at different times, and had laughed at
our' futile blockades of its coast. After a preliminary occupa-
tion of the Dahomean coast to\\-ns and the imposition" of a
somewhat doubtful French suzerainty, the king, Behanzin,
compelled the French to make their action more effective. A
well-equipped expedition was sent out in 1893 under General
Dodds, who had conducted the first operations in 1891. For
the first time Dahome was invaded by a well-organized
European force, and after a fierce struggle the entire kingdom
was overrun and conquered, and the king was captured and
sent to the West Indies.
In the mean time, the French forces marching step by
step along the upper Niger captured the important town of
Jenne in 1893 — Jenne, the home of Nigerian civilization, and
the mother of Timbuktu. From Jenne Colonel Archinard
directed a march to ^e made to Timbuktu — it is said, with-
out or contrary to orders from the Governor of Senegambia.
Two squadrons marched overland, and a river flotilla of gun-
boats under Commandant Boiteux steamed to the port of
vn.] Tlie Fretuh in West and North Africa. 131
Timbuktu, Kabara. The flotilla of gunboats and lighters
arrived at Kabara in advance of the military forces, and caused
considerable perturbation in Timbuktu. The civilized in-
habitants of the town were willing to surrender it to the
French, only fearing their hated masters — the Tawareq. The
Tawareq, however, hearing of the coming of the land expedi-
tion, left the town to meet it, and the Niger being remarkably
high. Lieutenant Boiteux was actually able to take two lighters
armed with machine guns up the back water, which in seasons
of flood reaches the walls of Timbuktu. After a little dehbera-
tion the town surrendered to the French. Shortly afterwards
the Tawareq returned and attacked the naval station formed
at Kabara on the Niger, killing a midshipman. Lieutenant
Boiteux, hearing that firing was going on, rode out of Timbuktu
with one other European, accompanied by his little garrison on
foot, arrived at Kabara and routed the Tawareq. This was a
tnily gallant action, worthy to be recorded. After standing a
short siege in Timbuktu, and making a successful sortie, the
little naval expedition was relieved from the anxiety of its
position by the arrival of the first column under Colonel
Bonnier on the 14th of January, 1894. Timbuktu was thus
captured by the French with nineteen men, seven of whom were
French, and the remainder Senegalese negroes. But a slight
reverse was to follow. Over-rash, Colonel Bonnier started with
a small force to reconnoitre the country round Timbuktu, and
rid the neighbourhood of the Tawareq. Too confident, they
marched into a trap. Their camp was surprised by the
Tawareq at early dawn, and almost all the French troops were
massacred, only three French officers and a handful of men
escaping to tell the tale. Twenty-five days afterwards, a second
column under Colonel Jouffre arrived on the scene, and col-
lected the remains of the unfortunate Frenchmen for interment
at Timbuktu. It then set out to follow up the Tawareq, whom
the French surprised in turn at night in their encampment, and
of whom Colonel Jouffre beheved his soldiers to have slain
9—2
132 TJie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
many. From that time the French have had no serious
fighting near Timbuktu. French merchants are estabhshed
there already and French missionaries — the White Fathers —
from Algeria. A curious episode in the French conquest was
an appeal, when hearing of the French approach, by the
notables of Timbuktu to the Emperor of Morocco to intervene.
After a 3'ear's delay the Moroccan Sultan replied that upon
receiving proofs of the vassalage of Timbuktu he would march
upon the French and drive them away.
Subsequently the French patrolled the Niger far to the 1
south of Timbuktu, and found it much more navigable than |
they believed. They established a post at Say, and Lieutenant ,'
Hourst explored that small portion of the river between Say
and Gomba which till then remained marked by dotted lines on
the map. Numerous expeditions came across the bend of the
Niger from its upper waters to its middle course, incessantly
making treaties and extending the rule of France. Again,
following on the conquest of Dahome, the French marched
northwards across the 9th parallel, which had hitherto marked
the limitation between the French and British possessions, and
occupied the country of Nikki, which had previously been
acquired for the Royal Niger Company by Major, now Colonel,
Lugard, C.B. A bolder step still was taken by the occupation
of Busa (already declared to be a British protectorate), at a
time when Sir George Goldie and his forces were winning
\-ictories over the forces of Nupe in the vicinity. This step
liowever roused such a strong expression of popular feeling in
England that a conference was formed in Paris to negotiate a
settlement between England and France, and eventually France
gave way on the point of Busa, though she kept Nikki, and
was able to extend her control of the west bank of the Niger
to Ilo, a considerable distance below Say. She thus united
her Dahomean conquest to the rest of her Niger empire.
Although the French empire in Africa began with a
settlement on the Senegal, which at the end of two centuries
VII.] The FrencJi in West and Nortli Africa. 133
and a half had led her to the central Niger, it was followed
chronologically and at no great distance of time by an ambition
to secure Madagascar as a French colony. The relations
of France and Madagascar however will be described in
Chapter XV.
During the three centuries following the Turkish conquest
of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, France, Hke most other Chris-
tian nations in the Mediterranean, suffered greatly at the hands
of Moorish corsairs — suffered so much that, not being able to
defend her own coasts sufficiently, it probably never entered
into her head to conquer and possess the corsairs' country ;
though she tried, in rivalry with the Genoese, to obtain a
trading and fishing station off the east Algerian coast, at
La Calle. So far as political aspirations went, her eyes were
turned fitfully towards Egypt. At the end of the 17th century
Louis XIV was advised by Leibnitz to make a descent on
Egypt, and to hold it as a station on the way to India.
The idea was not adopted, but lay . dormant in the French
archives, and was probably discovered there by the ministers
of the Directory after the French Revolution. Either it
was communicated to Napoleon Bonaparte with the idea
of sending him off on a fool's errand, or the notion had
occurred to him independently as a means of striking a blow
at the English. At any rate, with a suddenness that startled
incredulous Europe, the Corsican General, fresh from the
triumphs of his first Italian campaign, eluded the British fleet,
and landed in Alexandria in 1798 \vith a force of 40,000 men.
He met and defeated the Mamluk Beys, who ruled Egypt
under Turkish suzerainty, and eventually chased them into
Upper Egypt. He then established himself at Cairo, and
sought to win over the Muhammadan population by professing
more or less Muhammadan views of religion. But Nelson
destroyed his fleet at Aboukir Bay. A Turkish army landed
in Egypt, but was cut to pieces and driven into the sea by the
infuriated Napoleon, who then endeavoured to conquer Syria,
134 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
with the stupendous idea that he might carry his arms to
Constantinople, and possibly proclaim a revival in his own
person of the Eastern Empire. He was foiled again by the
British, who assisted the Turks to hold Acre. Napoleon,
though victorious elsewhere in Syria, eventually drew back
shattered by the unsuccessful siege of this fortress. He then
abandoned his eastern conquests with disgust, and sailed for
France. His able lieutenant, Kleber, was assassinated. A
British and Turkish army settled the fate of the remaining
French forces in Egypt, who after a capitulation were sent
back to France. But this daring inroad on the East by
Napoleon had far-reaching effects. It brought Egypt violently
into contact with European civilization, and prepared the way
for its detachment from the Turkish Empire. Moreover, it
caused France to take henceforth an acute interest in the valley
of the Nile, an interest which on several occasions has brought
her dangerously near rupture with a Power even more earnestly
concerned with the Egyptian Question.
In 1827 the Dey of Algiers, a country which remained
under nominal Turkish suzerainty — insolent beyond measure
in his treatment of Europeans, because hitherto all European
states had failed to subdue his pretensions — signalised some
difference of opinion with the French Consul by striking him
in the face with a fly-whisk. France brooded over the insult
for three years, when the tottering government of Charles X
sought to prop up the Bourbon dynasty by a successful military
expedition, and in June 1830 landed 37,000 infantr}% and a
force of cavalry and artillery at Sidi Ferruj, near Algiers.
Considering their renown as fierce fighters, the Algerians do
not seem to have made a very sturdy resistance ; though per-
haps in the lapse of time since their last war with a European
power the superiority of European arms began to be felt. At
any rate, three weeks after the French landed they had taken
the town of Algiers and the Dey had surrendered. A week
afterwards the Dey was banished to Naples. Great Britain
vii.] The French in West and North Africa. 135
then asked for information as to French projects, and was
assured that within a very short time the French forces would
be withdrawn when reparation had been made. But these
assurances were as well meant and as valueless as Russian
assurances in Central Asia, and our own repeated and un-
solicited assurances that we hoped to be able to leave Egypt
shortly. The government of Charles X fell, and the new
Orleanist government could hardly draw down on itself the
odium of a withdrawal. But an unwise policy nevertheless was
pursued towards the Arabs, a policy dictated by ignorance.
The inhabitants of Algeria had not taken a very strong part
in the defence of the Dey, who in their eyes was a Turk and a
foreigner ; but when they began to realize that their country
was about to be taken possession of by Christians, and
Christians who at that time did nothing to soothe their
religious susceptibilities, they found a leader in a princely
man, Abd al Kader. From 1835 to 1837 the French sustained
defeat after defeat at his hands. In 1837 however a truce was
made, by which Abd al Kader was recognized by the French
as Sultan over a large part of western and central Algeria.
Two years after war broke out again between the French and
Abd al Kader. An army under Marshal Bugeaud attacked
Abd al Kader with unwavering energy — perhaps with some
cruelty. In 1841 the national hero had lost nearly every
point of his kingdom, and fled into Morocco, from which
country he afterwards returned with a large army, only to be
again and again defeated, though he occasionally inflicted
great losses on the French. Finally, to save his own special
district from ruin, he came to terms with the French Governor-
General, who gave him permission to retire to Alexandria or
Naples. But the French Government repudiated the terms
granted to Abd al Kader, and kept him a close prisoner for
some years in a French fortress. When Louis Napoleon
became Emperor he released him and allowed him to live at
Damascus, where he died in 1883.
136 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
At the time when the French invaded Algeria that country
was by no means under a homogeneous government. There
were the Dey of Algiers, the Dey of Oran, and on the east the
Bey of Constantine (who ruled over much of eastern Algeria) ;
whilst the Berber tribes in the mountains and on the verge of
the desert were practically independent. Constantine was an
extremely strong place, and in their first wars with its Bey the
French failed to take it. It was not finally captured till 1847.
By this time France had warred against Morocco, had silenced
any attempt on the part of the "Emperor of the West" to
interfere in the affairs of Algeria, and had overrun and to some
degree conquered all Algeria north of the Atlas Mountains.
Therefore, in 1848, the Government felt justified in declaring
the new African acquisition to be French territory, divided
into three departments, to be ruled as part of France, and to
possess the right of representation in the French parliament.
Under the Second Empire this constitutional government,
which was, and is, no doubt, quite unsuited to what was fitly
termed by Napoleon III 'an Arab kingdom,' was set aside
in favour of military government. But this was not organized
on suitable lines, and proved a failure. In 1858 an attempt
was made to imitate the change then taking place in the
government of British India. An Algerian ministry was formed
in Paris with Prince Napoleon as Minister ; but this form of
administration also was a failure, and was abolished by the
Emperor when he returned from his visit to Algeria in 1863.
The country was then governed by a military governor,
generally with absolute powers, and attempts were made to
conciliate the Kabail or Hill Berbers, whom utter mismanage-
ment had driven into revolt. The country nevertheless con-
tinued to be afflicted with unrest, and in 1870, as the Empire
was dying, a commission sat to inquire into the state of the
colony, and to suggest remedies which might be applied to its
misgovernment. By a vote of the Chamber military govern-
ment was again abolished in favour of civil rule, but o\ving to
VII.] Tlie Freiicli in West atid North Africa. 137
an insurrection in Eastern Algeria which followed on the
Franco-German War, the recommendations of this commission
were not fully carried out till 1879, when the first civil governor
was appointed. One of the first acts of the new French Re-
public at the end of 1870 was to bestow the franchise on the
Jews of Algeria, an ill-advised action, which by discriminating
between the Jevvs and Arabs has since caused a great deal of
trouble.
From 1848 to 1880 numerous attempts were made to
induce French people to settle in Algeria, nor were the
colonists of other nations discouraged. At one time young
soldiers would be selected from the army, would be married
to poor girls dowered by the State, and sent off to setde in
Algeria, where they were given grants of land ; but often as
soon as the dowry was spent the newly-wedded mfe was
deserted by her husband, who made the best of his way back
to France. In 187 1 nearly 11,000 natives of Alsace and'
Lorraine were granted land in Algeria, and subsequently some
25,000 other French colonists were settled in the country at a
cost of 15,000,000 francs. Meantime, the peace and security
of trade introduced by the French had attracted large numbers
of Italians and Maltese to the eastern part of Algeria, and still
larger numbers of Spaniards to the western department of
Oran — so much so, that even at the present day Spanish is the
common language of Oran, and Italian is more often heard at
Bone, Constantine, and even inland as far as Tebessa than
French. Several thousands of Maltese also settled in eastern
Algeria, and became naturalized as French subjects. It is
probably that in this way Algeria will be eventually colonized
by Europe, not by the nations of the north, but by those
Mediterranean peoples, who are so nearly akin in blood to
the Berber races of North Africa. The French element that
prospers most is that drawn from the south of France. There
has been a certain intermixture between the French and the
native races, and between these again and other European
138 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
settlers. It is my opinion, based on a recent visit to Algeria,
that a remarkable degree of fusion between these elements is
being brought about. The Arabs and Berbers in the settled
parts of the country are approximating more and more in their
costume and their mode of life to the Europeans, while the
latter, curiously enough, are becoming to some extent Arabised.
There is scarcely an Algerian in any town who cannot talk
French, and there is scarcely a French settler in Algeria who
cannot talk Arabic, while among the lower classes a horrible
jargon is springing up, in which both languages are repre-
sented, mixed with Italian and Spanish words.
In 1863 the Emperor Napoleon brought about the passing
of a law which exchanged for tribal holding of land the recog-
nition of the Arabs as individual proprietors of the soil. This
law has to some extent broken up the Arab tribal system, has
corrected their nomad tendencies, and has done much to settle
them on the soil with loyalty to the existing government. Of
course, outside the relatively well-watered, fertile districts the
nature of the country induces a wandering hfe amongst the
sparse population, and here a warlike spirit still shows itself
from time to time in revolts of ever diminishing extent.
During the '8o's the French were obliged to bring large forces
into the field to suppress a serious insurrection under Bu
Amama, a leader who represented the more or less Arab tribes
inhabiting the steppe country far to the south of Oran, on the
borders of Morocco. Their turbulence was only finally subdued
by the building of a railway in the heart of their country.
Of late the Jewish question has given trouble. The Jews,
equally with the Christians in Algeria, are electors, while this
privilege is granted to only a few Arab proprietors. As in
Tunis, the Jews are terribly given to usury, and they are hated
in Algeria with an intensity which is but little understood in
England, where the Jews are scarcely to be distinguished from
other subjects of the Crown in their demeanour or practices.
But the fact is that parliamentary government, so far as Algeria
VII.] Tlie French in West and North Africa. 139
is concerned, is a cruel farce. That country should be
governed e.xactly on the lines of British India, and it would
then attain a very high degree of prosperity, and cease to be
a charge on the French exchequer.
The patent example of the success of this system is to be
seen in the adjoining country of Tunis, which under the fiction
of an Arab Sovereignty is governed despotically, ably, wisely,
and well by a single Frenchman. Tunis, which, like Algeria
and Tripoli, had since the close of the i6th century been more
or less a Turkish dependency — that is to say, a country
governed at first by Turkish officers, who finally became
quasi-independent rulers, with a recognized hereditary descent
— soon began to feel the results of the conquest of Algeria in
an increase of interest felt by the French regarding its condi-
tion. At first the relations between France and Tunis were
flattering to the latter country. The relatively enlightened
character of the Husseinite Beys was recognized, and when
France was in difficulties with Abd al Kader and the Bey of
Constantine proposals were even made to Tunis to supply
from its ruling family two or three princes who should be made
Beys of Constantine and Oran under French protection ; but
the idea was not carried out. In 1863 the Bey of Tunis went
in state to visit the Emperor Napoleon at Algiers. Neverthe-
less, during the '50's and '6o's Great Britain firmly main-
tained the independence of Tunis, at whose court she was
represented for many years by a sage diplomatist, Sir Richard
Wood. The disenchantment which Algeria caused in the
early '6o's diminished the interest which France felt in
Tunis, and during this time, under the fostering care of Sir
Richard Wood, British enterprise had acquired so large a hold
over the Regency, that at the beginning of the '70's it
would have been reasonable to have extended British protec-
tion to the Bey. But another factor had come into play — the
newly-formed Power of United Italy. The finances of Tunis
had from the time of the Crimean War. onwards got into a
140 The Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
disarray resembling in a minor degree the condition of Egypt
under Ismail. Not only was the Bey extravagant; but still
worse, his ministers, mostly of servile origin, robbed the
country shamelessly, and loans were obtained over and over
again merely to swell their ill-gotten gains. At last the Powers
had to intervene, and in 1869 the finances of Tunis were brought
under the control of a tripartite commission with representa-
tives of England, France, and Italy. During the early '70's,
however, British commercial interest waned, and the enterprise
of France increased, with the result that France obtained per-
mission to erect telegraphs, and took over an important railway
concession which had been accepted and then abandoned by a
British firm. It was becoming obvious that the native govern-
ment of Tunis could not continue much longer without a
definite European protector. Whatever right England may
have had to assume such a position, she quietly surrendered
it to France through her official representatives at the Con-
gress of Berlin. The only other rival then was Italy, and
Italy, though she would have dearly liked to resume control
in the name of Rome over the Roman province of Africa,
shrank from the danger of thus defying France. A small
British railway which had been made from the town of Tunis
to the port of Goletta was sold to an Italian company in i88i\
At the same time, a British subject, really acting as a repre-
sentative of the Tunisian Government, attempted on a point of
law to prevent a very large estate in the interior of Tunis from
falling into French hands. The French Government de-
termined to delay action no longer. Taking advantage of the
very insufliicient plea, that a Tunisian tribe had committed
small robberies across the Algerian frontier, a strong force
invaded Tunis, and wrung from the Bey in his suburban
palace the treaty of Kasr-es-Said, by which he placed his
^ This now forgotten bone of contention has, in the autumn of 1898,
been sold by the Italian Company to the French Railway Company of
B6ne-Guelma-et-Tunisie. .
VII.] Tlie French in West and No7-tli Africa. 141
territories under French protection. When the news spread
into outlying districts there were uprisings against the French
or against the Bey's government which had placed the country
under French control. The French troops had practically to
conquer much of the South of Tunis, but in a year's time
tranquillity had been restored. In 1883 the treaty of Kasr-es-
Said was replaced by another agreement which brought the
Tunisian Government under complete French control. In
this year the other Powers surrendered their consular jurisdic-
tion, and recognized that of the French courts. By 1897 all
former commercial treaties with the Bey were abandoned in
favour of fresh conventions made with France. From the
commencement of 1898, Tunis has become emphatically an
integral portion of the French Empire.
Through accident or design — let us hope the latter — a
succession of able men was appointed to direct the affairs of
France in Tunis. Several of these had a relatively long tenure
of power, and were therefore able to carry out a continuous
policy. Ablest amongst these French residents have been
M. Cambon, and M. Millet. Tunis hitherto has been the
one example of almost unqualified success in French colonial
administration. Of late, however, the protectionist policy
which finds favour with the French Government has to some
extent striven to secure the commerce of the Regency for
France, a policy which may tend to qualify the praise which
otherwise would be bestowed on the remarkable development
of the country under French direction.
The extension of Senegal under General Faidherbe, and
the occupation by the French of oases in the Sahara, such as
Wargla and Golea, early suggested an overland connection
between the two French possessions, and the " Chemin de fer
Trans-Saharien " was hinted at, half in joke, during the
'6o's and became a subject of serious consideration in the
'70's. But in 1881 the massacre of the Flatters expedition
in the Sahara Desert, and the obvious hostility of the Tawareq
142 TIlc Colonisation of Africa. [Chap.
to any further advance of the French across the desert tempo-
rarily discouraged the idea ; though the main discouragement
no doubt arose from the thought of the enormous cost of
such a raihvay, and the unfruitful character of the country it
would traverse. Still France, when the word " hinterland "
was creeping into political terminolog}', began to feel anxious
that no other European Power should intervene between her
North African possessions and her empire on the Niger, and
in 1890 she secured from the British Government a recognition
of this important point, the British recognition carrying the
French sphere of influence to the north-western coast of
Lake Chad as well as to the Niger. But the ambition of
France had already leapt beyond Nigeria to Congoland, and a
still wider project fascinated her imagination of a continuous
French empire from the Mediterranean to the Upper Congo
and the south Atlantic. On what may be called the " Congo
Coast," or Lower Guinea, France had secured a footing as
early as 1839, at the time when the government of Louis
Philippe was making half-hearted efforts to found French
settlements on the West Coast of Africa. At this date King
' Denis ' of the Gaboon, who had shown favour to Roman
Catholic missionaries and to French traders, was induced to
transfer his kingdom to France. Effective possession was not
however taken till 1844, and Libreville, the present capital,
was not founded till 1848, when a cargo of slaves was landed
there from a captured slaving vessel and set free to commence
the population of the new town. Attention was drawn to this
French settlement by the remarkable journeys of Paul du
Chaillu, and his making definitely known the existence of the
largest known anthropoid ape, the gorilla. The existence of
this ape had been to some extent established by the American
naturalist, Dr Savage, and from skulls sent home by American
missionaries settled on the Gaboon ; but the gorilla was
scarcely made knowTi in all its characteristics, and certainly
was not known to the general public, until Du Chaillu came
VII.] The French in West and North Africa. 143
to England with his specimens'. In the early '6o's French
explorers established the existence of half the course of the
important river Ogow^, and in the '70's these explorations
were extended by other travellers, who carried the knowledge
of the Ogowi^ to the limits of its watershed, and passed
beyond — unknowingly — to affluents of the Congo. Among
these explorers was the celebrated Savorgnan de Brazza.
Political interest in the Gaboon languished so much
on the part of France that the country was once or twice
offered to England in exchange for the Gambia. However in
1880, the awakening desire to found a great colonial empire
urged France to extend her Gaboon possessions up the coast,
towards the Cameroons, and southward in the direction of the
mouth of that great river, the Congo, the course of which
Mr Stanley had just succeeded in tracing. Even before
Stanley's return, the King of the Belgians had summoned a
number of geographers to Brussels to discuss the possibility of
civilizing Africa by an International African association. This
conference brought about the creation of national committees,
which were to undertake on behalf of each participating nation
a section of African exploration. The French committee sent
De Brazza to explore the hinterland of the Gaboon. While
Stanley was commencing his second Congo expedition for the
King of the Belgians and slowly working his way up the lower
river, De Brazza had made a rapid journey overland to Stanley
Pool and the upper Congo, making treaties for France and
planting the French flag wherever he went. Soon afterwards
an English missionary, Mr Grenfell, discovered the course of
the great Ubangi, and French explorers promptly directed their
steps thither. For some years there was keen and even bitter
rivalry between Mr Stanley's expedition, which gradually
became a Belgian enterprise, and the French explorers under
De Brazza; and when, at the Conference of Berlin in 1884 — 5,
it was sought to create the Congo Free State under the
1 Now in the British Museum.
144 Tlie Colonization of Africa. [Chap.
sovereignty of the King of the Belgians, tiie adhesion of France
to this scheme could only be obtained by handing over to her
much of the western and northern watershed of the Congo,
besides giving her a promise that if the Congo State were ever
to be transferred from the Belgian sovereign to another Power,
France should have the right of preemption. Before the
French had been many years on the Ubangi River, which is
one of the rare means of communication between the southern
half of Africa, which is Bantu, and the northern half, which is
populated by non-Bantu Negroes, Negroids, Hamites, and
Semites, they had very naturally conceived the idea of pushing
northwards to the Shari river and Lake Chad. In 1890 Paul
Crampel was the first European to cross this mysterious Bantu
boundary, to leave the forest regions of the Congo, and enter
the more open park lands of the central Sudan. But he was
attacked and killed by suspicious Muhammadan raiders on the
river Shari. Another Frenchman, of Polish descent, M.
Dybowski, succeeded in chastising the murderers of Crampel,
and further exploring the Shari. Another mission under Lieu-
tenant Maistre succeeded Dybowski, and was in turn succeeded
by a mission led by the explorer Gentil, which is said to have
succeeded in placing a small armed steamer on the river
Shari, and thence to have reached the waters of Lake Chad.
By an agreement with Germany, France has secured
German recognition of her sphere of influence over the river
Shari, over the Bagirmi country, and the southern shores of
Lake Chad ; while by a treaty made with the King of the
Belgians in 1894 the Belgian boundary line is drawn at the
Ubangi, the Mbomu and the Nile watershed. Lastly by
the Anglo-French convention of June 1898, Great Britain has
recognized the French sphere on the southern and eastern
shores of Lake Chad. Thus France will have a continuous
empire stretching from Algiers to the Congo Coast, a strange
development of the landing of 37,000 troops at the Bay of
Sidi Ferruj, near Algiers, in the summer of 1830.
FRENCH AFRICA
PlaXeT
Sir H BJoln.iaa S C J dd'
EXPLANATORY NOTE
\- \ A rea of French. Possessions in 1880
,, „ Colonies^ Protectorates, and
spheres 0/ influence in i8q8
B ru-LkoLjiiifiv; XJm^
VII.] Tlie French in West and Nortli Africa. 145
Even this extension is not sufficient for French ambition,
and there has been talk in France of extending her Central
African possessions eastward across the Nile valley to Abyssinia
and the Gulf of Aden. French newspapers alternately treat
the country of Abyssinia as a future French protectorate and a
great independent African empire under a most enhghtened
sovereign, who is to direct his powers and conquests to the
detriment of England and Italy. French designs on Shoa, to
the south of Abyssinia, are not of very recent date. In 1857
France had intended to seize the island of Perim, at the mouth
of the Red Sea, but was forestalled by the British. She there-
fore turned her attention to the coast opposite Aden, and there
purchased from a native chief the Bay of Obok. This place
was not effectively occupied till 1883, after the break-up of the
Egyptian Sudan empire. France then rapidly pushed her
possessions southward to curtail as much as possible similar
British operations in Somaliland. She thus secured the im-
portant bay of Tajurra. French territory now stretches inland
to the vicinity of Harrar. On the north she is bounded,
somewhat vaguely, by the Italian colony of Eritrea, but in the
interior her boundary with Abyssinia remains undefined.
With the exception of Tunis, there is not a single French
possession in Africa which is self-supporting, or other than a
drain on the French exchequer. The reasons of this lack of
local revenue are the strong protectionist policy pursued (which
fetters trade and drives away commercial enterprise) and the
unnecessary multiplication of officials.
J. A.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
If I were writing this little work for dramatic effect and
less with a view to historical sequence, I should have been
disposed to put this chapter next to the one dealing with the
slave trade, as an effective pendant ; for if Europe has dealt
wickedly in enslaving Africa, she has sent thither a high-minded