history]
AFRICA
of ^Natal, Pondoland was also independent, and there were other isolated patches of territory which had not been brought under British rule ; but with these comparatively unimportant exceptions the whole of the southern end of the continent, up to the Orange river and the Orange Free State, was British. Basutoland had been annexed in 1868, and three years later had been added to Cape Colony. In 1875 the estimated area of Cape Colony, including British Kaffraria and Basutoland, was 201,000 square miles. Between the Orange river and the Yaal was the Orange Free State, and farther to the north the Transvaal was still an independent republic. On the west coast of Africa Great Britain’s possessions were little more than coast settlements, with more or less ill defined relations with the tribes of the interior, established for purposes of trade rather than of administration. Passing up the west coast from the Orange river, the first British territory reached was, in 1875, the Gold Coast Colony, which included the island of Lagos and a strip of the adjacent coast land, as well as the British settlements on the Gold Coast proper. Four years previously, in 1871, the possessions of Great Britain on the coast had been extended by the transfer, for a money consideration, of the Dutch settlements to Great Britain, but even so British authority did not extend any considerable distance from the coast, and the whole area of the Gold Coast settlements proper was roughly estimated at some 6000 square miles. Still farther round the coast was the then still smaller colony of Sierra Leone, and still farther to the north was the last of the West African settlements, on the Gambia river, at that time estimated to have an area of only 21 square miles. Neither Germany nor Italy had at this time set foot on the continent, nor had the Congo Free State begun to take shape in the mind of its founder. Besides the independent states already named, there were Abyssinia in the north-east; the Sultanate of Zanzibar on the east coast, including the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and a large tract of territory on the mainland with no very clearly defined boundaries; and on the west coast the negro republic of Liberia, which had been established in 1820 as an experiment by the Washington Colonization Society, and had been recognized as an independent state by the European Powers in 1847. Such, in brief outline, was the political condition of Africa in 1875. In the interior, much of which was either wholly unknown or but very imperfectly known to Europeans, there were considerable native kingdoms, but the materials for fixing their limits at any given moment are extremely scanty, and in dealing with the partition of Africa among the Powers of Europe it is unnecessary to attempt to describe the political condition of the interior of the continent. It may, however, be useful before proceeding further to attempt to tabulate the political position in continental Africa in 1875, for the purpose of comparison with the subsequent table showing the partition of the continent in 1900. It must be borne in mind that the figures given are in almost all cases approximate, and have little positive value in themselves Position in 1875. Area in sq. Miles. Great Britain— Cape Colony. 201,000 Griqualand West 17,800 Natal . 11,172 Lagos . 5,000 Gold Coast 6,000 Sierra Leone 468 Gambia 21 Total British Africa .
. 241,461
France— Algeria....... Senegambia ...... Guinea Coast and Gabun
143 Area in sq. miles. 150,500 10,000 7,750
Total French Africa . Portugal— Senegambia and Guinea Angola....... Mozambique ......
168,250
Total Portuguese Africa . Spain— Ceuta, &c., ...... Muni river settlements ....
34,387
Total Spanish Africa Non-European States— Transvaal Orange Free State Liberia. Egypt and Sudan Tunis . Morocco Abyssinia Zanzibar / '
1,687 14,700 18,000
3 850 853 110,000 49,000 14,300 1,406,250 42,000 219,000 No estimate.
Many circumstances had combined to arouse the interest of Europe in the hitherto neglected continent of Africa. Narratives of travel by such men as Rebmann, Krapf, Burton, Speke and Grant, Schweinfurth, Nachtigal, Livingstone, and Stanley, had stimulated interest outside geographical circles. Livingstone’s tragic death in the heart of the continent, and Stanley’s letters from Uganda, where he arrived in April 1875, had aroused the enthusiasm of the missionary societies, while the importance of finding new markets was turning the thoughts of the manufacturing and trading classes to the possibility of Africa as a centre of commercial enterprise. The psychological moment had arrived, and with it the man who was to shape these inchoate forces to a definite end. Leopold, King of the Belgians, the sovereign of one of LeQ the smallest states of Europe, found in the p^idand' narrow limits of his kingdom an insufficient the Brussels field for his restless energies and ambitions. Conference, He had travelled in the Far East, and had I876' entertained thoughts of founding a colony in that part of the world. But Africa fascinated him as it did so many less distinguished personages. The vast area of the almost virgin continent offered an apparently illimitable field, both for scientific exploration and for commercial development; and in September 1876 King Leopold took what may be described as the first definite step in the modern partition of the continent. He summoned to a conference at Brussels representatives of Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia, to deliberate on the best methods to be adopted for the exploration and civilization of Africa, and the opening up of the interior of the continent to commerce and industry. The conference was entirely unofficial. The delegates who attended neither represented nor pledged their respective Governments. Their deliberations lasted three days, and resulted in the foundation of “ The International African Association,” with its headquarters at Brussels. It was further resolved to establish national committees in the various countries represented, which should collect funds and appoint delegates to the International Association. The central idea appears to have been to put the exploration and development of Africa upon an international footing. But it quickly became apparent that this was an unattainable ideal. The national committees were soon working independently of the International Association, and the Association itself passed through a succession of stages until it became purely Belgian in character, and
