Africa

the emir and chiefs of Bussa (or Borgu); but the French declared that the

real paramount chief of Borgu was not the king of Bussa, but the king of

Nikki, and three expeditions were despatched in hot haste to Nikki to take

the king under French protection. Sir George Goldie, however, was not to be

baffled. While maintaining the validity of the earlier treaty with Bussa,

he despatched Captain (afterwards General Sir) F.D. Lugard to Nikki, and

Lugard was successful in distancing all his French competitors by several

days, reaching Nikki on the 5th of November 1894 and concluding a treaty

with the king and chiefs. The French expeditions, which were in great

strength, did not hesitate on their arrival to compel the king to execute

fresh treaties with France, and with these in their possession they

returned to Dahomey. Shortly afterwards a fresh act of aggression was

committed. On the 13th of February 1895 a French officer, Commandant

Toutee, arrived on the right bank of the Niger opposite Bajibo and built a

fort. His presence there was notified to the Royal Niger Company, who

protested to the British government against this invasion of their

territory. Lord Rosebery, who was then foreign minister, at once made

inquiries in Paris, and received the assurance that Commandant Toutee was

``a private traveller.'' Eventually Commandant Toutee was ordered to

withdraw, and the fort was occupied by the Royal Niger Company's troops.

Commandant Toutee subsequently published the official instructions from the

French government under which he had acted. It was thought that the

recognition of the British claims, involved in the withdrawal of Commandant

Toutee, had marked the final abandonment by France of the attempt to

establish herself on the navigable portions of the Niger below Bussa, but

in 1897 the attempt was renewed in the most determined manner. In February

of that year a French force suddenly occupied Bussa, and this act was

quickly followed by the occupation of Gomba and Illo higher up the river.

In November 1897 Nikki was occupied. The situation on the Niger had so

obviously been outgrowing the capacity of a chartered company that for some

time before these occurrences the assumption of responsibility for the

whole of the Niger region

The Franco-British settlement of 1898.

by the imperial authorities had been practically decided on; and early in

1898 Lugard was sent out to the Niger with a number of imperial officers to

raise a local force in preparation for the contemplated change. The advance

of the French forces from the south and west was the signal for an advance

of British troops from the Niger, from Lagos and from the Gold Coast

protectorate. The situation thus created was extremely serious. The British

and French flags were flying in close proximity, in some cases in the same

village. Meanwhile the diplomatists were busy in London and in Paris, and

in the latter capital a commission sat for many months to adjust the

conflicting claims. Fortunately, by the tact and forbearance of the

officers on both sides, no local incident occurred to precipitate a

collision, and on the 14th of June 1898 a convention was signed by Sir

Edmund Monson and M. G. Hanotaux which practically completed the partition

of this part of the continent.

The settlement effected was in the nature of a compromise. France

withdrew from Bussa, Gomba and Illo, the frontier line west of the Niger

being drawn from the 9th parallel to a point ten miles, as the crow flies,

above Giri, the port of Illo. France was thus shut out from the navigable

portion of the middle and lower Niger; but for purely commercial purposes

Great Britain agreed to lease to France two small plots of land on the

river-the one on the right bank between Leaba and the mouth of the Moshi

river, the other at one of the mouths of the Niger. By accepting this line

Great Britain abandoned Nikki and a great part of Borgu as well as some

part of Gando to France. East of the Niger the Say-Barrua line was modified

in favour of France, which gained parts of both Sokoto and Bornu where they

meet the southern edge of the Sahara. In the Gold Coast hinterland the

French withdrew from Wa, and Great Britain abandoned all claim to Mossi,

though the capital of the latter country, together with a further extensive

area in the territory assigned to both powers, was declared to be equally

free, so far as trade and navigation were concerned, to the subjects and

protected persons of both nationalities. The western boundary of the Gold

Coast was prolonged along the Black Volta as far as latitude 11 deg. N.,

and this parallel was followed with slight deflexions to the Togoland

frontier. In consequence of the acute crisis which shortly afterwards

occurred between France and Great Britain on the upper Nile, the

ratification of this agreement was delayed until after the conclusion of

the Fashoda agreement of March 1899 already referred to. In 1900 the two

patches on the Niger leased to France were selected by commissioners

representing the two countries, and in the same year the Anglo-French

frontier from Lagos to the west bank of the Niger was delimited.

East of the Niger the frontier, even as modified in 1898, failed to

satisfy the French need for a practicable route to Lake Chad, and in the

convention of the 8th of April 1904, to which reference has been made under

Egypt and Morocco, it was

Further concessions to France.

agreed, as part of the settlement of the French shore question in

Newfoundland, to deflect the frontier line more to the south. The new

boundary was described at some length, but provision was made for its

modification in points of detail on the return of the commissioners engaged

in surveying the frontier region. In 1906 an agreement was reached on all

points, and the frontier at last definitely settled, sixteen years after

the Say-Barrua line had been fixed. This revision of the Niger-Chad

frontier did not, however, represent the only territorial compensation

received by France in West Africa in connexion with the settlement of the

Newfoundland question. By the same convention of April 1904 the British

government consented to modify the frontier between Senegal and the Gambia

colony ``so as to give to France Yarbutenda and the lands and landing-

places belonging to that locality,'' and further agreed to cede to France

the tiny group of islands off the coast of French Guinea known as the Los

Islands.

Meantime the conclusion of the 1898 convention had left both the British

and the French governments free to devote increased attention to the

subdivision and control of their West African possessions. On the 1st of

January 1900 the imperial authorities assumed direct responsibility for the

whole of the territories of the Royal Niger Company, which became

henceforth a purely commercial undertaking. The Lagos protectorate was

extended northwards; the Niger Coast protectorate, likewise with extended

frontiers, became Southern Nigeria; while the greater part of the

territories formerly administered by the company were constituted into the

protectorate of Northern Nigeria—all three administrations being directly

under the Colonial Office In February 1906 the administration of the

Southern Nigerian protectorate was placed under that of Lagos at the same

time as the name of the latter was changed to the Colony of Southern

Nigeria, this being a step towards the eventual

Organization of the British and French protectorates.

amalgamation of all three dependencies under one governor or governor-

general. In French West Africa changes in the internal frontiers have been

numerous and important. The coast colonies have all been increased in size

at the expense of the French Sudan, which has vanished from the maps as an

administrative entity. There are carved out of the territories comprised in

what is officially known as French West Africa five colonies—Senegal,

French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Dahomey and the Upper Senegal and Niger,

this last being entirely cut off from the sea—and the civil territory of

Mauritania. To the colony of the Upper Senegal and Niger is attached the

military territory of the Niger, embracing the French Sahara up to the

limit of the Algerian sphere of influence. Not only are all these divisions

of French West Africa connected territorially, but administratively they

are united under a governor-general. Similarly the French Congo territories

have been divided into three colonies—the Gabun, the Middle Congo and the

Ubangi-Shari-Chad—all united administratively under a commissioner-general.

There are, around the coast, numerous islands or groups of islands, which

are regarded by geographers as outliers of the

Ownership of the African Islands.

African mainland. The majority of these African islands were occupied by

one or other of the European powers long before the period of continental

partition. The Madeira Islands to the west of Morocco, the Bissagos

Islands, off the Guinea coast, and Prince's Island and St Thomas' Island,

in the Gulf of Guinea, are Portuguese possessions of old standing; while in

the Canary Islands and Fernando Po Spain possesses remnants of her ancient

colonial empire which are a more valuable asset than any she has acquired

in recent times on the mainland. St Helena in the Atlantic, Mauritius and

some small groups north of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, are British

possessions acquired long before the opening of the last quarter of the

19th century. Zanzibar, Pemba and some smaller islands which the sultan was

allowed to retain were, as has already been stated, placed under British

protection in 1890, and the island of Sokotra was placed under the

``gracious favour and protection'' of Great Britain on the 23rd of April

1886. France's ownership of Reunion dates back to the 17th century, but the

Comoro archipelago was not placed under French protection until April 1886.

None of these islands, with the exception of the Zanzibar group, have,

however, materially affected the partition of the continent, and they need

not be enumerated in the table which follows. But the important island of

Madagascar stands in a different category, both on account of its size and

because it was during the period under review that it passed through the

various stages which led to its becoming a French colony. The first step

was the placing of the foreign relations of the island under French

control, which was effected by the treaty of the 17th of December 1885,

after the Franco-Malagasy war that had broken out in 1883. In 1890 Great

Britain and Germany recognized a French protectorate over the island, but

the Hova government declined to acquiesce in this view, and in May 1895

France sent an expedition to enforce her claims. The capital was occupied

on the 30th of September in the same year, and on the day following Queen

Ranavalona signed a convention recognizing the French protectorate. In

January 1896 the island was declared a French possession, and on the 6th of

August was declared to be a French colony. In February 1897 the last

vestige of ancient rule was swept away by the deportation of the queen.

Thus in its broad outlines the partition of Africa was begun and ended in

the short space of a quarter of a century. There are still many finishing

touches to be put to the structure. The southern frontiers of Morocco and

Tripoli remain undefined, while the mathematical lines by which the spheres

of influence of the powers were separated one from the other are being

variously modified on the do ut des principle as they come to be surveyed

and as the effective occupation of the continent progresses. Much labour is

necessary before the actual area of Africa and its subdivisions can be

accurately determined, but in the following table the figures are at least

approximately correct. Large areas of the spheres assigned to different

European powers have still to be brought under European control; but this

work is advancing by rapid strides.

BRITISH— Sq. m.

Cape Colony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276,995

Natal and Zululand . . . . . . . . . . . 35,371

Basutoland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,293

Bechuanaland Protectorate . . . . . . . 225,000

Transvaal and Swaziland . . . . . . . . 117,732

Orange River Colony . . . . . . . . . . 50,392

Rhodesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450,000

Nyasaland Protectorate . . . . . . . . . 43,608

British East Africa Protectorate . . . . 240,000

Uganda Protectorate . . . . . . . . . . 125,000

Zanzibar Protectorate . . . . . . . . . 1,020

Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68,000

Northern Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . 258,000

Southern Nigeria (colony and protectorate) 80,000

Gold Coast and hinterland . . . . . 82,000

Sierre Leone (colony and protectorate) . 34,000

Gambia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,000

Total British Africa . . . . . . . 2,101,411

Egypt and Libyan Desert . . . . . . . . 650,000

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . . . . . . . . . . 950,000

1,600,000

FRENCH—

Algeria and Algerian Sahara . . . . . . 945,000

Tunisia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51,000

French West Africa—

Senegal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74,000

French Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . 107,000

Ivory Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129,000

Dahomey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40,000

Upper Senegal and Niger, and

Mauritania (including French West

African Sahara) . . . . 1,581,000 1,931,000

French Congo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700,000

French Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . 12,000

Madagascar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227,950

Total French Africa . . . . . . . 3,866,950

GERMAN—

East Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364,000

South.West Africa . . . . . . . . . . . 322,450

Cameroon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190,000

Togoland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33,700

Total German Africa . . . . . . . . 910,150

ITALIAN—

Eritrea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60,000

Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140,000

Total Italian Africa . . . . . . . . 200,000

PORTUGUESE—

Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,000

West Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480,000

East Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293,500

Total Portuguese Africa . . . . . . 787,500

SPANISH—

Rio de Oro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70,000

Muni River Settlements . . . . . . . . . . 9,800

Total Spanish Africa . . . . . . . . 79,800

BELGIAN—

Congo State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900,000

TURKISH—

Tripoli and Benghazi . . . . . . . . . . 400,000

SEPARATE STATES—

Liberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43,000

Morocco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220,000

Abyssinia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350,000

Total Independent Africa . . . . . . 613,000

Thus, collecting the totals, the result of the ``scramble'' has been to

divide Africa among the powers as follows:—

Sq. m.

British Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,101,411

Egyptian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,600,000

French Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,866,950

German Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 910,150

Italian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200,000

Portuguese Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 787,500

Spanish Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79,800

Belgian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900,000

Turkish Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400,000

Independent Africa . . . . . . . . . . . 613,000

11,458,811

(J. S. K.)

1. Commercial treaties between Carthage and Rome were made in the 6th and

5th centuries B.C.. The first armed conflict between the rival powers,

begun in 264 B.C., was a contest for the possession of Sicily.

2. This river was called by the Portuguese the Zaire. They appear to have

made no attempt to trace its course beyond the rapids which stop

navigation from the sea.

3. France acquired, as stations for her ships on the voyage to and from

India, settlements in Madagascar and the neighbouring islands. The first

settlement was made in 1642.

4. The Association, in 1831, was merged in the Royal Geographical Society.

5. The Mamelukes, whom the Turks had overthrown in the 16th century, had

regained practically independent power.

6. In imitation of the British example, an American society founded in 1822

the negro colony (now republic) of Liberia.

7. The first territorial acquisition made by Great Britain in this region

was in 1851, when Lagos Island was annexed.

8. As early as 1848 an Arab from Zanzibar journeying across the continent

had arrived at Benguella.

9. Another great traveller of this stamp was Wilhelm Junker, who spent the

greater part of the period 1875-1886 in the east central Sudan.

10. Specially appointed to consider West African affairs.

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