South-West Africa up the Kwando river to 22 deg. E., follows
that meridian north to 13 deg. S., then runs due east to 24 deg.
E., and then north again to the frontier of the Congo State.
Before the conclusion of the treaty of June 1891 with Portugal,
the British government had made certain arrangements for
the administration of the large area north of the Zambezi
reserved to British influence. On the 1st of February
Sir Harry Johnston was appointed imperial commissioner in
Nyasaland, and a fortnight later the British South Africa
Company intimated a desire to extend its operations north of the
Zambezi. Negotiations followed, and the field of operations
of the Chartered Company was, on the 2nd of April 1891,
extended so as to cover (with the exception of Nyasaland)
the whole of the British sphere of influence north of the
Zambezi (now known as Northern Rhodesia). On the 14th of May
a formal protectorate was declared over Nyasaland, including
the Shire highlands and a belt of territory extending along
the whole of the western shore of Lake Nyasa. The name
was changed in 1893 to that of the British Central Africa
Protectorate, for which designation was substituted in
1907 the more appropriate title of Nyasaland Protectorate.
At the date of the assembling of the Berlin conference the
German government had notified that the coast-line on the
Germany's share of South Africa.
south-west of the continent, from the Orange river to Cape
Frio, had been placed under German protection. On the 13th of
April 1885 the German South-West Africa Company was constituted
under an order of the imperial cabinet with the rights of state
sovereignty, including mining royalties and rights, and a
railway and telegraph monopoly. In that and the following years
the Germans vigorously pursued the business of treaty-making
with the native chiefs in the interior; and when, in July
1890, the British and German governments came to an agreement
as to the limits of their respective spheres of influence in
various parts of Africa, the boundaries of German South-West
Africa were fixed in their present position. By Article
III. of this agreement the north bank of the Orange river up
to the point of its intersection by the 20th degree of east
longitude was made the southern boundary of the German sphere of
influence. The eastern boundary followed the 20th degree
of east longitude to its intersection by the 22nd parallel
of south latitude, then ran eastwards along that parallel
to the point of its intersection by the 21st degree of east
longitude. From that point it ran northwards along the
last-named meridian to the point of its intersection by the
18th parallel of south latitude, thence eastwards along that
parallel to the river Chobe or Kwando, and along the main
channel of that river to its junction with the Zambezi, where it
terminated. The northern frontier marched with the southern
boundary of Portuguese West Africa. The object of deflecting
the eastern boundary near its northern termination was to give
Germany access by her own territory to the upper waters of the
Zambezi, and it was declared that this strip of territory
was at no part to be less than 20 English miles in width.
To complete the survey of the political partition of Africa south
of the Zambezi, it is necessary briefly to refer to the events
Fate of the Dutch Republics.
connected with the South African Republic and the Orange Free
State. In October 1885 the British government made an
agreement with the New Republic, a small community of Boer
farmers who had in 1884-85 seized part of Zululand and set up a
government of their own, defining the frontier between the New
Republic and Zululand; but in July 1888 the New Republic was
incorporated in the South African Republic. In a convention
of July-August 1890 the British government and the government
of the South African Republic confirmed the independence of
Swaziland, and on the 8th of November 1893 another convention
was signed with the same object; but on the 19th of December
1894 the British government agreed to the South African
Republic exercising ``all rights and powers of protection,
legislation, jurisdiction and administration over Swaziland and
the inhabitants thereof,'' subject to certain conditions and
provisions, and to the non-incorporation of Swaziland in the
Republic. In the previous September Pondoland had been
annexed to Cape Colony; on the 23rd of April 1895 Tongaland
was declared by proclamation to be added to the dominions of
Queen Victoria, and in December 1897 Zululand and Tongaland,
or Amatongaland, were incorporated with the colony of
Natal. The history of the events that led up to the Boer
War of 1899-1902 cannot be recounted here (see TRANSVAAL,
History), but in October 1899 the South African Republic and
the Orange Free State addressed an ultimatum to Great Britain
and invaded Natal and Cape Colony. As a result of the military
operations that followed, the Orange Free State was, on the
28th of May 1900, proclaimed by Lord Roberts a British colony
under the name ``Orange River Colony,'' and the South African
Republic was on the 25th of October 1900 incorporated in the
British empire as the ``Transvaal Colony.'' In January 1903
the districts of Vryheid (formerly the New Republic), Utrecht
and part of the Wakkerstroom district, a tract of territory
comprising in all about 7000 sq. m., were transferred from
the Transvaal colony to Natal. In 1907 both the Transvaal
and Orange River Colony were granted responsible government.
On the east coast the two great rivals were Germany and Great
Britain. Germany on the 30th of December 1886, and Great
Anglo-German rivalry in East Africa.
Britain on the 11th of June 1891, formally recognized the
Rovuma river as the northern boundary of the Portuguese sphere
of influence on that coast; but it was to the north of that
river, over the vast area of East or East Central Africa in
which the sultan of Zanzibar claimed to exercise suzerainty,
that the struggle between the two rival powers was most
acute. The independence of the sultans of Zanzibar had
been recognized by the governments of Great Britain and
France in 1862, and the sultan's authority extended almost
uninterruptedly along the coast of the mainland, from Cape
Delgado in the south to Warsheik on the north--a stretch of
coast more than a thousand miles long--though to the north
the sultan's authority was confined to certain ports. In
Zanzibar itself, where Sir John Kirk, Livingstone's companion
in his second expedition, was British consul-general, British
influence was, when the Berlin conference met, practically
supreme, though German traders had established themselves on
the island and created considerable commercial interests.
Away from the coasts the limits and extent of the sultan's
authority were far from being clearly defined. The sultan
himself claimed that it extended as far as Lake Tanganyika, but
the claim did not rest on any very solid ground of effective
occupation. The little-known region of the Great Lakes had
for some time attracted the attention of the men who were
directing the colonial movement in Germany; and, as has been
stated, a small band of pioneers actually landed on the
mainland opposite Zanzibar in November 1884, and made their
first ``treaty'' with the chief of Mbuzini on the 19th of
that month Pushing up the Wami river the three adventurers
reached the Usagara country, and concluded more ``treaties,''
the net result being that when, in the middle of December,
Karl Peters returned to the coast he brought back with him
documents which were claimed to concede some 60,000 sq.
m. of country to the German Colonization Society. Peters
hurried back to Berlin, and on the 17th of February 1885 the
German emperor issued a ``Charter of Protection'' by which
His Majesty accepted the suzerainty of the newly-acquired
territory, and ``placed under our Imperial protection the
territories in question.'' The conclusion of these treaties
was, on the 6th of March, notified to the British government
and to the sultan of Zanzibar. Immediately on receipt of
the notification the sultan telegraphed an energetic protest
to Berlin, alleging that the places placed under German
protection had belonged to the sultanate of Zanzibar from
the time of his fathers. The German consul-general refused
to admit the sultan's claims, and meanwhile agents of the
German society were energetically pursuing the task of
treaty-making. The sultan (Seyyid Bargash) despatched a
small force to the disputed territory, which was subsequently
withdrawn, and in May sent a more imposing expedition under
the command of General Lloyd Mathews, the commander-in-chief
of the Zanzibar army, to the Kilimanjaro district, in
order to anticipate the action of German agents. Meanwhile
Lord Granville, then at the British Foreign Office, had
Lord Granville's complaisance towards Germany.
taken up an extremely friendly attitude towards the German
claims. Before these events the sultan of Zanzibar had, on
more than one occasion, practically invited Great Britain
to assume a protectorate over his dominions. But the
invitations had been declined. Egyptian affairs were, in
the year 1885, causing considerable anxiety to the British
government, and the fact was not without influence on the
attitude of the British foreign secretary. On the 25th
of May 1885, in a despatch to the British ambassador at
Berlin, Lord Granville instructed Sir E. Malet to communicate
the views of the British cabinet to Prince Bismarck:--
I have to request your Excellency to state that the supposition
that Her Majesty's Government have no intention of opposing
the German scheme of colonization in the neighbourhood of
Zanzibar is absolutely correct. Her Majesty's Government, on
the contrary, view with favour these schemes, the realization
of which will entail the civilization of large tracts over
which hitherto no European influence has been exercised, the
co-operation of Germany with Great Britain in the work of
the suppression of the slave gangs, and the encouragement of
the efforts of the Sultan both in the extinction of the slave
trade and in the commercial development of his dominions.
In the same despatch Lord Granville instructed Sir E. Malet
to intimate to the German government that some prominent
capitalists had originated a plan for a British settlement
in the country between the coast and the lakes, which are
the sources of the White Nile, ``and for its connexion with
the coast by a railway.'' But Her Majesty's government would
not accord to these prominent capitalists the support they
had called for, ``unless they were fully satisfied that
every precaution was taken to ensure that it should in no
way conflict with the interests of the territory that has
been taken under German protectorate,'' and Prince Bismarck
was practically invited to say whether British capitalists
were or were not to receive the protection of the British
government. The reference in Lord Granville's despatch was
to a proposal made by a number of British merchants and others
who had long been interested in Zanzibar, and who saw in the
rapid advance of Germany a menace to the interests which had
hitherto been regarded as paramount in the sultanate. In
1884 H. H. Johnston had concluded treaties with the chief
of Taveta in the Kilimanjaro district, and had transferred
these treaties to John Hutton of Manchester. Hutton, with Mr
(afterwards Sir William) Mackinnon, was one of the founders
of what subsequently became the Imperial British East Africa
