Company. But in the early stages the champions of British
interests in East Africa received no support from their own
government, while Germany was pushing her advantage with the
energy of a recent convert to colonial expansion, and had
even, on the coast, opened negotiations with the sultan of
Witu, a small territory situated north of the Tana river, whose
ruler claimed to be independent of Zanzibar. On the 5th of May
1885 the sultan of Witu executed a deed of sale and cession to
a German subject of certain tracts of land on the coast, and
later in the same year other treaties or sales of territory
were effected, by which German subjects acquired rights on
the coast-line claimed by the sultan. Inland, treaties had
been concluded on behalf of Germany with the chiefs of the
Kilimanjaro region, and an intimation to that effect made to
the British government. But before this occurred the German
government had succeeded in extracting an acknowledgment
of the validity of the earlier treaties from the sultan of
Zanzibar. Early in August a powerful German squadron appeared
off Zanzibar, and on the 14th of that month the sultan yielded
to the inevitable, acknowledged the German protectorate over
Usagara and Witu, and undertook to withdraw his soldiers.
Meanwhile negotiations had been opened for the appointment of
an international commission, ``for the purpose of inquiring
Partition of the sultanate of Zanzibar.
into the claims of the sultans of Zanzibar to sovereignty
over certain territories on the east coast of Africa, and
of ascertaining their precise limits.'' The governments to
be represented were Great Britain, France and Germany, and
towards the end of 1885 commissioners were appointed. The
commissioners reported on the 9th of June 1886, and assigned
to the sultan the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, Lamu, Mafia
and a number of other small islands. On the mainland they
recognized as belonging to the sultan a continuous strip of
territory, 10 sea-miles in depth, from the south bank of
the Minengani river, a stream a short distance south of the
Rovuma, to Kipini, at the mouth of the Tana river, some 600
m. in length. North of Kipini the commissioners recognized
as belonging to the sultan the stations of Kismayu, Brava,
Marka and Mukdishu, with radii landwards of 10 sea-miles,
and of Warsheik with a radius of 5 sea-miles. By an exchange
of notes in October--November 1886 the governments of Great
Britain and Germany accepted the reports of the delimitation
commissioners, to which the sultan adhered on the 4th of the
following December. But the British and German governments
did more than determine what territories were to be assigned
to the sultanate of Zanzibar. They agreed to a delimitation
of their respective spheres of influence in East Africa.
The territory to be affected by this arrangement was to be
bounded on the south by the Rovuma river, ``and on the north
by a line which, starting from the mouth of the Tana river,
follows the course of that river or its affluents to the point
of intersection of the equator and the 38th degree of east
longitude, thence strikes direct to the point of intersection
of the 1st degree of north latitude with the 37th degree
of east longitude, where the line terminates.'' The line of
demarcation between the British and the German spheres of
influence was to start from the mouth of the river Wanga or
Umba (which enters the ocean opposite Pemba Island to the
north of Zanzibar), and running north-west was to skirt the
northern base of the Kilimanjaro range, and thence to be
drawn direct to the point on the eastern side of Victoria
Nyanza intersected by the 1st degree of south latitude.
South of this line German influence was to prevail; north
of the line was the British sphere. The sultan's dominions
having been thus truncated, Germany associated herself with
the recognition of the ``independence'' of Zanzibar in which
France and Great Britain had joined in 1862. The effect
of this agreement was to define the spheres of influence of
the two countries as far as Victoria Nyanza, but it provided
no limit westwards, and left the country north of the Tana
river, in which Germany had already acquired some interests
near the coast, open for fresh annexations. The conclusion
of the agreement immediately stimulated the enterprise
both of the German East African Company, to which Peters's
earlier treaties had been transferred, and of the British
capitalists to whom reference had been made in Lord Granville's
despatch. The German East African Company was incorporated
by imperial charter in March 1887, and the British capitalists
formed themselves into the British East Africa Association,
and on the 24th of May 1887 obtained, through the good offices
of Sir William Mackinnon, a concession of the 10-miles strip
of coast from the Umba river in the south to Kipini in the
north. The British association further sought to extend
its rights in the sphere reserved to British influence by
making treaties with the native chiefs behind the coast
strip, and for this purpose various expeditions were sent
into the interior. When they had obtained concessions
over the country for some 200 m. inland the associated
Formation of British East Africa.
capitalists applied to the British government for a charter, which
was granted on the 3rd of September 1888, and the association became
the Imperial British East Africa Company (see BRITISH EAST AFRICA).
The example set by the British company in obtaining a lease
of the coast strip between the British sphere of influence
and the sea was quickly followed by the German association,
which, on the 28th of April 1888, concluded an agreement
with the sultan Khalifa, who had succeeded his brother
Bargash, by which the association leased the strip of Zanzibar
territory between the German sphere and the sea. It was not,
however, until August that the German officials took over the
administration, and their want of tact and ignorance of native
administration almost immediately provoked a rebellion of
so serious a character that it was not suppressed until the
imperial authorities had taken the matter in hand. Shortly
after its suppression the administration was entrusted to an
imperial officer, and the sultan's rights on the mainland strip
were bought outright by Germany for four millions of marks
Events of great importance had been happening, meanwhile, in
the country to the west and north of the British sphere of
influence. The British company had sent caravans into the
interior to survey the country, to make treaties with the
native chiefs and to report on the commercial and agricultural
possibilities. One of these had gone up the Tana river.
But another and a rival expedition was proceeding along
the northern bank of this same river. Karl Peters, whose
energy cannot be denied, whatever may be thought of his
methods, set out with an armed caravan up the Tana on the
pretext of leading an expedition to the relief of Emin Pasha,
the governor of the equatorial province of the Egyptian
Sudan, then reported to be hemmed in by the dervishes at
Wadelai. His expedition was not sanctioned by the German
government, and the British naval commander had orders to
prevent his landing. But Peters succeeded in evading the
British vessels and proceeded up the river, planting German
flags and fighting the natives who opposed his progress.
Early in 1890 he reached Kavirondo, and there found letters
from Mwanga, king of Uganda, addressed to F. J. Jackson, the
leader of an expedition sent out by the British East Africa
Uganda secured by Great Britain.
Company, imploring the company's representative to come
to his assistance and offering to accept the British
flag. To previous letters, less plainly couched. from the
king, Jackson had returned the answer that his instructions
were not to enter Uganda, but that he would do so in case of
need. The letters that fell into Peters's hands were in
reply to those from Jackson. Peters did not hesitate to
open the letters, and on reading them he at once proceeded
to Uganda, where, with the assistance of the French Roman
Catholic priests, he succeeded in inducing Mwanga to sign
a loosely worded treaty intended to place him under German
protection. On hearing of this Jackson at once set out for
Uganda, but Peters did not wait for his arrival, leaving
for the south of Victoria Nyanza some days before Jackson
arrived at Mengo, Mwanga's capital. As Mwanga would not
agree to Jackson's proposals, Jackson returned to the coast,
leaving a representative at Mengo to protect the company's
interests. Captain (afterwards Sir) F. D. Lugard, who had
recently entered the company's employment, was at once ordered
to proceed to Uganda. But in the meantime an event of great
importance had taken place, the conclusion of the agreement
between Great Britain and Germany with reference to their
different spheres of influence in various parts of Africa.
The Anglo-German agreement of the 1st of July 1890 has already
been referred to and its importance insisted upon. Here
we have to deal with the provisions in reference to East
Africa. In return for the cession of Heligoland, Lord
Salisbury obtained from Germany the recognition of a British
protectorate over the dominions of the sultan of Zanzibar,
including the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, but excluding
the strip leased to Germany, which was subsequently ceded
absolutely to Germany. Germany further agreed to withdraw
the protectorate declared over Witu and the adjoining coast
up to Kismayu in favour of Great Britain, and to recognize as
within the British sphere of influence the vast area bounded,
on the south by the frontier line laid down in the agreement
of 1886, which was to be extended along the first parallel
of south latitude across Victoria Nyanza to the frontiers of
the Congo Free State, on the west by the Congo Free State and
the western watershed of the Nile, and on the north by a line
commencing on the coast at the north bank of the mouth of the
river Juba, then ascending that bank of the river until it
reached the territory at that time regarded as reserved to
the influence of Italy13 in Gallaland and Abyssinia, when it
followed the frontier of the Italian sphere to the confines of
Egypt. To the south-west of the German sphere in East Africa
the boundary was formed by the eastern and northern shore of
Lake Nyasa, and round the western shore to the mouth of the
Songwe river, from which point it crossed the Nyasa-Tanganyika
plateau to the southern end of the last-named lake,
Limits of German East Africa defined.
leaving the Stevenson Road on the British side of the boundary.
The effect of this treaty was to remove all serious causes of
dispute about territory between Germany and Great Britain in East
Africa. It rendered quite valueless Peters's treaty with
Mwanga and his promenade along the Tana; it freed Great Britain
from any fear of German competition to the northwards, and
recognized that her influence extended to the western limits of
the Nile valley. But, on the other hand, Great Britain had to
relinquish the ambition of connecting her sphere of influence
in the Nile valley with her possessions in Central and South
Africa. On this point Germany was quite obdurate; and, as
already stated, an attempt subsequently made (May 1894) to
secure this object by the lease of a strip of territory from
the Congo Free State was frustrated by German opposition.
Uganda having thus been assigned to the British sphere of
