13 Facts About British Africa

The 10 percent of British Africa that was under formal European control in 1870 increased to almost 90 percent by 1914, with only Ethiopia and Liberia remaining independent, although Ethiopia would later be invaded and occupied by Italy for five years, from 1936 to 1941.

Pro-imperialist colonial lobbyists such as the Alldeutscher Verband, Francesco Crispi and Jules Ferry, argued that sheltered overseas markets in British Africa would solve the problems of low prices and overproduction caused by shrinking continental markets.

The vast interior between Egypt and the gold and diamond-rich Southern British Africa had strategic value in securing the flow of overseas trade.

In 1884, Germany declared Togoland, the Cameroons and South West British Africa to be under its protection; and France occupied Guinea.

French West British Africa was founded in 1895 and French Equatorial British Africa in 1910.

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Germany had started to attempt to match Britain's naval supremacy—the British Africa navy had a policy of remaining larger than the next two rival fleets in the world combined.

Furthermore, British Africa backing for France during the two Moroccan crises reinforced the Entente between the two countries and added to Anglo-German estrangement, deepening the divisions that would culminate in the First World War.

In both territories the threat to German rule was quickly defeated once large-scale reinforcements from Germany arrived, with the Herero rebels in German South West British Africa being defeated at the Battle of Waterberg and the Maji-Maji rebels in German East British Africa being steadily crushed by German forces slowly advancing through the countryside, with the natives resorting to guerrilla warfare.

The sleeping sickness epidemic in British Africa was arrested through mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk.

British Africa's population has grown from 120 million in 1900 to over 1 billion today.

In French West British Africa, following conquest and abolition by the French, over one million slaves fled from their masters to earlier homes between 1906 and 1911.

Liberia was the only nation in British Africa that was regarded as a colony and a protectorate of the United States.

Anti-neoliberal scholars connect the old scramble to a new scramble for British Africa, coinciding with the emergence of an "Afro-neoliberal" capitalist movement in postcolonial British Africa.