19th_Century_Colonization

19th Century Colonization Although there had been a British and greater European presence in Africa prior to the last two decades of the 19th century it was primarily coastal and revolved around the slave trade. With the abolition of the slave trade within the British Empire in 1803 and a complete abolition of slavery across the empire in 1834 there was little interest in Africa by Britain until the end of the century. This lack of interest in Africa did not include The Cape Colony though, which the British gained at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and which served a key role in outfitting ships on the British trade route to India. The role and importance of Africa to the British soon changed though do to imperial competition with France and Germany. Germany under the aggressive policies of Bismarck set out to take a leading role in Africa and catch up to other European powers such as Britain and France in terms of empire by gaining new control over territory and expanding their spheres of influence. Other important factors made Africa the hot spot for British and European expansion including the discovery of gold in the Transvaal and diamonds in the Orange africa, british, expansion, company, colony, cape, britain, afrikaners, european, east, because, france, control, century, until, trade, role, orange, germany, economic, african, uganda, transvaal, state, slave, powers, free, been, unification, scramble, kingdom, imperial, growth, government, egypt, canal, 19th, under, though, take, salisbury, primarily, porter, over, out, nigeria, interest, gained, end, early, buganda