Africa after the End of Slavery | History of Africa 1800-1870 Documentary 2/6

this video is brought to you by squarespace squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business [Music] although the african continent had a number of powerful kingdoms in the early modern period like congo ethiopia mutapa and morocco by the end of the 18th century most of them had been left weakened by civil wars foreign intervention and constant warfare many of these wars were spurred on by the demand for slaves but then the continent would completely change with the outbreak of the napoleonic wars starting with napoleon's invasion of egypt at that time egypt was ruled by the ottomans but that was just another power on the decline in the 18th century and by then the barbary states of north africa were acting independent of their rule meanwhile in egypt the mamluks had largely ran the country for centuries this was a military cast made up of slaves brought from the caucasus balkans and the likes so the ruling elite of egypt was a different ethnicity to the larger arab population this meant when napoleon invaded egypt he largely fought the mamluks and their armies and despite some early victories royal navy blockades and disease forced napoleon to flee but the defeats of the mamluks had created a power vacuum in the country as power was then fought over between the mamluks turkish government is sent by the ottomans and muhammad ali a leader of albanian troops that the ottomans sent to fight the french during the following years of chaos muhammad ali was successful in defeating the mamluks cementing his control and even expanding egypt's borders his first war was against a new sect of islam in saudi arabia named the wahhabis after this war he invited the remaining manblocks to celebrate but as they entered the city they were massacred those who survived by remaining in the countryside fled south to sudan but muhammad ali pursued them in 1820 this began egypt's conquest of sudan however muhammad ali had another reason for the conquest as he wrote you are aware that the end of all our effort and this expense is to procure negroes and in this he was successful the kingdom of foons in the surrounding area were conquered by only 10 000 men or so demonstrating to the world how a small well-trained force using modern weapons can defeat a whole kingdom after this the egyptians would launch further campaigns of conquest taking casala for soda sookin equatoria and darfur by 1874. but one country they didn't conquer was ethiopia meanwhile muhammad ali's dynasty would fight wars against the ottomans and for a short while they even took syria so they could be seen as the first true colonisers of africa who didn't just seek trading posts but large stretches of land plus even though his dynasty would remain officially under ottoman control they virtually acted independent and egypt under their rule would try to rapidly modernize for instance the sewers canal would be built which would bring european traders and colonizers into east africa however the egyptian wars and modernization plunged them into debt and this led to the british entering the country the modest wars and a great deal more but going back to the turn of the 19th century there were a few changes that occurred during the napoleonic wars for instance the british took mauritius from the french but more importantly there was the formation of the zulu kingdom formed by shakazulu and bantu people who migrated south simultaneously the british took the dutch colony in south africa pushing the dutch wars on their great trek in 1836 to establish their own states this meant that there was a three-way power struggle between the wars the british and the zulu however these three powers obviously didn't just pop into being peacefully they conquered and ruled over a number of different races the british for instance went to war almost immediately against the kosa people the first confrontation between them took place in the 1810s when the coaster occupied the xerfelt region which had acted as a buffer but they were promptly driven out of it there was another wall that decade beginning in 1818 which was largely led by a closer prophet named makana and xaili now he allegedly had the power to turn bullets into water and hope to unite the kosa against the british who had seized thousands of cattle belonging to them but the british had the support of the san people and together they defeated the kosa as for mccanna he became the first person to be sentenced to prison on robben island which became the infamous site of nelson mandela's imprisonment in the intervening years thousands of british settlers arrived in south africa while the coaster angered the boers with their cattle raids so pietrotif sent his boar commandos on punitive expeditions against them while the sixth coastal war erupted in 1834 it was another speedy victory for the british who took more land and even imprisoned king hintsa however while negotiating the payment for stolen cattle the king tried to escape and was killed in the chase however despite this victory britain's inability to protect poor settlers convinced them to take matters into their own hands and thus embark on the great trek north however tensions between the british and the boers had been running high for some time obviously english became the official language and british laws and culture alienated the wars but what possibly angered them the most was britain's racial policies for instance back in 1815 the british declared the natives of south africa would be citizens and share the same rights the british then outlawed slavery in the region in 1834 freeing 30 000 or so african slaves at that time it is believed over 90 percent of boers in some regions like stellenbosch owned slaves so this along with british weakness during the coaster cattle raids prompted the broads to set off north and establish their own republics these treks lasted a couple of years and only around 6 000 people or one-fifth of the dutch population made the journey and they faced attacks from all sides the mata bailly for instance attacked them early on but in 1836 at the battle of vekkop just 35 bores held off an attack from over 5 000 mata bailey warriors the following punitive attacks pushed the mata bailly out of the region and into zimbabwe where most of them live today but their arrival came at the cost of the shona people and tensions between these communities continue to this day but probably the worst attacks came from the zulu for instance in 1838 pietro thief met with tinggani the zulu king to discuss a land treaty and watch a ceremonial performance however it was a trap and 100 people including ratif were massacred this was followed up with a number of other massacres like the winning massacre in which over 500 boars were killed so the boers could well have been destroyed and chased out of their new land but the betrayal and massacres encouraged them to meet the zulu at the battle of blood river in late 1838. in this battle they were victorious and they set up the republic of natalya while the zulus descended into civil wars as the boers under pretorius helped umpande remove his brother dengane from power but the boers were not allowed to remain in natalya for long as the british moved troops in there in 1842 and forced them out so other boer republics were established like a clip river before in the 1850s the orange free state and transvaal were established but the brewers weren't the only people establishing new republics as there was also the greek a group of mixed-race people who set up their own republics like greekland east and west in the 1860s centered around mining areas but let's just take a minute to thank squarespace for making this video possible now in recent months there has been a little bit of an uptake in this channel and it's time for me to really spread out online maybe you're in a very similar position with your business but like me you have very limited experience online well thanks to squarespace they make this incredibly easy in just a few simple clicks you can set up a website with some fantastic designs or even connect it to an online shop there's no back end stuff to worry about or out of date plugins everything just works and it is designed to make everything ridiculously easy but even if there are problems there's always 24 7 support available to see you through any issues so by the end of the day you could have a website reporting the news of your hometown selling your custom-made hats or anything which you fancy so head to squarespace.com jabzy to save on 10 of your first purchase of a website or domain and now back to africa then finally on to the zulus who probably launched the most destructive campaigns in the region from around 1815 to 1840 the zulus launched their wars of expansion and this period has been called umphikane by the original inhabitants this word has many meanings but think of it as meaning a scattering of people as people were forced off their land and it is estimated that over one million people were killed people fled in every direction and established their own kingdoms in states for instance after the defeat of unduan dwei shashangani he went to mozambique and set up the gaza empire the fengu people on the other hand arrived in kosaland putting further strain on their resources and if you look at a map of south africa today you will see a tiny nation trapped inside it this is lesotho the origins of this country date back to this period as mashosho the first took his tsutu people into the mountains to escape the zulu wars the other tiny nation in this region is swaziland or eswatini which still has a monarchy but their monarchy goes back to the middle of the 18th century beforehand the swazi were living around delgoat bay in mozambique but they settled in the area that they are today under the leadership of lamini iii and they are quite unique in not being affected by the zulu wars to the east of them the portuguese still continue to rule mozambique but their power was largely on the wane by now and a lot of trade along the east coast was now being conducted by the omani people who ruled in zanzibar yet like the greek in south africa there was a collection of mixed-race people on their borders who became incredibly influential in the region often serving as intermediaries between the two groups of people they however acted more like feudal lords running large estates or prasos which they were given in exchange for an annual fee their huge estates were protected by slave soldiers known as chikundu and some families owned a few thousand of them some of these families would also become somewhat africanized and even became chiefs of local tribes in later decades the portuguese would try to bring them back under their control especially after david livingston began exploring the region but some of these families like the de cruz family were able to drive them back in 1868. david livingston by the way was a scottish missionary who largely on his own accord began exploring africa in the middle of the century from south africa he journeyed north and established a mission as far away as blantaya in modern-day malawi from the 1840s to the 1860s he traveled around africa and made some pretty strange alliances in the process for instance the makalolo traveled with him from zambia to malawi and they would later fight alongside the british during it all he reported all of his findings back to the europeans including the resources of the continent and the arab massacres of africans plus the ongoing slave trade but very few cared initially he eventually disappeared in 1869 and henry morton stanley was sent out to find him they met on the shores of lake tanganyika in 1871 with the famous words dr livingston i presume on stanley he was also struggling to find funding for exploration and he often depended on newspapers rather than his own government eventually he relented and went to leopold ii of belgium the only european leader eager to colonize the area but he would later be horrified to find out leopold's intentions now these might be two of the most famous explorers but they were far from the first the scottish in particular had a number of explorers around africa like mcgregor led who traveled along the niger in the 1830s and alexander gordon lang who traveled to timbuk2 back in the 1820s the irish-born frenchman antoine thomas de aberdee explored ethiopia in the 1830s and richard francis burton a peculiar explorer tried to find the source of the nile but burton also went to mecca dressed as a muslim gained the nickname ruffian dick for getting into fights and collected measurements of people's penises wherever he went yet he was probably inspired by a much earlier explorer johan lundvid burkhardt a swiss explorer who went on the hajj rediscovered incredibly famous sites like petra and abu sinbel in the 1820s but ultimately was prevented from traveling beyond egypt by the local authorities there was also some german explorers like heinrich bart who explored the sahara and west africa and the latvian-born german george august swainfort who explored sudan but once again these were largely privately funded expeditions led by botanists or missionaries and they really didn't come from the colonial ambitions of any european government at least before the 1870s so british explorers were journeying out of south africa while they continued to fight against the khosa these wars went until the 1870s and one of the strangest episodes of these wars was the cattle killing movement of the 1850s this began when a 16 year old prophetess claimed that she had spoken with the kosa ancestors and they promised to aid them drive the europeans into the sea but they were only willing to help the living coaster if they destroyed all of their current means of substance so they burnt down their own crops and killed thousands of cattles even the leaders began to demand people do it but when the day of reckoning was supposed to come in 1858 obviously they were disappointed and thousands died of starvation meanwhile before the scramble the british were fighting elsewhere in africa going back to the beginning of the century in the west the british were getting involved in wars along the gold coast because just like in the americas europeans would often align with different tribes of nations there the british often aided the fantasy confederacy while the dutch historically helped the far more powerful ashanti kingdom the fantasy by the way also flew asafoe flags in battle something very similar to a regimental flag many of which featured a union jack so the british albeit in a very minor way got involved in the ashanti franti war of 1806 then the ashanti fought the fanta again in 1811 and won again but the kingdom of ashanti's most ambitious war of conquest came in 1814 when they conquered large sections of the gold coast with an army of 20 000 men and threatened to remove the europeans from the area so in 1817 the british african company of merchants signed a treaty of friendship with them recognizing their recent conquests however the british african company of merchants was soon dissolved in 1821 and the british government took control of the west african colonies shortly afterwards in 1823 yushanti killed soldiers in the british royal african regiment leading to the first anglo-ashanti war during this war the british were actually defeated in early battles and their commander charles mccarthy was killed and his skull was turned into a cup and his heart was allegedly eaten but during that fatal battle only four crates of supplies were brought to the front line three of which only contained macaroni therefore the 500 people in the british army were doomed against the ten thousand ashanti so to counter-attack the british brought concrete rockets into the region and drove the ashanti back securing a great deal of the gold coast either directly under their control or under the control of their allies like the fanti plus it should also be said that the african company of merchants was also dissolved because they were still allegedly trading in slaves something that was banned in 1807. this ban was taken incredibly seriously by the british as they also created the west african squadron which patrolled the seas in the area hoping to stop slave ships to further help in this effort they formed a new base in van duel in 1816 and this would be the basis of the gambia in the following decades however only 20 ships patrolled the entire west african coast so maybe only 10 percent of ships were stopped crossing the atlantic and it's believed that thousands of slaves were just thrown overboard as the slavers didn't want to pay the fines to the british still it is believed over 150 000 slaves were liberated in these decades and were brought back to africa while in africa this ban on slavery had major consequences the powers that had emerged over the last couple hundred years had based their economies on the export of slaves along with other items like palm oil and the likes so the ban weakened their states and it was met with outrage by many african leaders like the king of bonnie in nigeria who wrote to the british saying we think this trade must go on they say that your country however great could never stop a trade ordained by god himself plus the ban did little to stop the trade of slaves within africa the igbo people for instance continue trading while the dahomey used slaves as a display of wealth and prestige as king ghezzo of dahomey wrote in the 1840s the slave trade is the ruling principle of my people it is the source and the glory of their wealth the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery these kingdoms continued to find some markets to export to primarily brazil which only abolished slavery in 1888 plus there was also still the option of selling to islamic slave traders while within africa mauritania only abolished slavery in 1981 and they still had slaveholders in the 21st century otherwise the abolition of slavery made colonies in africa far less profitable as mentioned before this led to nations like denmark selling their colonies in the 19th century then things became more complicated as many of the slaves were freed migrated to nigeria beginning in the 1830s where they were called the sarro people some of these people as they migrated were just enslaved again though or they were used as some sort of political tool for instance the ruler of lagos a major slave trade in port was ober akitoja he was willing to ban slavery across his state in order to secure british support but this was of course unpopular among the slave owners and traders so they rebelled and placed his brother kosoko on the throne in exile he appealed to the british for help and they obliged in 1851 on the assurance that he would ban the slave trade a fleet was dispatched to lagos they bombarded the city and installed akitoya on the throne but he died shortly afterwards and there was another power struggle between his son dasunmu and kosoko then there was another problem for britain the french had been forming trade agreements with nearby rulers like sodji the king of porto novo who was obviously worried about british military action the rulers of lagos also flirted with the idea of accepting french protection and this convinced lord palmerston to act before the french did so in 1861 british ships arrived once again and lagos became a british protectorate thus establishing a foothold in what would become nigeria this also put the british remarkably close to one of the oldest kingdoms in africa the kingdom of benin which is most famous for their remarkably large capital city and the huge walls defending it in fact back in the 1600s many european explorers said that the city was equal in size to some of their own cities back home but large walls or at least large gates were not unique to benin as in the north the house estates like kanu zazao and katsina all had huge gates defending their palaces and cities but back on the coast the french and local african rulers were obviously angry by british expansion while the british were supposed to be foreign slaves they were simultaneously taking fresh colonies in gambia and nigeria so in 1863 soji of porto novo signed an agreement with the french but the french were not really better in this regard as just nearby back in the 1840s they signed an agreement with the under people of the ivory coast this allowed them to set up a fort in gran basam and expand their influence in the region but going back to slavery the british even began to bring freed slaves from across north america and even europe to their main base in west africa sierra leone this colony was home to the infamous buns island but even when slavery was legal there was a huge scheme to resettle black people in this area many of these black people fought alongside the british in the american revolution in exchange for their freedom while others like olaudah equiano was able to purchase his freedom in the caribbean he like many others went to live in england and formed the sons of africa group aimed at abolishing the slave trade meanwhile white abolitionists set up the committee for the relief of the black poor they believe that sending the poor black people from canada or the uk back to africa would help relieve their poverty but this plan also got support from many racists who hoped to remove black people from their countries prime minister william pitt the younger said they should be sent somewhere and be no longer suffered to infest the streets of london so with government approval former slaves from england and nova scotia were resettled in sierra leone where they founded the city of freetown on arrival they had many rights and even elected their officials but they were given very few supplies faced conflicts with their african neighbours and back in 1799 they rebelled to crush the rebellion the british used jamaican maroons now these maroons had escaped from slavery and lived in the countryside of jamaica but in the 1790s they also rebelled against the british many of them were deported to canada but on the outset of the rebellion in sierra leone 500 of them were transported to africa to crush the rebels in return they were given land and became part of the new social elite so within this new society there were maroons the nova scotians as they were called liberated africans the west african squadron had taken from slave ships and to the local people these groups would rarely get along for instance a maroon leader named major jarrett was killed by his liberated african employee this prompted attacks from both sides until many maroons fled back across the atlantic but over time during the 19th century these three immigrant groups would begin to merge together into the creole people of sierra leone they lived in homes that were clearly inspired by their old homes in southern usa they developed their own language known as creo and they even began trading down the west african coast and settling in new countries then just across their eastern border the country of liberia had a very similar origin tale there the american colonization society acquired land from the gola ruler named king peter in 1821. this land served as a base for the former slaves to arrive in but from the beginning they too face attacks from the locals specifically the malinka people but the liberated slaves in liberia also had government support from president monroe and in his honor they named their first town monrovia only a few thousand people actually made the trip to liberia and of them less than two thousand were still alive by 1841 when joseph jenkins roberts declared that the country was independent however the history of liberia took quite a dark turn as the american liberians began to emulate the slave owners of southern america so their society was based upon segregation with them at the top despite never making up more than five percent of the population their numbers were bolstered with the arrival of people from the caribbean in the 1860s and a mass exodus of former slaves from south carolina a decade later this ruling class of america liberians were criticized as late as the 1920s for still using slave labor and they kept hold of power until the outbreak of the civil war in liberia in 1980 nevertheless the independence of liberia was recognized by the great powers very early on meaning it was the two countries that was never colonized by the europeans however to compare it to the ethiopians is a little problematic as liberia was seemingly born out of the effort of colonizers just a different sort of colonizer plus on slavery elsewhere there was still the threat of islamic slave raids in europe thanks to the barbary states of north africa at the turn of the 19th century but the americans under thomas jefferson refused to pay tribute to them beginning the barbary wars algiers and tripoli were bombarded by the american fleet and then after the napoleonic wars the british also bombarded algiers when they massacred christian slaves this as well as more advanced european ships greatly reduced the power of these once feared states then algeria would also be the first state in north africa to fall to the europeans specifically the french the french conquest began in 1827 when charles the tenth blockaded their capital the justification behind the blockade however was at farce as it began when the ruler of algiers demanded the french pay their bills for supplies given to them during napoleon's campaign in egypt the french initially refused to respond but their ambassador was whipped by the algerians prompting the blockade however this just gave charles the course for war that he wanted as he was keen to find a distraction for the french people he was after all the king and his unpopular bourbon dynasty had been restored after the fall of napoleon so to gain public support he invaded algeria in 1830 this did little to help charles though as he was removed from power during the july revolution nevertheless the invasion continued and initially the french held very little power outside the major cities of iran algias and bonne so they had to pacify the rest of the region and to do so they created the french foreign legion in 1831. this had a number of benefits to the new ruler of france louis philippe for starters he came to power with the help of french liberals people who were largely opposed to the algerian war so by sending off foreigners he could appease them plus it also served as a place to throw the old gods of the french kings like the swiss gods who had defended charles during the july revolution so this new foreign legion helped the french gradually expand their control in algeria and by the middle of the 19th century they controlled most of the coast forcing many algerians into morocco to organize their resistance this just resulted in the extremely short franco-moroccan war of 1844 would the french won and their control over algeria was formally recognized by the moroccans then in the 1850s the french launched a further campaign of conquest in senegal this could be seen as part of a much larger french effort to expand their empire under their new ruler napoleon iii who also moved into southeast asia and mexico but looking at these conflicts as connected is often problematic and this will be especially true during the scramble this is because the governors of various colonies would often act independently of the central government or were responding to immediate problems so the campaigns in senegal really could have begun in the 1820s after the french colonies were left weakened after the british took them during the napoleonic wars and only returned them to france if they promised to abolish slavery the trade and acacia gum therefore began to grow more important as a replacement source of income as it was extremely important as a dye in the growing textile industry of europe but the weakened french outposts in senegal faced the growing power of the emirate of trazan who often raided their neighbours the walu kingdom these two however were close to uniting through marriage which would give them control of both banks of the senegal river so the french attacked them in 1825 to end this union then fast forward to the 1840s and 1850s the french companies were building more forts along the banks of the senegal river angering the local states so traza united with walu again and even their old rivals the emirate of brachner they launched a united raid on the french port of saint louis in 1855 but the french responded quickly and successfully and took control of walu which had existed for centuries but the last queen of walu data yala um bonj was facing invasions from muslim states in the north and the french throughout most of her reign so she really stood very little chance of survival the french victory then brought them closer to the borders of a new african state the tukele empire which had been created by omar sido tall think of this as an extension of the jihadist states of west africa as they were essentially just the unification of the most western ones under omar they launched an attack on the french in 1857 but were pushed back and the new spheres of influence were recognized the french were therefore free to start picking off the small kingdoms in senegal and quite quickly a new enemy appeared in the king of siney he attacked the french just two years later but was defeated at the battle of logan demi and he lost some of his provinces but the wars obviously didn't end there as the signee spent the next decade or so destroying french infrastructure until their king was assassinated by the french in 1871 a very similar fate was in store for the other senegalese kingdoms like kyo salum and baol despite fierce resistance and the occasional jihad they were all absorbed into french senegal however these wars and raids destroyed much of the farmland and infrastructure of senegal leaving the area crippled but it would become the center of french west africa and the french would later hope to connect it to their new colony on the east coast of africa in djibouti this colony was created back in 1862 when the french port land around obok from the sultan of afar named rajita dini ahmet and this brings me right the way back to egypt because two events in the 1860s set the stage for the scramble for africa as stated before the egyptians launched campaigns of conquest in the sudan and their wars against the ottomans in the 1830s split the support of european powers as france supported egypt while britain and austria sent ships to help the ottomans but largely the country was free from european ambitions until the outbreak of the american civil war as southern american cotton was not making its way to europe the factories in britain and france were brought to a standstill many brits hoped to enter the war on the confederate side to end this cotton famine and the french who were already active in mexico were even more keen but the confederate's king cotton plan ultimately failed as the europeans found another solution they began to look at egypt's growing cotton industry yet to encourage this trade the egyptians fell further into debt by building railway lines however the american civil war and this new market made egypt and africa as a whole a more attractive option for resources then the second great event was the construction of the suez canal construction began with the french sewers canal company created by ferdinand de la seps saeed the ruler or the kid of egypt also invested a lot of money into stocks plus it's a bit of a side note as the french and egyptians began working together saeed agreed to help napoleon in his invasion of mexico and sent hundreds of sudanese slaves to fight alongside them anyway as construction was underway europeans began to correctly see that east africa would become incredibly important to international shipping so this is why the french purchased part of what would become djibouti several years before the suez canal opened but just across the red sea there was already a british colony at aden and this dated back to the 1830s when the british took the town to serve as a choline station for their ships on the way to india also nearby another colonial power joined in the race the italians their ambitions in east africa are largely the result of giuseppe sepanto's explorations of ethiopia and his insistence on italian expansion so in 1869 the newly unified italian kingdom listened to his calls and sent him to purchase land around assad bay from the danukil chiefs this territory was initially owned by a private company but it would serve as the foundation of italian eritrea and this brings me on to a crucial part of the history in the 19th century europe saw the creation of a number of new states all eager to establish colonies going back to the july revolution in france this inspired another revolution the belgian revolution against the dutch rulers this small country and its new kings the german leopold the first and his son leopold ii would try to desperately seek out new colonies this included the philippines cuba various caribbean islands and even at one point texas but they were only really successful in the congo the italians then came into the picture in the 1860s and then in 1871 the prussians defeated the french and created the german empire this encouraged both sides to develop colonial empires for starters the humiliated french sought to find land and resources outside of europe while the germans wanted their place in the sun so the arrival of new european powers completely changed the status quo in africa prompting the old powers to claim territories that they had previously been uninterested in but just before i end this episode i need to highlight developments in one country and that's ethiopia they had been left weakened in the 18th century as various leaders ruled independently of the emperor during their age of princes however in the 19th century a bandit named sahih ding gil began to gather a large following he grew so powerful that the empress married off her granddaughter to him but this did little to help them as in 1852 he rose up against his in-laws took the throne and became chordrus the second as emperor he was wary of the growing egyptian power to the north so he too tried to rapidly modernize his country but to do so he forced european missionaries to produce cannons for him which were obviously terrible and he wrote numerous letters to queen victoria asking for weapons but these letters were ignored this would have seemed strange to him as he like the ethiopians in centuries past believed an ethiopian european alliance could have destroyed the muslims however now the british were invested in egypt and had very little to gain through an ethiopian alliance so teodoros imprisoned the foreigners in his country and demanded weapons for their release this was disastrous though as the british in 1867 sent an army into ethiopia to free them tioderos had very few followers among the various ethnicities so the british were able to take his capital city while he committed suicide this created a power vacuum in the country as different factions fought for the newly vacant throne but eventually johannes iv would succeed he would go on to defend ethiopia against attacks from the egyptians and even the modests of sudan plus he would also become a coloniser of sorts as under his rule ethiopia would expand their empire from their homeland in the north to the borders of kenya in the south therefore the ethiopians like the egyptians would become the forgotten participants in the scramble for africa but that's where i'll leave it over the first half of the 19th century the americans set up liberia and defeated the barbary pirates britain expanded their control in south africa and west africa the french took senegal djibouti and algeria the italians entered eritrea the portuguese maintained their hold along the coast the egyptians became essentially independent took sudan and built the sewers canal four republics were established in the south and jihadi states in the west expanded all of which predates the traditional starting point of the scramble for africa