Settlers In East And Central Africa

Settlers In East And Central Africa
818 Downloads

It all began with David Livingstone who died a lonely death at Lake Bangweolo in Central Africa in 1873, lonely save for the companionship of his two African servants who carried his body to the far away coast.Livingstone had seen great territories devastated by tribal war and by the slave raiders. To see the remains of Africans massacred by Africans as I have done fills one with revulsion at such inhuman wickedness. Living-stone, in his letters to Britain, suggested that British settlers should be encouraged to settle in the Shire Highlands in the country now called Malawi where the climate was suitable. There they could produce raw materials for export, which would be the means of commencing legitimate trade and at the same time provide the funds for bringing in some form of law and order and education to the native tribes, rapidly being wiped out, by the slave raiders and by the savage Angoni.

In 1880, by the terms of the Brussels Agreement all European powers with interest and influence in Africa, agreed to stamp out the slave trade in areas under their influence, to stop the sale of firearms and intoxicating liquor and to bring in legitimate trade. In order to do this, Britain reluctantly agreed to survey the Uganda railway and took over control of British East Africa from the Imperial Fast Africa Company. This railway was described by the British newspapers of the time as running to nowhere and carrying nothing. The real purpose of the railway was stated to be for enabling troops to be moved more quickly from place to place, for controlling tribal warfare and the slave trade and to enable traders to bring down the ivory from the interior to the coast. Originally the Arabs had brought the ivory from the interior to the coast and the slaves from them to exchange for guns and forced the slaves to carry the ivory to the coast where both ivory and slaves were sold in the slave markets of Zanzibar