Colonial Africa

The map to the right is of Africa under colonial rule from 1886-1914. What is interesting is just how few European countries got in on dividing up Africa. Most of Africa was under either British or French rule. Germany had for a short time, only 30 years in the case of Togoland, four colonies on the continent. Portugal had Angola, Mozambique, and three much smaller colonies for a much longer time. Italy only had Somalia, part of what becomes Libya, and Eritrea. Finally, Belgium had Congo and Spain had Western Sahara, and the enclaves of Spanish Morocco and what is now Equatorial Guinea. The Netherlands, Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire all had no African holdings at this time. Although previously the Dutch and Danish had been heavily involved in the slave trade out of Africa, much more so than the US ever was. There were never any US slave castles like the Dutch had at Elmina and the Danish at Christiansborg anywhere in Africa. No non-European powers ever had any African colonies. For the most part the political subjugation of Africa to colonial rule was an affair of the British and French.