The Kenya-Uganda Railway

Europeans became interested in this part of Africa whilst trying to figure out the source of the Nile. Burton and Speke would be the British explorers who stumbled across Lake Victoria as the source of the Nile - although it would take many more years to confirm this.

This era was the heyday of missionary activities, and the London Missionary Society competed with Catholic and other Protestant denominations for converts. These missionaries would become fundamental critics of the slave trade that was devastating swathes of East Africa and lobbied hard back in London to put pressure on Zanzibar for its role as the assembly point for this trade. This pressure paid off and in 1873 the Sultan of Zanzibar abolished slavery in his lands which technically extended considerably in to the interior of East Africa.

Britain had been content to take a hands off approach to exercising its authority in East Africa. However, in the 1880s this would all change. In November 1884 three deck passengers disguised as mechanics arrived in East Africa. This trio was armed with German flags and blank treaty documents. They quietly set about getting local African tribal leaders to agree to the Kaiser being their overlord rather than the Sultan of Zanzibar. These leaders probably assumed that an overlord further away would be less onerous than one on their doorsteps. They would be wrong on this calculation.

Peters kept his secret well. He carried his documents to Berlin where a conference was discussing colonial spheres of influence. Not even Bismarck had been aware of these developments. The Kaiser eagerly granted Peters an incorporated German East Africa Company covering the lands of his treaties. This new colony would be called Tanganyika. It's creation would shock the British in East Africa into action.

The British set up their own British East Africa Company in competition to the German one. Pressure was put on the Sultan of Zanzibar to hand over control of his remaining East African lands to this British Company under William MacKinnon. A temporary agreement with the Germans to respect each others' spheres of influence was agreed in 1886. However, it was unclear how far into the interior this agreement stretched.

By now, the British were sure that Lake Victoria was the source of the Nile. Surprisingly they agonised over the security of this source, worrying that if it fell into another European power's hands its flow could be diverted. Its fears would seem to be confirmed when the redoubtable Carl Peters went on another secret mission to Uganda and got the king their to sign another treaty with Peters' Company. It seemed as if the source of the Nile had been snatched from under the noses of th British.

When news of this treaty reached London, it startled the British government into immediate action. They realised that Bismarck was far more concerned with the European balance of power. The Kaiser had dreams of a German Empire in the sun, but the more pragmatic Bismarck was firmly focused on Europe. The British offered the Germans a generous strategic carrot in Europe in return for control of Uganda and Zanzibar. This carrot was the island of Heligoland just off the coast of North Germany. It had been a British possession since the Napoleonic Wars. With the construction of the Kiel Canal under way and the German ports nearby, this was an offer to good to refuse. Bismarck eagerly took the carrot and the frustrated Peters saw that his efforts had been in vain - at least for his company. In fact, the 1890 agreement would comprehensively agree on German and British claims throughout East Africa. The British were to be given primacy along the entire Nile watershed. The Germans meanwhile had settled for the relatively poor lands of Tanganyika. Although by the time that World War One broke out, the agreement was not as one sided as it had seemed in 1890.

Uganda Railway

To try and breathe some commercial wealth in to the colony, the authorities set about building a railway. It was a major engineering feat in very harsh conditions. Labour was imported from India to help the project keep to budget and time, but the difficulties were considerable including crossing a 450 metre escarpment at the Rift Valley. The railway was ultimately completed in 1903 but massively over budget and with many deaths amongst the workforce.

Ugandan Independence

The 1950s was a period of retreat and consolidation for the British in Africa. The costs of running colonies was becoming too high for a country exhausted by war. India had already been granted its independence and other African countries wanted to follow suit. Ghana and Nigeria had been relatively wealthy colonies that could finance their independence with relative ease. Uganda hoped to be placed in this category. However, Britain did not want to be left with just the uneconomic colonies - like Tanganyika. It wanted to create a British East Africa Colony combining the poor Tanganyika, with reasonably successful Kenya and Uganda. The timing was bad, as Kenya erupted into the Mau Mau rebellion. The costs of putting this down pretty much killed off the idea of a large British East Africa region. Uganda stayed out of the trouble and tried to carry on life as normal. It was rewarded with its independence in 1962.