COLONIZATION IN AFRICA
Africa is not only now well known, but the exploration of its interior has been followed by political changes of the most revolutionary character. It presented a virgin field for colonization, of which the land-hungry nations of Europe hastened to avail themselves, dividing up the continent between them until, by the end of the century, the partition of Africa was practically complete. It is one of the most remarkable circumstances in history that a well-known continent remained thus so long unexplored to serve in our own days as a new field for the outpouring of the nations. The occupation of Africa by Europeans, indeed, began earlier. The Arabs had held the section north of the Sahara for many centuries, Portugal claimed—but scarcely occupied—large sections east and west, and the Dutch had a thriving settlement in the south. But the exploration and division of the bulk of the continent waited for the nineteenth century, and the greater part of the work of partition took place within the final quarter of that century.
In this work of colonization Great Britain and France stand foremost in energy and success. Today the British possessions and protectorates in Africa embrace 2,132,840 square miles; or, if we add Egypt and the Egyptian Soudan—practically British territory—the area occupied or claimed amounts to 2,446,040 square miles. The claims of France, including a large area of the Sahara desert, are much larger, covering 4,000,000 square miles. Germany lays claim to 930,000;; Italy, to 59l,000; Portugal, to 800,000; Spain, to 86,600, the Congo Free State, to 800,000; and Turkey to the 363,200 square miles of Egypt. The parts of Africa unoccupied or unclaimed by Europeans are a portion of the Desert of Sahara, which no one wants; Abyssinia, still independent; Morocco, a French protectorate; and Liberia, a state over which rests the shadow of protection of the United States.