18
EUROPE AND AFRICA
a great African state, or she will be in a century or two but
a second-rate power.” Russia undertook a remarkable
colonial expansion in Central Asia to secure control of the
trade and the trade routes there. Japan fought a great war
to insure the fulfillment of her economic destiny in Korea
and on the Chinese mainland. And in Germany, where
Bismarck had successfully introduced a policy of protec-
tion, because “under free trade we were gradually bleeding
to death,” colonization was determined upon definitely in
1884, as necessary to insure the economic independence and
future of the Empire.
The African possessions of European states in 1870 were
neither extensive nor particularly valuable. For the most
part they were confined to seaport towns and the adjacent
territory, which were being used as ports of call and trading
centers, rather than as bases for colonial expansion. There
had been no attempt to mark definitely the boundaries of
any of these colonies or to stake out special claims. The
different nations had merely built forts and trading factories
at certain favorable points and permitted their influence
to extend gradually into the interior without any definite
purpose or plan of expansion. An exception was made in
Algeria and Cape Colony; but, before 1870, none of the
European powers had seriously considered the founding of
great colonial states in Africa.
The French possessed a strong hold on Algeria at the
north and had established along the west side three small
colonies, on the Senegal River, at Mellicouri, and on the
Ivory Coast. In addition they had begun explorations on
the Gaboon River and started a settlement at Obock on the
East Coast. The British controlled a struggling colony at
the Cape of Good Hope, had secured substantial holdings
and openings for trade at Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold
Coast, and Lagos on the west side, and had pushed up the