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Cotton Trade
The Americans were the first Westerners to conclude a trade agreement in East Africa. Their goal was to capture the cloth trade to East Africa. Cheap cotton cloth later came to be known there as Americani. -
Catholic Missions
Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann of the Church Missionary Society, journeyed to the foothills of Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro. Roman Catholic missionaries reached Zanzibar in 1860. By the end of the century, Christianity was spreading in the Lake Victoria area over most of the region and before long, over a much larger area as well. -
Slave Trade
By the 1860s, 7,000 or so slaves were being sold annually in the Zanzibar slave market. In 1873 a treaty with the British closed the market at Zanzibar, and Sultan Barghash reduced the export from the mainland to a much smaller amount. However, there was a final unprecedented period of slaving on the mainland. -
Scramble for Africa
It is around this time that the European Scramble for Africa begins. This effected Africa as a whole, but is still important to the history of East Africa. The discovery of gold and diamonds in Africa increased European interest in the continent and lead to massive colonization by imperialistic nations. -
Berlin Conference Begins
So that they would not fight over the land, European powers met in Berlin. They agreed that any nation could claim any part of Africa simply by telling the others and by showing that it had control of the area. They then moved quickly to grab land. By 1914, only Liberia and Ethiopia were independent. -
German East Africa Company
Colonization began by German commercial agents in Mozambique. It was below where British East Africa would later develop. German claims were recognized a year later by other European powers. -
The Anglo-German Agreement
German Carl Peters secured the grant of an imperial charter for the German East Africa Company. The Anglo-German Agreement of 1886, by which Germany and Britain agreed that their influence in East Africa should be divided by a line running from Mombasa, to a point on the eastern shore. This was one of the more important territorial divisions of the Scramble for Africa in East Africa. -
British East Africa Company
In 1888 the Imperial British East Africa Company established claims to territory in what is now Kenya. British began colonizing Africa in the late 19th century during the scramble for Africa. Prior to claiming Kenya, the colonization began in Zanzibar. -
German Imperial Government
The German Imperial Government took control from the German East Africa Company. It's aquisition of the area was not completed until 1907. The colony experienced significant economic development before World War I. -
East Africa Protectorate
British protectorates were established over the sultanate of Zanzibar and the kingdom of Buganda (Uganda). The company’s territory in Kenya was transferred to the crown as the East Africa Protectorate. About 20 years later this came to be known as the Kenya Colony and the Kenya Protectorate.
