Cape to Cairo Railway

And so he really prioritizes British colonialism in West Africa, right? Because the other big figure in British African policy at this time was Cecil Rhodes.

Cecil Rhodes' big deal was the Cape to Cairo, right? The British Empire should have a sort of straight line down from Egypt to South Africa, right? And And Chamberlain is sort of very much opposed to this.

He tries to think that you can kind of do both, which he proves to be basically right about, depressingly.

And so he is the reason why English is an official language of Nigeria and French isn't.

Moreover, the question of western extension raised problems.

Were the Germans free to push their frontier back to meet the Congo Free State at Lake Tanganyika, leaving no corridor for the projected British Cape to Cairo railway? Was the fertile inland kingdom of Uganda, described by explorers as the jewel of eastern Africa, to be British or German? The future of Uganda was an urgent question in 1890.

In earlier years French Roman Catholic missionaries, Cardinal Lavigerie's white feathers, had entered this Negro kingdom and won many converts.

British Protestants also sought to evangelize the kingdom.

Though Menelik might be opposed to an Italian protectorate, England was less unreasonable.

In 1891, the British government signed two conventions with Italy drawing a line of demarcation in East Africa between the spheres of influence respectively reserved to Great Britain and Italy, and leaving to Italy all of Abyssinia as far west as the meridian thirty-five degrees east of Greenwich.

It is significant that this line safeguarded for England the Egyptian Sudan, including the valley of the White Nile and most of the Blue Nile, a generous territorial corridor leading from Egypt to Uganda and East Africa, and a necessary link in the Cape to Cairo chain of possessions.

In what way the diplomats of England and Italy, two of the six European great powers, were entitled to sit down at a table and mark out on the map vast areas as spheres of influence reserved for themselves, is a question which may be left for the subtle juristic mind.

A ribbon of steel running the length of Africa, connecting the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope.

It was called the Cape to Cairo Railway and it was celebrated as one of the great engineering projects of the age.

But look closer.

Look at where the railway ran.

Look at what it connected.

The Cape to Cairo Railway served British colonial interests.

accelerating resource extraction, expanding commerce, projecting imperial power.

Its design did not center African people.

Because if you take a tiny place like Britain, you really show how significant or insignificant in terms of landmass it is to the world.

And then you think of everything that it did, controlling almost half of Africa from Cape to Cairo.

I mean, that is crazy.

So we correct that.