ear Event

1415 A Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator, becomes fascinated by exploration down the
coast of Africa and commissions successive voyages

C. 1420 The Portuguese, discovering the lush and uninhabited island of Madeira, send colonists to
settle it

C. 1427 A Portuguese captain, sailing for Henry the Navigator, chances upon the Azores

1439 Portuguese settlers are sent to the unoccupied islands of the Azores

1446 Portugal claims ownership of the region of Guinea, subsequently the centre of their slave
trade on the west African coast

C. 1450 The caravel, a sailing ship developed in the Mediterranean and used down the west coast of
Africa, is adapted by the Portuguese for Atlantic use

1456 A Portuguese navigator discovers some of the Cape Verde islands, tropical and at that time
uninhabited

1462 Portuguese settlers arrive to found Cidade Velha, on the Cape Verde island of Santiago

1466 The Portuguese settlers on the Cape Verde islands are granted a monopoly on the new slave
trade

1483 The Portuguese establish a further presence on the west coast of Africa, at the mouth of the
Congo river

1488 Bartolomeu Dias, sailing for the king of Portugal, becomes the first European navigator to
round the Cape of Good Hope

C. 1500 The Portuguese establish trading posts in east Africa, on the coast of Mozambique

1503 The Portuguese set up a trading post on the east African island of Zanzibar

C. 1550 Africans, bought in the Portuguese trading posts of west Africa, are shipped across the
Atlantic as slaves

1
1638 The French build a trading station on the estuary of the Senegal river in west Africa

1652 Jan van Riebeeck establishes a Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope

1657 The Dutch in South Africa purchase slaves to do domestic and agricultural work

1698 A fleet from Oman evicts the Portuguese from Mombasa and Zanzibar

C. 1770 The triangular trade, controlled from Liverpool, ships millions of Africans across the
Atlantic as slaves

C. 1775 Dutch nomads, pressing far north from Cape Town, become known as the Trekboers

1787 A British ship lands a party of freed slaves as the first modern settlers in Sierra Leone, on
the west coast of Africa

C. 1795 Dutch Boers begin calling themselves Afrikaners, to emphasize that Africa is their native
land

Mungo Park sets off on his first expedition to explore the Niger on behalf of the African
Association

With the Dutch entering the war on the side of the French, Britain seizes their valuable
Cape colony in South Africa

1802 The Treaty of Amiens restores the Cape of Good Hope to the Netherlands

1806 The British recapture the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch

1808 The British government uses Freetown, in Sierra Leone, as a base in the fight against the
slave trade

1809 The British impose the so-called Hottentot Code, protecting Africans at the Cape but also
tying them to employers' farms

1816 The British establish Bathurst (now Banjul) at the mouth of the Gambia as a base against
the slave trade

2
1820 The first big influx of British settlers, numbering some 5000, arrives at Cape Town in South
Africa

1821 The American Colonization Society buys the area later known as Liberia to settle freed
slaves

1822 The first shipload of freed slaves reaches Cape Mesurado (in the region soon called Liberia)
from the USA

1827 The Turkish governor of Algiers, flicking at the French consul with his fly whisk, finds that
he has provoked a French blockade and eventually invasion

1830 Richard Lander and his brother John explore the lower reaches of the Niger, proving that
the great river is navigable

A French army invades Algeria, beginning the process which brings the region within the
French empire

1832 The paddle steamer Alburkah becomes the first ocean-going iron ship, completing the
journey from England to the Niger

1836 Hendrik Potgieter sets off with some 200 Boers and their cattle at the start of the Great
Trek to the north

The Portuguese ban the shipping of slaves from the coast of Angola

Hendrik Potgieter and the Boers, protected by a laager at Vegkop, hold off an attack by a
large force of Ndebele tribesmen

1837 After a victory at Vegkop, Boers massacre the inhabitants of a dozen Ndebele villages in
secret dawn raids

Piet Retief emerges as the new leader of the Great Trek, replacing Potgieter

Potgieter defeats the Ndebele at the Marico river and drives them north of the Limpopo

Piet Retief reaches a provisional agreement with Dingaan, the Zulu leader, for a Boer
settlement in southern Natal

3
1838 During a ceremony to celebrate their treaty with Dingaan, Piet Retief and his Boer
companions are overpowered and killed

Dingaan's warriors massacre Boer families in a series of dawn raids near the Bloukrans
river

The river Ncome becomes known as the Blood River after thousands of Zulu die attacking
Andries Pretorius and the Boers

1839 Abd-el-Kader proclaims a holy war against the French in Algeria and begins a military
campaign that will last for eight years

Andries Pretorius sets up the Boer republic of Natalia, with its capital at Pietermaritzburg

C. 1841 Britain sends four naval ships up the river Niger to make anti-slavery treaties with local
kings

1843 The British take control of the existing Boer republic and proclaim Natal a British
protectorate

1847 Pretorius leads the last Boer families out of Natal and over the Drakensberg to the high veld

Liberia wins independence and international recognition as a republic

1848 Harry Smith annexes for Britain the land between the Orange and Vaal rivers, calling it the
Orange River Sovereignty

1850 The British government buys the Danish fortresses on the Gold Coast, including
Christiansborg castle in Accra

1854 The Boers establish the Orange Free State as an independent republic, with its own
custom-built constitution

1857 The Boers of the southern Transvaal declare independence as the South African Republic

1861 Lagos, on the coast of Nigeria, is annexed as a British colony when the royal family prove
unable or unwilling to end the slave trade

4
1868 Britain annexes Basutoland (now Lesotho), the kingdom of the Sotho leader Moshoeshoe

1869 Britain, France and Italy take joint control of the finances of a bankrupt Tunisia

1871 18-year-old English entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes, on a temporary visit to South Africa,
arrives in the new diamond town of Kimberley

1874 The southern region of present-day Ghana becomes a British colony, to be known as the
Gold Coast

1876 Leopold II hosts a conference in Brussels on the subject of opening up the African
continent

1877 Britain annexes the Boer republic in the Transvaal

Stanley completes his exploration of the Congo, reaching the Atlantic coast at Boma after a
three-year journey

1878 Stanley agrees to work for Leopold II in opening up the Congo river to commerce

1879 The British find a pretext to march into the territory ruled by Cetshwayo, thus launching
the Zulu War

Zulu tribesmen surprise and annihilate a British army encamped near Isandhlwana

Immediately after Isandhlwana a tiny British garrison at Rorke's Drift fights off an
overwhelming Zulu attack

George Goldie and British traders on the Niger form the United African Company (later the
Royal Niger Company) to consolidate their interests

The British destruction of Cetshwayo's kraal at Ulundi ends the Zulu War

1880 French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza forestalls Stanley in opening up the Congo,
reaching Stanley Pool ahead of him

1881 The Boers inflict a convincing defeat on a British army at Majuba, in the Transvaal

5
 France invades Tunisia from Algeria, and in the Treaty of Bardo forces the bey of Tunis to
accept the status of a French protectorate

Stanley finds Brazza's French tricolor already flying on the north bank of the Congo, on the
site of what later becomes Brazzaville

1882 Stanley establishes a foothold for Leopold II on the southern bank of the Congo, at a site
which he names Leopoldville (now Kinshasa)

Anti-western riots in Alexandria result in many deaths and provoke a British invasion

1883 French marines land at Tamatave in Madagascar to protect French interests and assert
French control

1884 General Gordon marches south to protect Khartoum from the advancing forces of the
Mahdi

Bismarck launches the colonial scramble for Africa by suddenly annexing three territories
for Germany (Togo, Cameroon and Angria Pequena)

The Boer republic in the Transvaal regains its independence from Britain

Gustav Nachtigal arrives in Togo and persuades local chiefs to accept the protection of the
German emperor

Gustav Nachtigal, moving on to Cameroon, annexes this region too for the new German
empire

Karl Peters hurries round east Africa persuading chiefs to accept the German emperor as
their protector

British general Garnet Wolseley sails from London on a mission to rescue Gordon, trapped
by the Mahdi in Khartoum

Bismarck invites the European powers to a West Africa Conference in Berlin

6
 Spain begins to colonize the Western Sahara, subsequently known as the Spanish Sahara

1885 Bismarck grants Karl Peters a charter to rule a German protectorate in east Africa

Britain annexes Bechuanaland as a protectorate, to secure the route north from the Cape
into central Africa

Italian troops occupy Eritrea, a province of Ethiopia

German warships arrive in Zanzibar harbour to persuade the sultan to cede territory to the
Kaiser, William I

1886 Germany and Britain define neighbouring spheres of interest in east Africa

The German and British agreement in east Africa creates the present-day boundary
between Tanzania and Kenya

1887 A gathering of leaders from the British empire holds a colonial conference in London to
coincide with Queen Victoria's jubilee

1888 The Ndebele chieftain, Lobengula, grants Rhodes mining rights in what is now Zimbabwe

The Imperial British East Africa Company is given a charter to administer Kenya and
Uganda

1889 Cecil Rhodes forms the British South Africa Company to push British commerce and
imperial control further north

France and Britain agree colonial boundaries for Senegal and Gambia in west Africa

In the treaty of Uccialli, Menelik II cedes the Ethiopian province of Eritrea to Italy

1890 Cecil Rhodes sends colonists to settle the newly won colony of Rhodesia

Zanzibar, under its Arab sultan, is declared a British protectorate

7
1891 Germany takes direct control of German East Africa as a protectorate

Rhodes wins the right to administer the region from the Zambezi up to Lake Tanganyika,
forming present-day Zambia

Britain cedes the tiny island of Heligoland to Germany in return for vast areas of Africa

1892 Frederick Lugard's Maxim machine gun settles a Protestant-Catholic clash in Kampala, the
capital of Buganda

The French establish a protectorate in part of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey in west
Africa

1893 France claims the Ivory Coast (or Côte d'Ivoire) in west Africa as a French colony

Leander Jameson, finding a pretext for war, drives Lobengula out of his kingdom in
Rhodesia

The British Central African Protectorate is set up in the region of present-day Malawi

1895 The territory south of the Zambezi is given the name Rhodesia, in honour of the man who
has colonized it

Khama III, the king of Bechuanaland, travels to London to demand the continuing
protection of the British crown

The British government takes responsibility for Kenya, as the East Africa Protectorate

Leander Jameson leads a disastrous raid into the Transvaal, in an attempt to topple Paul
Kruger's government

1896 Cecil Rhodes' involvement with the Jameson raid forces his resignation as the Cape Colony
prime minister

The Ethiopian emperor, Menelik II, inflicts a shattering defeat on Italian forces at Aduwa

8
 Britain unites Buganda and three other kingdoms into the single Uganda Protectorate

Italy, one of the local colonial powers, accepts Ethiopia's claim to the Ogaden region of the
Somali territory

1897 Zululand, annexed by Britain in 1887, is now merged with the colony of Natal

Paul Kruger, prime minister of the Transvaal, forms an alliance with the other Boer
republic, the Orange Free State

The UK colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, appoints enthusiastic imperialist Alfred

Milner as high commissioner in South Africa

Germany claims Ruanda and Urundi as a joint colony adjacent to German East Africa

The French exile the queen of Madagascar and claim the island as a French colony

The British burn Benin City in a punitive expedition after members of a British delegation
are murdered

1898 French and British forces meet at Fashoda, in a potentially explosive incident in the
scramble for Africa

Kitchener's victory at Omdurman brings to an end thirteen years of rule in Sudan by

followers of the Mahdi

1899 The Sudan begins half a century of supposedly joint rule by Britain and Egypt

Mohammed ibn Abdullah (the Mad Mullah in British eyes) leads an uprising in British
Somaliland

1900 Paul Kruger flees after the British take Pretoria and annexe both the Boer republics

The relief of Mafeking ends a long siege which brings fame to the British commander of the
garrison, Robert Baden-Powell

9
 The British government assumes direct responsibility for the entire region of Nigeria,
previously entrusted to a commercial company

1901 Thousands of women and children die in the concentration camps used by the British army
for displaced Boer families

1902 A treaty at Vereeniging ends the Boer War and brings the Boer republics under British
control

After the defeat of neighbouring Transvaal in the Boer War, the British take sole control of
Swaziland

1903 Edward VII, the first British monarch to travel to India, holds a great coronation durbar in
Delhi

Roger Casement, British consul in the Congo Free State, discovers appalling abuses by
Belgian companies

1904 A violent uprising by Herero warriors in South West Africa targets male Germans of
military age

The German general Lothar von Trotha drives 8000 Herrero people to slow death in the
Kalahari desert

1905 Transvaal politician Louis Botha forms Het Volk ('The People'), a party committed to
Afrikaner self-government

Kaiser Wilhelm II visits Tangier in support of Moroccan independence, causing a

diplomatic crisis with the colonial powers France and Britain

The Maji-Maji rising results in alarming outbreaks of violence in German East Africa

The German commander in east Africa uses famine as a means of ending the Maji-Maji
rising

1906 An international conference at Algeciras effectively gives France informal control of

Morocco

10
 Transvaal is given the self-governing status promised in the treaty ending the Boer War

1908 International outrage at Congo atrocities forces Belgium to annexe King Leopold's private
colony

1909 National delegates from the four provincial parliaments draw up a draft constitution for a
South African union

Mineral discoveries on the border of Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo give the
first hint of the riches of the Copper Belt

1910 The Union of South Africa becomes an independent dominion within the British empire

Three French colonies south of the Sahara are consolidated as French Equatorial Africa

1911 Italy finds a reason to invade Libya, a province of the Turkish empire.

Copper mining begins in Katanga, soon to be followed by the extraction of even more
profitable diamonds

1912 By the treaty of Fès a French protectorate is formally established in Morocco

France and Spain agree that Spain shall become the colonial power in the north of Morocco
and France in the south

The South African National Native Congress (subsequently the ANC, African National
Congress) is set up in Cape Province

1914 British rule is consolidated in Nigeria by the merging of north and south as a single colony

The British government changes the status of Egypt from a Turkish province to a British
protectorate

August - British and French forces invade the German colony of Togoland

1915 February - British and French forces invade and capture the German colony of Cameroon

11
 July - South African troops capture German South West Africa

1916 British and French forces win full control of the German colonies of Togoland and
Cameroon

June 17 - Belgian troops from the Congo occupy the German colony of Ruanda-Urundi

1918 Wafd, a national party, is formed in Cairo with the purpose of ending Egypt's enforced link
with Britain

November 23 - Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, commander of the German army in East Africa,
surrenders after four stubborn years of resistance

1919 More than 300 die when British troops fire on a peaceful demonstration in Amritsar

The League of Nations makes South West Africa (Namibia) a mandated British territory, to
be administered by South Africa

June 28 - German East Africa is to be governed by Britain as Tanganyika, under a League

of Nations mandate

1920 Destour is formed as a nationalist party in Tunisia, demanding full independence from
France

1921 The Young Kikuyu Association is formed in Kenya, to fight for African rights and the
restoration of Kikuyu land

Abd-el-Krim wins a sensational victory over Spanish forces in Morocco and gains control of
the Rif

1922 Egypt becomes an independent kingdom, subject to a British military presence to protect
the Suez canal

The League of Nations gives France and Britain mandates to govern separate areas of the
German colony of Cameroon

12
 France and Britain are given a League of Nations mandate to govern separate areas of the
German colony of Togoland

1923 The African National Congress (ANC) is formed in South Africa by renaming the South
African National Native Congress

Rhodesia becomes a self-governing colony with political power exclusively in the hands of
European settlers

1924 The League of Nations grants Belgium a mandate to administer the former Germany colony
of Ruanda-Urundi

The British government takes on the administration of Northern Rhodesia from the British
South Africa Company

1926 The Balfour Report, by former UK prime minister A.J. Balfour, suggests the way forward
for the British Commonwealth of Nations

1928 Jomo Kenyatta becomes the editor of Muigwithania, the newspaper of the Kikuyu Central
Association

1933 The Hutus and Tutsis of Ruanda-Urundi are issued with racial identity cards by the
Belgians

1934 Neo-Destour, a party demanding Tunisian independence, has Habib Bourguiba as its
secretary general

1935 Mussolini uses a disagreement over grazing rights as a pretext for an empire-building
invasion of Ethiopia

1936 The Italian forces invading Ethiopia reach Addis Ababa, and Haile Selassie flees into exile

1941 January 22 - Archibald Wavell's Allied divisions, after a rapid desert campaign, drive the
Italians from the Libyan port of Tobruk

April 6 - the Allies recover Ethiopia from the Italians and Haile Selassie returns to his
throne in Addis Ababa

13
1942 Algerian nationalist Ferhat Abbas produces a manifesto demanding independence from
France

C. 1945 Gamal Abdel Nasser and army colleagues form a secret party, the Free Officers, to fight for
an independent Egyptian republic

Demonstrations in Algeria spark off an uprising against French rule, which is put down
with the loss of perhaps 10,000 Muslim lives

1950 The British government bans hereditary ruler Seretse Khama from Bechuanaland because
he has married a white woman

1951 Libya wins independence from Italy, as a kingdom with Idris I as head of state

1952 Kwame Nkrumah, recently released from gaol, becomes prime minister of the British
colony of the Gold Coast

A group of officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser depose Egypt's king, Farouk, and send him
into exile

Ahmed Ben Bella forms the Front de Libération National (FLN) to fight for Algerian
independence

An outbreak of terrorism in Kenya is orchestrated by a secret Kikuyu organization, the Mau

Mau

1953 Jomo Kenyatta, charged with having organized the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, is
sentenced to seven years in prison

The two Rhodesias and Nyasaland are merged in the self-governing Federation of Rhodesia
and Nyasaland

1954 A radical manifesto and acts of terrorism alert the world to the emergence of the FLN,
committed to independence for Algeria

1955 An armed uprising in Morocco persuades France to accept the principle of independence
for the colony

14
1956 The Sudan, declining the opportunity of union with Egypt, opts for independence as a
separate state

Tunisia wins independence from France, with Habib Bourguiba as prime minister

French Morocco and Spanish Morocco win independence from the two colonial powers

After a plebiscite British Togo is merged with the neighbouring colony of the Gold Coast

1957 Kwame Nkrumah leads the Gold Coast into independence under a name of historic
resonance, Ghana

The FNLA is established, with US support, as a guerrilla group to fight for a non-
communist independent Angola

1958 French Algerians seize government buildings in Algiers, in a campaign to ensure that
Algerian remains French

On his second day in power, de Gaulle visits Algiers to confront the settlers with an
unwelcome message

The colony of French Guinea opts for immediate independence as the republic of Guinea,
breaking its links with France

1960 UK prime minister Harold Macmillan, in Cape Town, warns the white settlers of Africa that
'the wind of change' is blowing through their continent

French Cameroun becomes independent as the republic of Cameroun, with Ahmadou

Ahidjo as the first president

Kenneth Kaunda is elected president of UNIP, a new party fighting for an independent
Northern Rhodesia

French Togo becomes independent as the republic of Togo, with Sylvanus Olympio as
president

15
French Sudan becomes independent as the republic of Mali, with Modibo Keita as
president

Madagascar becomes independent (under the name Malagasy republic from till 1975), with
Philibert Tsiranana as president

Patrice Lumumba becomes prime minister of the newly independent Democratic Republic
of the Congo, previously the Belgian Congo

The South West Africa People's Organization is founded to fight against South African
control of Namibia

British and Italian colonies merge as the independent Somali republic, also known as
Somalia, with Aden Abdullah Osman as president

Anti-European riots in the Congo cause some 25,000 Belgians to flee the country

The French colony of Dahomey (known from 1975 as Benin) becomes independent but
suffers six military coups in its first twelve years

Niger becomes independent, with Hamani Diori as the new nation's first president

Kenyatta, still in prison, is elected leader of KANU, a new political party in Kenya

The French colony of Upper Volta becomes independent as Burkina Faso, with Maurice
Yaméogo as president

Félix Houphouët-Boigny, first president of the newly independent Ivory Coast, begins
thirty-three years of relatively peaceful rule

The French colony of Chad becomes independent with François Tombalbaye as president

The French colony of Gabon becomes independent with Léon M'ba as president

The French colony of Ubangi-Shari becomes independent and takes the name Central
African Republic

16
 The French Congo becomes independent as the republic of Congo, with Fulbert Youlou as
president

The French colony of Senegal becomes independent, with Léopold Senghor as the new
nation's first president

Nigeria wins independence, with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as prime minister, but its
stability is threatened by tribal and regional factions

The French colony of Mauritania becomes independent, with Moktar Ould Daddah as
president

1961 Patrice Lumumba is sent to Katanga, where he is murdered

Former British colony Sierra Leone becomes an independent state within the
Commonwealth

Joshua Nkomo founds ZAPU, the Zimbabwe African People's Union, in the British colony
of Southern Rhodesia

Two French generals, Raoul Salan and Edmond Jouhaud, form the OAS (Organisation de
l'Armée Secrète) to preserve French rule in Algeria

The southern part of the British Cameroons votes to merge with Cameroun, becoming the
federal republic of Cameroon

Tanganyika becomes an independent nation with Julius Nyerere as prime minister

1962 Frelimo emerges as a Marxist guerrilla group dedicated to winning independence for
Mozambique

Ian Smith's white supremacist party, the Rhodesian Front, wins power in Rhodesia's
election

A massive yes vote in a referendum is immediately followed by French recognition of

Algerian independence

17
 The former British colony of Uganda becomes an independent republic, with Milton Obote
as prime minister

1963 The OAU (Organization of African Unity) is founded in Addis Ababa to give Africa a united
voice in world affairs

Robert Mugabe and Ndabaningi Sithole split from ZAPU to found ZANU, the Zimbabwe
African National Union

Zanzibar becomes an independent nation and a member of the Commonwealth

Kenya becomes independent, with Jomo Kenyatta as prime minister

The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved, as the three colonies go their
separate ways

1964 Ian Smith, now prime minister of Rhodesia, arrests leading black politicians Joshua
Nkomo and Robert Mugabe

Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge as the United Republic of Tanzania

Hastings Banda is prime minister of the newly independent nation of Malawi, formerly
Nyasaland

Kenneth Kaunda becomes president of the independent republic of Zambia, previously

Northern Rhodesia

1965 The Gambia becomes an independent member of the Commonwealth, with Dawda Jawara
as prime minister

Ian Smith makes a unilateral declaration of Rhodesia's independence

1966 UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi, joins the fight for Angolan independence

Former chief Seretse Khama becomes the first president of an independent Botswana

18
1968 Spanish Guinea becomes an independent republic as Equatorial Guinea, with Francisco
Macias Nguema as president

The United Nations, with the approval of Britain as the colonial power, imposes economic
sanctions on Rhodesia

1973 The Polisario is formed to fight for the independence of Western Sahara

1974 Portuguese Guinea becomes independent as Guinea-Bissau, with Luís Cabral as president

1975 The independence of Angola is established in the Alvor agreement between Portugal and
three rival guerrilla groups, the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA

The king of Morocco sends 350,000 settlers across the border into Western Sahara

Portuguese East Africa becomes independent as Mozambique, with Frelimo as the only
political party

The Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa, become independent as the republic of
Cape Verde

1976 The UN entrusts the Western Sahara to joint administration by Morocco and Mauritania

The Polisario, as a government-in-exile in Algeria, proclaim the independence of Western

Sahara as the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic

1977 The French Territory of Afars and Issas becomes independent as Djibouti, with Hassan
Gouled Aptidon as president

1979 Morocco annexes the Mauritanian part of the Western Sahara, thus taking control of the
entire region

A conference in London, at Lancaster House, finally achieves agreement on Southern

Rhodesia

1980 Rhodesia becomes independent, taking the name Zimbabwe, with Robert Mugabe as prime
minister

19
1990 Namibia becomes independent with Sam Nujoma as president

20