EAST AFRICA. 



223 



1,058,700 marks; grain, 373,375 marks; coffee, 

 274,800 marks. 



German enterprise is mainly in the hands of 

 the German East Africa Company, founded in 

 1890 with a Government grant of 6,500,000 marks. 

 The plantations of the company are constantly 

 being extended at an outlay exceeding the annual 

 sales of produce. The company has the coinage 

 privilege, and makes a small profit out of the 

 difference between the cost of silver and the 

 nominal value of the rupees and half and quar- 

 ter rupees coined. The privilege of mining in the 

 stream beds of the East Africa Protectorate has 

 been reserved to the Government. German mer- 

 chants who formerly had agencies in East Africa 

 lost through giving credit to Arabs. The trade 

 < of the interior has fallen into the hands of 

 Greeks, Arabs, and Banians. Labor is abundant 

 in the German protectorate at rates which the 

 Government has fixed that are twice as high as 

 those paid on the British side of the border. The 

 pay of the native soldiers and Soudanese in the 

 German military force is equally liberal. The 

 roads in the German protectorate, one from Ba- 

 gamoyo through Dar-es-Salam to Tabora, thence 

 branching off to Muanza on the Victoria Nyanza 

 and Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika, another from 

 Kihva on the coast to Withaven on Lake Nyasa, 

 are the best in central Africa. The Tabora route 

 to the two northern lakes has been selected for 

 a Government railroad or one with a Government 

 guarantee. 



British East Africa. The British East 

 Africa Company, provided with a royal charter 

 from the English Government, took possession of 

 the coast north of the Umba, leased for fifty 

 years from the Sultan of Zanzibar, as far as Ki- 

 pini, which was recognized as the northern limit 

 of the Sultan's dominions on the mainland. The 

 interior was claimed as a British sphere and con- 

 ceded as such in the Anglo-German agreement of 

 Nov. 1, 1886, and the supplementary agreement 

 of July 1, 1890. An agreement was made with 

 Italy in 1891 conceding the region north of the 

 Juba river as an Italian sphere of interest. The 

 British East Africa Company, having occu- 

 pied Uganda and the countries beyond as far as 

 the Semliki and becoming involved in warfare 

 with the natives, resigned its responsibilities in 

 1893 into the hands of the Imperial Government, 

 which proclaimed a British protectorate over 

 Uganda on June 19, 1894, and over the region 

 between the coast and Victoria Nyanza on June 

 15, 1895. The latter region, the British East 

 Africa Protectorate, has an estimated area of 

 280,000 square miles and a population estimated 

 at 2.500,000, including 25,000 British Indians and 

 450 Europeans and Eurasians. The British agent 

 and consul-general at Zanzibar is Commissioner 

 and consul-general having control of the admin- 

 istration. The dwellers are Arabs and Suahelis. 

 Parts of the interior are inhabited by Bantu 

 negro tribes, other parts by Masais, Somalis, and 

 Gallas. Mombasa, the seat of the local admin- 

 istration, has a population of 27,000. The reve- 

 nue in 1901 was 64.750, and the expenditure 

 157,886. The value of imports was 6,662,131 

 rupees, and of exports 1,259,385 rupees. Banian 

 merchants carry on the trade. A duty of 5 per 

 cent, is levied on imports under the Brussels act. 

 The Indian code of law has been adopted, modi- 

 fied by local customs. Domestic slavery is legal 

 on the coast strip leased from the Sultan of Zan- 

 zibar; elsewhere it is prohibited. There is a 

 military force of 1,000 Soudanese, Suahelis, and 

 Masais, known as the East African rifles, and 

 300 Soudanese besides; the police force numbers 



650. The exports are ivory, rubber, cattle, goats, 

 grain, gum copal, and hides. Cotton cloth is im- 

 ported from England and India, and the only 

 other considerable imports, except provisions, 

 are brass wire and beads for barter with the na- 

 tives of the interior. The protectorate embraces 

 Seyyidieh, the 10-mile strip leased from the Sul- 

 tan of Zanzibar; Ukamba, comprising Teita, 

 Kitui, Masailand, Ulu, and Kenia; Tanaland, 

 with Lamu for its. capital; and Jubaland, the 

 capital of which is Kismayu. The British Gov- 

 ernment in 1902 made grants in aid of 93,000 

 to the British East Africa Protectorate and 

 172,000 to Uganda, and contributed 60,000 to 

 Somaliland and 50,000 to British Central 

 Africa. Under the Uganda Railway act 870,000 

 were spent in the year ending March 31, 1902, on 

 the railroad, the lake end of which was in 

 Uganda, but in April, 1902, the boundary of the 

 East Africa protectorate was moved so as to in- 

 clude all the country between the lake and the 

 ocean. 



Slavery still exists in the coast strip under 

 sanction of the law, the British Government hav- 

 ing refused to abolish the legal status of slavery, 

 although the Sultan of Zanzibar was persuaded 

 to do so within his own remaining dominions, 

 the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. In Pemba, 

 where there were 25,000 negro slaves on the 

 clove plantations of the Arabs, 5,000 have ob- 

 tained emancipation under the decree of April, 

 1897, which enables any slave to go before a 

 magistrate and obtain emancipation papers by 

 declaring his wish to be free. Of late very few 

 have sought their freedom, only 240 in 1901. 

 The introduction of fresh slaves into the island* 

 or into the coast strip, now a part of the East 

 Africa' Protectorate, has been forbidden since 

 1896. Nevertheless, slaves have been brought in 

 or illegally held by the Arab planters, who have 

 not been restrained by the authorities. Bishop 

 Tucker asserts that 90 per cent, of the slaves 

 are held in illegal bondage. Under the social 

 customs and the regulations in force as to freed 

 slaves the condition of a freeman is worse than 

 that of a slave. He loses the regard and pro- 

 tection of his master and the society and com- 

 panionship of his fellows, and is left alone in the 

 world. The Arabs allow these freedmen the use 

 of a house and patch of land if the latter will 

 work half the time on their plantations, and thus 

 they get their land cultivated by freedmen SLA 

 well as by slaves without paying wages. Under 

 the native laws a slave has rights against his 

 master for maintenance, care in sickness, and 

 other matters, which he forgoes when he ob- 

 tains his freedom. The slaves in Zanzibar and 

 Pemba are generally so comfortably off and some 

 of the freed slaves so much worse off than they 

 were before that the desire for emancipation no 

 longer exists, those who were ill treated having 

 already obtained their freedom in most cases. 

 The fact that any slave who is ill treated can 

 claim his freedom operates to alleviate the condi- 

 tion of the mass who remain in slavery in the 

 immediate dominions of the Sultan. In the 10- 

 mile strip of the mainland, where domestic sla- 

 very can be lawfully maintained, there is no 

 such palliating check. Beyond the 10-mile strip 

 slavery is not legal, though it exists where the 

 Arabs have plantations, and the buying and 

 selling of slaves still goes on in many parts of 

 the East Africa Protectorate. 



The protectorate proclaimed in 1894 over 

 Cninula and the neighboring countries has been 

 extended since 1896 until it embraces all the 

 British sphere west and north of the East Africa 



