830 



WEST AFRICA. 



denounced the Castro administration as corrupt. 

 President Castro's Government confiscated his 

 large coffee and cacao plantations and his shares 

 in the Bank of Venezuela and the Bank of Cara- 

 cas. After the blockade food rose to high prices 

 and the Government and national bank soon ex- 

 pended all the money that was left and had no 

 means of raising more. For the first time since 

 1802 the soldiers could neither be paid nor prop- 

 erly fed. Gen. Rolando gathered 1.200 revolu- 

 tionists at Lezama, Gen. Riera an equal number 

 at Coro, and other bands assembled in the neigh- 

 borhood of Barquisemeto. Gen. Antonio Fernan- 

 dez, in command of the revolutionary forces, 



inflicted a severe defeat at Guatire on the Govern- 

 ment troops commanded by Gen. Modesta. Pres- 

 ident Castro sent Gen. Campbell Acosta with 

 1,500 Andine troops to check the rebel advance if 

 possible. The coasts of Tucacas and Coro, held 

 by the revolutionists, were not blockaded by the 

 allies, and they were able to import arms and 

 ammunition and other supplies freely after Cas- 

 tro's navy was captured. Some of the generals 

 who had fought for the revolution in the former 

 campaign were conciliated by receiving com- 

 mands in the Venezuelan army. 

 VERMONT. (See under UNITED STATES.) 

 VIRGINIA. (See under UNITED STATES.) 



W 



WASHINGTON. ( See under UNITED STATES. ) 

 WEST AFRICA. The coast of Africa from 

 the southern border of Morocco to the mouth 

 of the Congo has in recent times been occupied 

 by European powers which formerly neglected 

 the defense of their few scattered trading stations. 

 The effective occupation of the coast regions was 

 followed by extraordinary exertions to establish 

 claims over the interior. At last the whole of 

 the interior of northern Africa between Barbary 

 and the Congo region from the west coast to the 

 western limits of the Egyptian Soudan has been 

 partitioned into spheres of influence. Germany 

 occupied Togoland and Cameroons in 1884 and 

 in the same year France declared a protectorate 

 over the coast between Cameroons and the Congo, 

 having had factories on the Gabun for forty 

 years, and a British protectorate was proclaimed 

 over the region where the Royal Niger Company 

 claimed to have made political treaties with sev- 

 eral hundred native chiefs and tribes. The Ger- 

 mans and the French, as well as the English, were 

 active in explorations and scientific missions 

 which had for their secret object the establish- 

 ment of treaty relations with the natives of the 

 interior. This era of private expeditions, sup- 

 ported by associations of the advocates of colo- 

 nial expansion in each country, was succeeded by 

 one of military operations to make good uncer- 

 tain claims of protectorates based on treaties 

 with native potentates, and by diplomatic nego- 

 tiations and the delimitation of spheres of influ- 

 ence after a number of international incidents 

 which created ill feeling between the nations that 

 were actively engaged in extending their domin- 

 ions in northwestern Africa. The doctrine of the 

 Hinterland could no longer be applied when the 

 expeditions of rival powers clashed in the far in- 

 terior of West Africa in the bend of the Niger, on 

 the upper Binue, and in the region of Lake Chad. 

 The French, advancing from Senegal eastward 

 and from the Ivory Coast and Slave Coast north- 

 ward, later northward from the Congo and south- 

 ward from Algeria; the British, controlling the 

 maritime Niger and the navigable Binue, spread- 

 ing out from their base on these rivers and pene- 

 trating simultaneously from the Gold Coast and 

 eastward from Sierra Leone and Senegambia; the 

 Germans, pushing up from Cameroons, endeavor- 

 ing to establish a foothold on the Binue and 

 Lake Chad, and striving at the same time to es- 

 tablish their influence in the bend of the Niger by 

 occupying the Hinterland of Togoland all con- 

 verged toward the same regions, and in the race 

 for the Niger region and the Central Soudan the 

 political and military agents intrigued with the 

 savage enemies of the rival powers, and when 

 military expeditions met in the interior hostile 



collisions were not always avoided, though they 

 were glozed over by expedient diplomatic expla- 

 nations. France and Germany first came to an. 

 understanding and signed a convention in Decem- 

 ber, 1885, by which Germany conceded to France 

 the regions inland from the Cameroons east of 

 15 of east longitude, reserving the southwest 

 bank of the Shari from 10 of north latitude 

 down to Lake Chad. In the same year Germany 

 made an agreement with Great Britain and a 

 supplementary one in 1886, abandoning preten- 

 sions on the Binue and securing access to Lake 

 Chad and the recognition of rights over Admawa. 

 France arranged a delimitation with the Congo 

 State, in a convention concluded in 1885, supple- 

 mented by further arrangements in 1887. The 

 boundary of Portuguese Guinea was settled by 

 a convention concluded by France on May 12,. 

 1886. Germany retired from the contest for the 

 Niger regions and the states of the Soudan, being 

 content with a commercial route to Lake Chad. 

 The Anglo-German agreement of August, 1886,. 

 defined as the limit between the British and Ger- 

 man spheres a line from the Cross river to the 

 Binue east of Yola, fixed by a further agreement 

 on Nov. 15, 1893, at a point 30 miles east of that 

 town. The struggle for the bend of the Niger 

 and the race for Lake Chad was continued by 

 France and Great Britain. On Aug. 5, 1890, an 

 Anglo-French agreement was reached. This agree- 

 ment defined the limit between the British and 

 the French spheres on the River Niger as a line 

 from Say on the Niger to Barua on Lake Chad 

 drawn in such a manner as to comprise within 

 the sphere of the British Niger Company all that 

 belongs to the Kingdom of Sokoto. This pave 

 to each power access to Lake Chad, but did not 

 decide the fate of the Mohammedan states sur- 

 rounding that body of water, which then pos- 

 sessed more formidable powers of defense than 

 they had after the conqueror Rabah had over- 

 run these countries; neither did the convention 

 settle the boundaries in the bend of the Niger 

 west of Say, where French and British were 

 busily extending their influence, and the French 

 put a considerable military force into the field 

 to contend with Ahmadu, Samory, and other 

 powerful natives rulers who blocked their prog- 

 ress. In 1889, 1893, and 1895 conventions were 

 signed by France and Great Britain delimiting 

 certain parts of their contiguous possessions in 

 accordance with the advance of effective occupa- 

 tion. The French had not only Senegal as a 

 base but the Ivory Coast, which they occupied 

 in 1883, having had factories on that coast for 

 forty years. In 1894 they conquered Dahomey 

 and aimed to join this territory, the Ivory Coast, 

 and the Senegal protectorate together, leaving 



