The East Africa Protectorate

In this book I have endeavoured to give some account of the British East Africa Protectorate, that is, roughly speaking, our territories between Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean, whose value is only now beginning to be understood. While omitting no aspect of the country which seemed likely to prove interesting, my special object has been to point out the opportunity which it offers for European colonization and the interesting effect which such a colony may have on the future development of Africa. East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area in the African Great Lakes occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya (approximately 639,209 km2 (246,800 sq mi)) from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Although part of the dominions of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, it was controlled by Britain in the late 19th century; it grew out of British commercial interests in the area in the 1880s and remained a protectorate until 1920 when it became the colony of Kenya, save for an independent country 16-kilometre-wide (10 mi) coastal strip that became the Kenya protectorate.