Chapter 12, Section 2.

Europeans had a keen interest in Africa's raw materials, especially those of West Africa—peanuts, timber, hides, and palm oil. Europeans had profited from the slave trade in this region of Africa. Great Britain, France and Germany established protectorates and colonies throughout Africa.

The Suez Canal was built by French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps. Believing that the canal was its "lifeline to India," Great Britain tried to gain as much control as possible over the canal area.

David Livingstone walked and spent much of his time exploring the interior of the continent. The maps of Africa were often redrawn based on his eyewitness accounts and reports. A major goal of his explorations was to find a navigable river that would open Central Africa to European commerce and to Christianity

King Leopold II was the real driving force behind the colonization of Central Africa. Leopold's claim to the vast territories of the Congo aroused widespread concern among other European states.

Germany tried to develop colonies in East Africa. The German chancellor Otto von Bismarck had downplayed the importance of colonies, but did became a convert to colonialism. Germany tried to develop colonies in East Africa.

After being pushed North by the British, the Boers formed two independent republics—the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (later called the South African Republic). The Boers believed that white superiority was ordained by God.

Cecil Rhodes started an uprising to gain control of mines in the Transvaal. Fierce guerrilla resistance by the Boers angered the British. A peace treaty was signed in 1902. In 1910 the British created an independent Union of South Africa, which combined the old Cape Colony and the Boer republics.

In all of Africa, only Liberia, which had been created as a homeland for the formerly enslaved persons of the United States, and Ethiopia remained free states.

New African leaders, educated in colonial schools or in Western nations, were eager to introduce Western ideas and institutions into their own societies. But they came to resent the foreigners and their arrogant contempt for African peoples.

Indigenous: native to a region.