Harry Johnston - British Colonial Service and The Cape To Cairo Vision

British Colonial Service and The Cape To Cairo Vision

In October 1886 the British government appointed him vice-consul in Cameroon and the Niger River delta area, where a protectorate had been declared in 1885, and he became acting consul in 1887, deposing and banishing the local chief Jaja. On leave in England in 1888, he met with Lord Salisbury and apparently helped formulate the Cape to Cairo plan to acquire a continuous band of territory down Africa, which he then leaked (with Salisbury's approval) to the Times in an anonymous article "by an African Explorer".

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