page_title: British diaspora in Africa
section_title: Colonialism
hierarchical_section_title: British diaspora in Africa / History / Colonialism
caption_attribution_description: The Rhodes Colossus: Caricature of Cecil John Rhodes, after he announced plans for a telegraph line and railroad from Cape Town to Cairo.
context_page_description: The British diaspora in Africa is a population group broadly defined as English-speaking white Africans of mainly British descent who live in or come from Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority live in South Africa and other Southern African countries in which English is a primary language, including Zimbabwe, Namibia, Kenya Botswana, Zambia, Lesotho and Eswatini. There are also sizable numbers in Nigeria and Ghana. Their first language is usually English. The majority of white Africans who speak English as a first language are of British and Irish descent.
context_section_description: Although there were earlier British settlements at ports along the West African coast to facilitate the British Atlantic slave trade, more permanent British settlement in Africa did not begin in earnest until the end of the eighteenth century, at the Cape of Good Hope. British settlement in the Cape gained momentum following the second British occupation of the Dutch Cape Colony in 1806. The government encouraged British settlers in Albany ("Settler Country") in 1820 in order to consolidate the British Cape Colony's eastern frontier during the Cape Frontier Wars against the Xhosa. The Crown proclaimed Natal in southeastern Africa as a British colony in 1843. Following the defeat of the Boers in the Second Boer War in 1902, Britain annexed the Boer Republics of the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State.
  Scottish medical missionary David Livingstone became known for his exploration of the African continent. He is believed to have been the first European to set eyes on Victoria Falls in 1855. He is a key character in African history, being one of the first well-known Britons to believe his heart was in Africa.
  In the late nineteenth century, the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand and diamonds in Kimberley encouraged further settlement by the British, Australians, Americans and Canadians. The search for mineral resources also drove expansion north. Mining magnate Cecil Rhodes dreamed of a British Africa linked from Cape Town to Cairo. The British South Africa Company, which he founded in 1889, controlled the territory named Rhodesia after him; this later became known as (Southern) Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia (now combined as Zambia). Simultaneously, British settlers began expansion into the fertile uplands (the "White Highlands") of British East Africa (now Kenya).
  As a result of the rise of nationalist and anti-colonial movements throughout the British Empire, in the aftermath of World War II decolonisation of Africa took place. Ethnic Africans were overwhelmingly the majority of population in the British colonies and protectorates and had long been denied equivalent political and economic power. These former colonies eventually became self-governing. The Cold War powers  entered into the conflicts in this period. Often aided by Soviet expertise and weapons, black nationalist guerrilla forces such as the Mau Mau in Kenya, ZANU in Rhodesia and MK in South Africa fought for majority rule, which normally meant "one man, one vote".
caption: Rhodes planned to link the Cape to Cairo
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