- North America
Annexation to Spain
President Pedro Santana returns the republic to Spanish rule, an unprecedented step that soon provokes fierce popular resistance.
Era: Haitian Rule and Dominican Independence
Sources: History of the Dominican Republic · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies · U.S. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division
- Africa
Britain annexes Lagos
After occupying Lagos in 1851, Britain annexed it as a crown colony in 1861, establishing a coastal foothold from which colonial power spread into the interior.
Era: British conquest, amalgamation and colonial Nigeria
Sources: Nigeria (country overview and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, A Guide to the History of Recognition: Nigeria · U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
- North America
The Colony of British Honduras
The settlement was formally declared the Colony of British Honduras under a lieutenant-governor subordinate to Jamaica; it became a separate Crown Colony in 1871 and was made independent of Jamaica under its own governor in 1884.
Era: British Honduras and a plural society
Sources: History of Belize · Encyclopædia Britannica, A Guide to the History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country: Belize · U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Guyana and Belize: Country Studies (Federal Research Division) · Library of Congress
- Africa
France buys the anchorage of Obock
France purchases the anchorage of Obock on the Gulf of Tadjoura from local Afar sultans, its first foothold on the coast.
Era: The French Foothold and the Founding of Djibouti
Sources: Djibouti (country and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Djibouti · Wikipedia, Historique des relations franco-djiboutiennes jusqu'à l'indépendance (1977) · La France à Djibouti (French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs)
- Asia
France annexes Cochinchina
Following the capture of Saigon, France secures the southern provinces of Cochinchina as a colony, its first permanent foothold in Vietnam.
Era: French Indochina
Sources: French Indochina / Conquest of Vietnam · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vietnam · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Asia
French protectorate established
King Norodom signs a treaty placing Cambodia under French protection to fend off Siamese and Vietnamese pressure; Siam acknowledges the protectorate by 1867.
Era: Decline, Foreign Pressure, and the French Protectorate
Sources: Norodom · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cambodia Gains Independence from France · EBSCO Research Starters
- Oceania
Land confiscation legalised (raupatu)
The New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 gave a legal cloak to the confiscation of about 1.2 million hectares of Māori land, chiefly in the Waikato and Taranaki, often taking land from iwi who had not fought the Crown.
Era: The Treaty of Waitangi, the New Zealand Wars, and confiscation
Sources: Raupatu — land confiscations · NZ History (Manatū Taonga — Ministry for Culture and Heritage), New Zealand Wars · Te Ara — The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
- Oceania
Penal colony established
France made New Caledonia a penal settlement, transporting tens of thousands of convicts — including Communards after 1871 — whose forced labour helped build the colonial economy until transportation ended in the 1890s.
Era: Annexation, the Bagne and Nickel
Sources: New Caledonia — History · Encyclopaedia Britannica, New Caledonia — Visits by Foreign Leaders / Department History · U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
- Asia
Treaty of Sinchula
Bhutan cedes the Bengal and Assam duars to British India in exchange for an annual subsidy, fixing its modern southern border and binding it to the Raj.
Era: Civil Strife and the British Treaties
Sources: Bhutan — History · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Nepal and Bhutan: Country Studies · Federal Research Division, Library of Congress
- Asia
Russia takes Tashkent
Russian imperial forces storm Tashkent, beginning the conquest of the Uzbek lands; Samarkand falls in 1868 as the empire pushes into Central Asia.
Era: Russian Conquest and Soviet Rule
Sources: Uzbekistan — The Russian Conquest (Country Studies) · U.S. Library of Congress Country Studies, Uzbekistan — Russian and Soviet rule · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Africa
Basutoland declared a British protectorate
Britain takes Moshoeshoe's kingdom under its protection, halting Boer absorption and fixing the borders that broadly survive as modern Lesotho.
Era: Basutoland: Protectorate and the Gun War
Sources: Lesotho: The Sotho kingdom (1824–69) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Basutoland (now Lesotho) becomes British territory · South African History Online, History of Lesotho · Wikipedia
- Asia
Bukhara becomes a Russian protectorate
Defeated by Russian forces, the Emir of Bukhara accepts Russian terms in 1868; the emirate becomes a protectorate and the northern Tajik lands are absorbed into Russian Turkestan.
Era: Russian Conquest and the Soviet Republic
Sources: History of Tajikistan · Encyclopædia Britannica, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan: Country Studies · Federal Research Division, Library of Congress
- Africa
Italy gains a foothold at Assab
An Italian shipping company acquires the bay of Assab on the southern Red Sea coast, Italy's first toehold on the future Eritrean shore.
Era: Ottomans, Egyptians and the Contested Coast
Sources: Italian Eritrea · Wikipedia, Italian Colonialism in Eritrea · World History Encyclopedia
- Africa
Equatoria province established
Samuel Baker is appointed governor of Equatoria, an Egyptian southern province later led by Charles Gordon, partly to suppress the slave trade.
Era: Conquest, Ivory and the Slave Raids
Sources: History of South Sudan · Wikipedia
- Asia
Russians found Krasnovodsk
A Russian military force landed on the eastern Caspian coast and founded the port of Krasnovodsk (now Türkmenbaşy), opening the conquest of the Transcaspian region.
Era: The Turkmen Tribes and the Russian Conquest
Sources: Turkmenistan — Turkmen tribes and Russian invasion · Encyclopædia Britannica
Colonisation in the 1860s
Every event in the Terralore archive tagged colonisation — the establishment, administration and ending of colonial rule, narrowed to the 1860s — 15 of them, drawn from 15 nations, running from 1861 to 1869. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.
- Events
- 15
- Nations
- 15
- Earliest
- 1861
- Latest
- 1869
- Asia
- 6
- Africa
- 5
- North America
- 2
- Oceania
- 2
Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.