- Africa
Annexation to the Cape Colony
Basutoland is annexed to the Cape Colony without Basotho consent, beginning a deeply unpopular period of colonial rule.
Era: Basutoland: Protectorate and the Gun War
Sources: Gun War (1880–81) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Lesotho · Wikipedia
- Asia
Ottoman return to the highlands
The Ottomans reoccupied northern Yemen in the 19th century, meeting sustained resistance from the Zaidi tribes and imams of the mountainous interior.
Era: Ottomans, Britain and the Port of Aden
Sources: Yemen: History (ancient kingdoms, Islam, the imamate, unification and war) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Oceania
Traders, missionaries, and labour recruiters arrive
Whalers, plume hunters, and beche-de-mer traders worked the coasts, missionaries founded stations, and labour recruiters — including coercive 'blackbirders' — drew Melanesian workers to plantations in Queensland and Fiji.
Era: European contact and colonial partition
Sources: Papua New Guinea: forty years of independence · State Library of New South Wales, Papua New Guinea — History · Encyclopædia Britannica
- Oceania
Deed of Cession to Britain
Cakobau and other chiefs cede Fiji to Queen Victoria at Levuka, which becomes the first colonial capital of the new Crown colony.
Era: Cession, Colony & the Girmitiyas
Sources: Fiji — History (Melanesian, Colonialism, Independence) · Encyclopædia Britannica, Levuka Historical Port Town (World Heritage List) · UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Fiji — Countries (A Guide to the History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations) · U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
- Africa
The Gold Coast becomes a crown colony
Britain formally proclaimed the coastal territories the Gold Coast crown colony, having bought out Dutch interests including Elmina in 1872 and defeated the Asante in war.
Era: The British Gold Coast colony
Sources: Ghana (country overview and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Forts and Castles, Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western Regions · UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Africa
Brazza explores the Ogooué
Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza led expeditions up the Ogooué and on to the Congo River, founding Franceville in 1880 and signing treaties that opened the interior to French rule.
Era: Libreville, Brazza, and French conquest
Sources: Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza · Wikipedia, Pierre de Brazza · Encyclopædia Britannica, French Equatorial Africa · Wikipedia
- Asia
Russia annexes Kokand; Kyrgyzstan under imperial rule
After suppressing an uprising, the Russian Empire abolished the Khanate of Kokand and annexed its lands as the Fergana Province, bringing the Kyrgyz country under direct Russian colonial rule.
Era: The Khanate of Kokand and the Russian Conquest
Sources: Khanate of Kokand · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Kyrgyzstan: History · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Asia
Khanates absorbed into Russian Turkestan
Bukhara (1868) and Khiva (1873) become Russian protectorates and Kokand is annexed in 1876, completing the conquest and the creation of Russian Turkestan.
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
Stanley descends the Congo River
Henry Morton Stanley completes the first European traverse of the Congo from interior to the Atlantic, mapping the basin for would-be colonisers.
Era: The Slave Trades & the Scramble
Sources: Congo Free State (1885–1908) · BlackPast.org, Congo Free State · Wikipedia
- Asia
Britain takes over Cyprus
Under the Cyprus Convention, Britain assumed the administration of Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire, which retained nominal sovereignty, gaining a strategic Mediterranean base near the route to India.
Era: British Rule, the Demand for Énosis and the EOKA Campaign
Sources: Cyprus: Ottoman rule · Encyclopaedia Britannica, A Guide to the History of Recognition, Diplomatic and Consular Relations: Cyprus · U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
- Africa
Britain annexes Walvis Bay
Britain annexed Walvis Bay, the territory's only deep-water harbour, creating an enclave that would remain in South African hands long after the rest of the country, until 1994.
Era: The desert coast, the Orlam migration and the Nama polities
Sources: Namibia (country, history and government) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Namibia · Wikipedia
- Asia
British administration of Cyprus begins
Under the Cyprus Convention the Ottoman Empire transferred the administration of Cyprus to Britain, which annexed the island in 1914 and made it a Crown colony in 1925.
Era: British Rule and the Roots of Conflict
Sources: Cyprus - History · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cyprus: A Country Study · U.S. Library of Congress (Federal Research Division)
- Africa
Leopold hires Stanley for the Congo
King Leopold II commissions Stanley to build stations and obtain treaties from local chiefs, laying the basis for a private colonial claim.
Era: The Slave Trades & the Scramble
Sources: Congo Free State · Wikipedia, Congo Free State (1885–1908) · BlackPast.org
- Africa
Guinea separated from Cape Verde
Portuguese Guinea was detached from Cape Verde and constituted as a separate colony; after the Berlin Conference its frontiers with French possessions were fixed by agreement with France.
Era: Portuguese Guinea and the late conquest
Sources: Portuguese Guinea · Wikipedia, Guinea-Bissau (country overview and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica
Colonisation in the 1870s
Every event in the Terralore archive tagged colonisation — the establishment, administration and ending of colonial rule, narrowed to the 1870s — 14 of them, drawn from 13 nations, running from 1871 to 1879. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.
- Events
- 14
- Nations
- 13
- Earliest
- 1871
- Latest
- 1879
- Africa
- 7
- Asia
- 5
- Oceania
- 2
Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.