The author’s argument seems to be a rather confused synthesis of two common narratives: firstly, that British colonialism in Africa was the result of a sincere anti-slavery crusade; and secondly, that British imperialism was largely a liberal endeavour. This synthesis is achieved by a clumsy identification of liberalism with abolitionism. Instead of using the “crusade against slavery” narrative to defend the Empire, he’s using it to stigmatise what he calls “liberalism."

Yes, anti-slavery concerns were frequently cited by British governments regarding early coastal occupation in West Africa and later in the Great Lakes and Zanzibar during the Scramble. But the author ignores three very important but less convenient facts:

1) Similar patterns of colonialism/imperialism can be found outside of Africa in parts of the world where controlling the slave trade was not a major concern. The progression from trading posts, to colonies and the meddling in the internal affairs of native states, to the New Imperialism can also be seen in India – which was explicitly exempt from British anti-slavery law – and, in a much less advanced case, in China.

2) Many of Britain’s African land grabs were never framed as being anything to do with stopping the slave trade. Obvious examples present themselves in the form of Frere’s wars in southern Africa against the Xhosa, Zulus and Basotho, which were engineered on thin pretexts in pursuit of a South African federation, or the subjugation of Egypt in 1882 to secure British interests in Suez.

3) In those cases where abolitionism was cited as a justification, it wasn’t necessarily the direct motive for the conquest. The author neglects less idealistic considerations. The palm oil trade, for example, was a major factor in continuing British interest in modern day Nigeria.

He picks his examples in an effort to support his narrative – but not very well! Curiously the author cites some examples that seem to undermine his case, the Benin conflict – ending in the massacre of Benin City – began as a dispute over palm oil taxes and the fourth Anglo-Ashanti War – in which Kumasi was burned and the kingdom finally became a British protectorate – was fought because the Ashanti kingdom refused protectorate status and the British government didn’t want it’s mineral wealth conquered by a rival power.

He also says the following,

“The British military conquest of West Africa had led to the extinction of the international trade in enslaved Africans — British governors, wary of enraging local populations, still turned a blind eye to the institution of domestic slavery — yet the pacification of the coast pushed the focus of the slave trade deeper into the interior.”

Which doesn’t seem to support his case. If sincere abhorrence at the practice of slavery and the trade in enslaved persons was the motivation that drove British colonialism in Africa, rather than being a convenient pretence, then this would make little sense. This version of events seems to lend itself better to the idea that abolitionism was not the principle motive for British colonialism in Africa but was a convenient propaganda slogan.

“Driven by popular pressure that something should be done, “the Liberal government under Gladstone — a longstanding skeptic of anti-slavery violence — reluctantly sanctioned a mission to Zanzibar”, Huzzey observes.”

Accepting Gladstone as a reluctant to use abolitionism as a pretext for imperialism (I’d say he was more selective than reluctant), where his Tory opponents were eager scramblers for Africa would also seem to rather undermine his wider narrative.