British Somalia

British Somalia, officially known as British Somaliland Protectorate (in English: British Somaliland Protectorate) was a British protectorate in the northern Horn of Africa. In 1960 it integrated into Somalia.

Limits

The British protectorate of Somaliland was limited to the north by the Gulf of Aden. To the east it bordered Italian Somalia, according to the limits established in the 1894 Convention. Another Anglo-Italian agreement, dated March 19, 1907, regulated relations between both colonial powers in Somalia.

To the south it bordered Ethiopia. This border was modified in 1897 so that the African country received an additional 38,000 km² of territory compared to the Convention of 1894. To the west the British protectorate bordered French Somalia. The territorial area was approximately 178,000 km².

Population

The inhabitants of the territory were initially completely nomadic. During British rule, some populations appeared and developed: Berbera had about 30,000 inhabitants in 1921, Zeila 7,000 and Bulhar 7,300.

The population in 1958 was estimated at 600,000 inhabitants.

Economy

The territory exported livestock products (skins and hides, cattle, sheep and goats) and materials of plant origin (rubbers and resins, spices). Imports included rice, dates, sugar and textile products.

The main port of British Somalia was Berbera. The port of Zeila was losing traffic due to competition from Djibouti, which had the Addis Ababa railway terminal.

Transport was carried out with camels or cars. By 1923 there were radiotelegraph stations in Berbera, Burao, Hargeisa, Zeila and Los Khorai. There were also 73 km of telegraph lines. In 1958, 420 telephones were installed in the territory, distributed in Hargeisa, Berbera and Burao; The road network amounted to 4,000 km that could be unusable due to the rains; and there was an air link with Aden.

By 1923 there was only one school in the territory, with 48 students. In 1958 there were 37 elementary schools with 1974, one for Europeans (40 students), 9 intermediate schools (952), one secondary school (81), another professional (22) and 120 Muslim schools with 2,750 students.

The currency was the British Indian rupee until 1941. Then the protectorate joined the East African Currency Board, created in 1919, and its currency became the East African shilling. Until October 1, 1951, the Indian rupee continued to circulate.

Administration

The colony was administered by a governor who also served as commander in chief. The armed forces included 400 camel drivers and 500 members of the police.

The protectorate depended administratively on different organizations. Initially it depended on India until 1898, as part of Aden. In 1905 it became subject to the Ministry of Colonies. In 1941 it became dependent on the Ministry of War. In 1948 the territory reverted to the Department of Colonies.

The territory was divided into three districts.

In 1949 a study carried out for the African Studies Section of the Colonial Office concluded that it was advisable to create tribal and municipal councils. There was the problem of the lack of local elites and tradition of a binding indigenous authority. Despite everything, in 1951 the district councils were created and on April 1, 1953 the local councils of Berbera and Hargeisa were formed.

The British governor was the highest legislative and executive authority. There was a council of elders and officials that met twice a year and whose function was advisory.

History

In the middle of the 19th century France, Italy, Great Britain, Egypt and Abyssinia became interested in the Somali Peninsula. In 1839, the British established a coaling station at Aden, on the Arabian coast opposite Somalia, as part of their routes to India. To supply the garrison they relied on livestock supplies from the Somali coast. In 1862, the French settled at Obock, in what would later become Djibouti, and the Italians did the same in 1869 at Aseb, later part of Eritrea. The ports of Zeila and Berbera were conquered by Egypt in 1875. Although they protested Due to the Egyptian occupation, Great Britain initially considered it a way to prevent the territory from passing into the hands of another European power, but when the uprisings in Sudan put Egypt in a more difficult situation, it decided to take charge, so in 1883 and in 1884 they passed under British control. In that same year the protectorate (Somaliland Protectorate) was created.

Between 1901 and 1920 the territory was attacked by the dervishes from the interior. Their leader Diiriye Guure - known as garad - established a kingdom within the Somali territories, without defined boundaries. In 1914 and 1915, the troops of Major T. A. Cubitt inflicted heavy losses on the dervishes, but it was not until 1920 that these were finally defeated by the intervention of the air force. The garad fled to Imi and died there in January 1921.

During the East African Campaign, the protectorate was occupied by Italy in August 1940, but recaptured by the British in March 1941. The British defense included the local garrison (Camel Corps) and the Police Corps, to which other forces were added, such as the King's Rifles regiment and troops from India and Rhodesia. They also had aviation forces and relied on semi-permanent fortifications whose construction, begun in 1936, was due to the protection of the approaches to Berbera. In total there were 25,000 troops in the defense. The Italians had five colonial brigades reinforced with medium and light tanks, black shirts and indigenous troops. The Italians crossed the border on August 3, and on the 19th Berbera fell, the last place held by the British.

The United Kingdom recovered the territory within the framework of the occupation of Italian East Africa. On March 15, 1941, Indian, Somali, Arab and British troops landed. On the 16th, they took Berbera, thereby recovering the protectorate.

On November 29, 1954, an agreement was signed between the British and Ethiopian governments by which the Haud district was returned to Ethiopia. This territory was part of the protectorate under the agreement of 1897, which stipulated that Ethiopia could claim it and Great Britain would have to cede it in that case. In January 1955 the agreement was made public, which created unrest among the Somali population who used the territory as a seasonal pasture area. The reactions were sometimes violent. In 1956 the Somalis attempted to have the Haud issue raised at the United Nations and the International Court. The prestige of the colonial power in the protectorate was declining, and in January 1956, a Somali delegation visited the Ministry of Colonies and expressed their desire for the territory to join Italian Somalia, whose independence would occur in 1960. When in In May, the Undersecretary of the Colonies, Alan Lennox-Boyd, visited the territory, promising economic and cultural improvements aimed at future independence, although he did not say that this would be together with the Italian part.

In February 1959, Lennox-Boyd visited Hargeisa, where in addition to promising institutional changes, he announced the possibility of beginning negotiations for the territory's emancipation. These were developed in the first months of 1960. The British protectorate acceded to independence on June 26, 1960, while the Italian protectorate did so on July 1. Immediately both were united under the constitution of July 1, 1960, which contemplated common institutions for a single state, for example 33 members of parliament represented the British territory, and 88 the former Italian territory.

After the overthrow of the Somali central government in 1991, the former British Somalia declared its (unrecognized) independence in May 1991 as the Republic of Somaliland.

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