East & West Africa Medal

 

General Service In Africa 1887 - 1900.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

The East And West Africa Medal was a British Empire campaign medal presented to those who participated in operations in Africa for which no other separate medal was intended. The medal was instituted in 1892 and was awarded to officers and men of the British armed forces who served in various colonial conflicts - recognised by the issuing of various clasps to the medal - in East and West Africa.

 

There are 22 clasps for this medal and an alternative design for those who served on the Mwele campaign.

 

 

The medal is circular, 36mm in diameter and was struck in either silver or bronze. It is virtually identical to the Ashantee Medal with the obverse bearing the head of Queen Victoria and the inscription; ‘VICTORIA REGINA’.

 

The reverse depicts the troops in combat with the native enemy against a jungle backdrop.

 

Although this medal is identical to the Ashantee Medal it is somewhat thinner and also appears in bronze for native troops. Those who took part in the ‘MWELE’ operations in 1895 do not have a clasp to commemorate this but often have ‘MWELE 1895’ engraved on the rim of the medal as well as the ‘BRASS RIVER 1895’ or ‘BENIN 1897’ clasps.

 

The ribbon suspender is of a plain, straight and swivelling style, attached to the medal by a claw mount.

 

The recipient's details can be found on the medal's rim. However, naming varies with examples encountered with impressed tall serif capitals while later awards have narrow or square capitals.

 

Medals to some officers appear with engraved sloping capitals. Those awarded to native troops are usually in engraved running script.

 

 

 

The ribbon is 33mm wide and is black in colour with three narrow yellow strips.

 

 

This medal was issued with the following clasps:-

 

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

 

* It should be noted that the values quoted above reflect the average price that a medal dealer may expect to sell this medal for - please see the ‘things you should know’ web page for more details about valuing medals.

 

** The individual medal value will vary considerably based on the recipient’s details.

 

*** Due to the large number of clasps available for this medal, the value for medals which contains certain clasps will vary considerably.

 

**** There are some exceptions to this, for a further valuation please ‘contact us’.

 

 

This section contains information on:-

 

- The British West Africa Protectorate.

- The British East Africa Protectorate.

- The Witu Expeditions.

- The Sierra Leone Hut Tax War.

- The West India Regiment.

- The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron.

- The Royal Navy’s Cape of Good Hope Station.

- The Royal Navy’s East Indies Station.

- The Royal Navy's Actions Against Slavery.

 

The British West Africa Protectorate - British West Africa was the collective name for British colonies in West Africa during the colonial period, either in the general geographical sense or more specifically those comprised in a formal colonial administrative entity.

 

The United Kingdom colonised varying parts of these territories or the whole from the late 1780s until the 1960s.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The British East Africa Protectorate - The East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area of East Africa occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya from the Indian Ocean inland to Uganda and the Great Rift Valley.

 

It was controlled by Britain in the late 19th century; it grew out of British commercial interests in the area in the 1880s and remained a protectorate until 1920 when it became the colony of Kenya.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Witu Expeditions - In accord with the 1890 Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty, on 18 June 1890 a British protectorate was declared, and on 1 July 1890 imperial Germany renounced its protectorate, ceding the Wituland to Great Britain to become part of British East Africa.

 

There were widespread protests from the inhabitants of the territory, who wished to remain under Germany's protection.

 

Shortly afterwards several German merchants were murdered, and a mixed British & Zanzibari punitive expedition was sent out. The troops landed and descended on Witu on October 26, 1890.

 

After a series of shoot-outs, Sultan Fumo Bakari ibn Ahmad fled from the town, with roughly 3,000 of his remaining gunmen. He was deposed by the British and died soon afterwards.

 

After a short reign by Bwana Shaykh ibn Ahmad, the ruler ship (now reduced to a shaykhdom and made a vassal of the Zanzibar Sultanate) was given to Fumo `Umar (or `Umari) ibn Ahamd. Slavery was also formally abolished in Witu, in March 1891, and Indian police were brought in to enforce the new agreement.

 

A brother of Fumo Bakari, by the name of Fumo Oman, resisted the new regime and began leading increasingly violent raids on villages and farms around the nearby town of Jongeni, northeast of Witu. A brief attempt at diplomacy failed and the British and Zanzibari governments prepared a second naval expedition to sail to Witu.

 

A small expeditionary force landed at Witu in July and a second request to negotiate was sent to Fumo Oman. It was rejected and the marines marched on the principal towns under rebel control.

 

Thick forest and camouflaged pits with sharpened stakes surrounded the strongly fortified towns, and the rebel gunmen had prepared defensive positions that allowed for heavy fire. However, after prolonged and intense shoot-outs, the naval marines fought their way into each town, and destroyed the fortifications. Fumo Oman fled and Fumo 'Umari bin Hamid was reinstated.

 

Fumo `Umari moved the capital to Jongeni, but the growth of British power and of the regional importance of Zanzibar saw Witu's position and independence gradually decline.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Sierra Leone Hut Tax War - The Hut Tax War of 1898 was a war against the imposition of the Hut tax by the British Empire in Sierra Leone. It was initiated by Temne chief Bai Bureh in 1898, and later involved other native peoples, including the Mende. The war was an attempt by the local African kingdoms to maintain their independence in the face of Britain's 1896 declaration of a protectorate over Sierra Leone. The immediate precipitator of hostilities was the attempt by British officials to collect hut tax.

 

Britain's imposition of the tax sparked off two rebellions in the hinterland of Sierra Leone in 1898, one by the Temne, led by Bai Bureh, the other by the Mende, led by Momoh Jah. The military governor, Colonel Frederic Cardew, had decreed that, to pay for the privilege of British administration, the inhabitants of the new Protectorate should be taxed on the size of their huts: the owner of a four-roomed hut would pay ten shillings a year, those with smaller huts would pay five shillings.

 

Colonel Cardew was not an administrator, but a professional soldier who had spent years in India and South Africa. First imposed on 1 January 1898, the tax was often more than the value of the dwelling, and in many instances the dwellings were unoccupied. Cardew also demanded that the chiefs and inhabitants maintain the roads, taking labour needed for subsistence farming.

 

The hut tax aroused immediate and intense opposition, led in the first instance by the sixty-year-old Bai Bureh. The operations against him, from February to November, involved '…some of the most stubborn fighting that has been seen in West Africa', wrote Colonel Marshal, the British commander. 'No such continuity of opposition had at any previous time been experienced on this part of the coast'.

 

The Northern front of the Hut Tax War was led by Bai Bureh, a Temne chief who refused to recognize the British-imposed tax on ‘huts’ (dwellings). The tax was generally regarded by the native chiefs as an attack on their sovereignty and the colonial government said that the Creoles had encouraged the natives not to pay taxes.

 

After the British issued a warrant to arrest Bai Bureh alleging that he had refused to pay taxes, Bai Bureh declared war on British in Northern Sierra Leone, with the full support of several prominent native chiefs, including the powerful Kissi chief Kai Londo and the Limba chief Almamy Suluku. Both chiefs sent warriors and weapons to aid Bai Bureh.

 

Bureh's fighters had the advantage over the vastly more powerful British for several months of the war. Hundreds of British troops and hundreds of Bureh's fighters were killed. Some innocent European and African victims were killed and in one case, Johnny Taylor, a Creole trader was 'chopped' to pieces by Bai Bureh's warboys.

 

Bai Bureh was finally captured on 11 November 1898 and sent into exile in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), while 96 of his comrades were hanged by the British.

 

The Southern front of the Hut Tax War began after the Northern front and was based in the Southern provinces. The Southern front was led by mainly Mende (and a few Sherbro) warriors and chiefs. The Southern front was a slaughtering of Creole traders and civil servants living in the provinces.

 

Creoles were burned, hacked to death, and in some cases women were raped by Mende warriors. American and European missionaries were killed in large numbers and often raped.

 

The defeat in the Hut Tax war ended large scale organised armed opposition to colonialism; however opposition continued throughout the colonial period in the form of intermittent rioting and chaotic labour disturbances. Riots in 1955 and 1956 involved '…many tens of thousands…' of natives in the protectorate.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The West India Regiment - The West India Regiment (WIR) was an infantry unit of the British Army recruited from and normally stationed in the British colonies of the Caribbean between 1795 and 1927. The regiment differed from similar forces raised in other parts of the British Empire in that it formed an integral part of the regular British Army.

 

Throughout its history, the regiment was involved in a number of campaigns in the West Indies and Africa, and also took part in the First World War, where it served in the Middle East and East Africa.

 

The regiment served in West Africa throughout the 19th century. In the early part of the twentieth century one battalion was stationed in Sierra Leone and the other was in Jamaica recruiting and training, the battalions exchanging every three years. The regiment fought in the Anglo-Ashanti Wars.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron - The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron (or Preventative Squadron) at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807.

 

The squadron's task was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. With a home base at Portsmouth, it began with two small ships, the 32-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Solebay and the Cruiser-class brig-sloop HMS Derwent.

 

At the height of its operations, the squadron employed a sixth of the Royal Navy fleet and marines.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Royal Navy’s Cape of Good Hope Station - The Cape of Good Hope Station was one of the geographical divisions into which the British Royal Navy divided its worldwide responsibilities. It was formally the units and establishments responsible to the Commander-in-Chief, Cape of Good Hope.

 

Established in 1857, the station covered most of the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean. On 17 January 1865, it was combined with the East Indies Station to form the East Indies and Cape of Good Hope Station; however, the station was recreated as a separate station on 29 July 1867.

 

These responsibilities did not imply territorial claims but the navy would actively protect Britain's trading interests. From 1870, it absorbed the former West Africa Squadron. It formed the basis of the South Atlantic Station when that Station was formed in 1939.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Royal Navy’s East Indies Station - The Commander-in-Chief, East Indies was a British Royal Navy admiral, and effectively the formation subordinate to him, from 1865 to 1941. Even in official documents, the term East Indies Station was often used.

 

From 1831-1865, the East Indies and the China Station were a single command known as the East Indies and China Station.

 

The East Indies Station, established in 1865, covered the Indian Ocean (excluding the waters around the Dutch East Indies, South Africa and Australia) and included the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. These responsibilities did not imply territorial claims, but rather that the navy would actively protect Britain's trading interests.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Royal Navy's Actions Against Slavery - In 1808, Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which outlawed the slave trade, but not slavery itself. The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa.

 

It did suppress the slave trade, but did not stop it entirely. It is possible that, when slave ships were in danger of being captured by the Royal Navy, some captains may have ordered the slaves to be thrown into the sea to reduce the fines they had to pay.

 

Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans. They resettled many in Jamaica and the Bahamas.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.