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Who colonized Egypt?

North Africa — the powers that ruled Egypt, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Egypt?

Britain, in practice. Egypt was Ottoman in law but occupied by Britain from 1882, made a protectorate in 1914, nominally independent in 1922, and free of British troops only in 1956.

Egypt shows the debt route into empire. Loans for the canal and modernisation became default, default became foreign financial control, and financial control became military occupation in 1882.

Reference

Who ruled Egypt, and when

1517–1882
Ottoman Egypt / Muhammad Ali dynasty
1882–1922
British occupation
1914–1922
British protectorate
since 1922
Kingdom then Republic of Egypt

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Britain, Ottoman Empire (suzerainty), France (1798–1801)
Independence
Nominal 28 February 1922; British troops out 1956
Trigger
Debt default — Britain occupied Egypt to protect bondholders
Canal labour
Hundreds of thousands of conscripted Egyptian labourers
Real end
1956, not 1922

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1798

    Napoleon invades; French rule lasts three years.

  2. 1869

    Suez Canal opens, built with corvée labour.

  3. 1882

    Britain bombards Alexandria and occupies the country over debt.

  4. 1919

    Nationwide revolution against British rule.

  5. 1922

    Nominal independence with British reserved powers.

  6. 1956

    Suez Crisis; the last British forces leave.

Context

What the record shows

The 1922 declaration of independence reserved defence, the canal, foreign interests and Sudan to Britain — which is to say, it reserved everything that mattered.

Questions

Frequently asked

Was Egypt a British colony?
Not formally for most of the period — it was occupied from 1882 and a protectorate from 1914 to 1922 — but Britain controlled its finances, army and foreign policy.
Why did Britain occupy Egypt?
To secure debt repayments to European bondholders and to control the Suez Canal route to India, following the Urabi revolt of 1881–82.
When did Egypt become fully independent?
Nominally in 1922; in practice in 1956, when British forces withdrew after the Suez Crisis.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Egypt

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.