The British have meanwhile become interested in…

The British have meanwhile become interested in the broad areas north of Asante, known generally as the Northern Territories.

This interest is prompted primarily by the need to forestall the French and the Germans, who hac]ve been making rapid advances in the surrounding areas.

British officials had first penetrated the area in the 1880s, and after 1896 protection is extended to northern areas whose trade with the coast had been controlled by Asante.

In 1898 and 1899, European colonial powers amicably demarcate the boundaries between the Northern Territories and the surrounding French and German colonies.

The Northern Territories will be proclaimed a British protectorate in 1902.