protectorate

Formerly in international law, a small state under the direct or indirect control of a larger one. The 20th-century equivalent was a trust territory. In English history the rule of Oliver and Richard Cromwell 1653–59 is referred to as the Protectorate.

British protectorates British protectorates were territories for which Britain assumed the responsibility for external affairs and defence. They were usually created as a means of acquiring control of or influence over particular territories in which Britain had significant financial, commercial, and other interests. The authority and institutions of the indigenous people were usually preserved in accordance with the British policy of ‘indirect rule’. In practice many protectorates were eventually treated in the same way as colonies and should be distinguished from British Protected States which were subject to less supervision.

Former British protectorates include Aden, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, and Uganda. In British protectorates the indigenous inhabitants were not British subjects but ‘British protected persons’, provided they had not acquired citizenship of an independent country.