The new steamer 108 tons, 20 horse power, the Khedive. Steamboats were a valuable instrument in the colonization of Africa. Steamboats were used to cover the great expanse of the Niger, collecting palm oil from government outposts. The outposts would gather the oil from African villages along the river. When on occasion relations became strained, gunboats were used to gain control of the situation. Samuel Baker (June 8, 1821 - December 30, 1893) an English explorer, naturalist, big game hunter, writer and abolitionist. In 1869, at the request of the khedive Ismail, Baker led a military expedition to the equatorial regions of the Nile, with the object of suppressing the slave-trade there and opening the way to commerce. Ismailia by Samuel White Baker, 1874.