The Europeans in the 1800s-1900s made colonies in Africa and typically made the land they're on another state. But in the middle East, they negotiated with clan leaders, paid them the returns (which were worth millions), and they also didn't build colonies. How come?
This could probably be put down to that during the 1800-1900s, almost all of the middle-east, if not all of it, was apart of the Ottoman Empire, so there was already a formidable system in place which would have needed to have been overrode by the said colonising power. Africa was rife with natural resources, (diamonds and gold at the time were being heavily sought after), and as well as this the lands were less populated, and also more easier to subdue due to the lack of system put in place; not to mention the outright empty vastness of it all. Africa overall would have seemed the more juicer choice of the two to colonise.