1750 - 1914

Imperialism: any form of control exercised by one group of people over another beyond one group’s own borders, particularly the domination of European, U.S., and Japanese powers over subject lands.

Colonialism: sending colonists to settle new lands and the political, social, economic, and cultural structures that enable imperial powers to dominate subject lands.

1. What is the difference between imperialism and colonialism? What three regions were most notably involved in imperialistic ventures?

Economic: Overseas colonies served as reliable sources of raw materials not available in an industrial Europe.

Political: Nationalism; National Security - Many overseas colonies had strategic sites on the world’s sea lanes and harbors for commercial and naval ships.

Cultural: Rudyard Kipling defined the “white man’s burden” as the duty of European and Euro-American peoples to bring order and enlightenment to distant lands; Social Darwinism

(2) What were the motives of European Expansion

Mercantilism is an economic theory that holds that the prosperity of a nation is dependent upon its supply of capital. Economic assets or capital, are represented by bullion (gold, silver, and trade value) held by the state, which is best increased through a positive balance of trade with other nations

Mercantilism suggests that the ruling government should advance these goals by playing a protectionist role in the economy; by encouraging exports and discouraging imports, notably through the use of tariffs.

Economic Motives for Imperialism (Expanded)

Mercantilism was the dominant school of thought throughout the Early Modern Era. Domestically, this led to some of the first instances of significant government intervention and control over the economy, and it was during this period that much of the modern capitalist system was established.

Internationally, mercantilism encouraged the many European wars of the period and fueled European imperialism.

Belief in mercantilism began to fade in the late 18th century, as the arguments of Adam Smith and the other economists won out.

Today, mercantilism (as a whole) is rejected by economists.

Rudyard Kipling’s White Man’s Burden

“Take up the White Man’s burden—Ye dare not stoop to less—Nor call too loud on FreedomTo cloak your weariness,By all ye cry or whisper,By all ye leave or do,The silent, sullen peoplesShall weigh your Gods and you.”

Kipling’s poem justified imperialism and came to be an emblem for Eurocentrism.

3. What factors led to a British empire in India?

English East India Company had a monopoly on English trade with India.

Mughal emperors gave EIC permission to built posts on coastlines.

17th Century merchants traded for Indian pepper and Cotton.

During the 18th century, tea and coffee became prominent items.

3. What factors led to a British empire in India?

After death of the Mughal emperor in 1707, the EIC took advantage of weakness to conquer India.

From their forts at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, the merchants extended their rights inland.

They enforced with British army and sepoys.

A revolt by sepoys led to establishment of direct British imperial rule.

4. Who were the sepoys and why did they revolt?

In 1857 sepoys received new rifles that fired bullets from cartridges.

The cartridges came in waxed paper with animal fat from cows which Hindu sepoys held sacred.

In May of 1857 Hindu sepoys staged a mutiny, killed their British officers, and proclaimed Mughal authority.

To stabilize the government, Britain imposed direct imperial rule in India.

5. Describe the political characteristics of India

under British rule.

8. Describe the transition from European rule of

Africa through concessionary companies to direct rule. How were

they different?

Systems of Colonial Rule

Concessionary Rule: European governments granted private companies

large territories and empowered them to undertake economic activities such as mining, plantation agriculture, or railroad construction. Concessionary companies could impose taxes and recruit labor.

Problems:Profits were modest for governments and the

European public was outraged by abusive labor practices.

Systems of Colonial Rule Direct Rule: Colonies had administrative districts headed by

European personnel who collected taxes, oversaw labor and military recruitment, and maintained order.

Removed strong kings and other leadersEstablished boundaries to divide and weaken powerful

indigenous groups.

Problems:Shortage of European personnel.Long distances and slow transport limited

communication.Inability to speak language

Systems of Colonial Rule

Indirect Rule (Lugard’s The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1922)

Exercise control over subjects through indigenous institutions

Use tribal authorities and laws.

Weaknesses:Only worked in strong and organized trial

communities.Europeans did not fully understand the

complexities of African societies.

5. What were the social and cultural

outcomes?

British officials cleared forests and encouraged the cultivation of crops like tea, coffee, and opium that were valuable trade items.

They built extensive railroad and telegraph networks that tightened links between India and the larger global economy.

They constructed canals, harbors, and irrigation systems to support commerce and agriculture.

English-style schools for the children of Indian elites were established.

Sati was banned in 1829 under pressure from the East Indian Company.

The slave trade was abolished in 1833 in the British Empire.

At the end of the slave trade, commerce developed around the exchange of African gold, ivory, and palm oil for European textiles, guns, and manufactured goods.

This was especially prosperous for west African lands.

•In 1652 Cape Town established by the Dutch East India Company.•Former company employees and settlers moved into other areas to farm and ranch (Boers – Dutch word for farmers)•Later they became known as Afrikaners (Dutch word for African)•Hostility developed between natives and Europeans.•By the 18th century, warfare, enslavement, and smallpox epidemics had led to the extinction of the native people (Khoikhoi).

6. Discuss changes and continuities in South Africa between 1650 and 1900. What was the impact? Address Boers, Afrikaners, and the Great Trek in your answer.

•The establishment of British rule in 1806 disrupted Afrikaner society and its use of the institution of slavery.•The Afrikaners took the “Great Trek,” migrating west.•This led to conflicts between the indigenous people and the Afrikaners.•When diamonds and gold were discovered in Afrikaner lands, the South Afrikan War erupted between the Afrikaners and the British (The Boer War or South Afrikan War). •100,000 black Africans ended up in internment camps.

Egypt was in debt to Britain as a result of its efforts to remove itself from Ottoman rule.

By 1870’s Egypt was forced to impose high taxes which provoked unrest and rebellion.

In 1882, a British army occupied Egypt to protect its financial interests and ensure the safety of the Suez Canal which was critical to British communications with India.

Berlin Conference (1884-1885) 14 delegates from fourteen European states

and the United States. Not a single African was present. An agreement that “any European state

could establish African colonies after notifying the others of its intentions and occupying previously unclaimed territory.”

Conference provided European diplomats with the justification they needed to draw lines on maps and carve a continent into colonies.

7. What was the Berlin Conference?

7. What was the Berlin Conference?

During the 1890’s, European nations sent armies to impose colonial rule in Africa.

Armed with cannons and machine guns By the turn of the century, European

colonies embraced all of Africa except for Ethiopia, where natives fought off Italian forces

and Liberia, a small republic populated by free slaves

that was a dependency of the U.S. Ethiopia is the only African country that

was never colonized.

7. What was the Berlin Conference?

The American Civil War and European arms race in the 1860’s and 1870’s revolutionized guns.

In the 1880’s Hiram Maxim invented the machine gun, which was used in the defeat of Africans on African soil.

By 1900, most of Africa had been divided up among a handful of European powers, in particular Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium.

9. Discuss two social consequences of European influence in Australia and New Zealand.

•Diseases like smallpox and measles devastated indigenous people.

•The aboriginal population of Australia fell form 650,000 in 1800 to 90,000 in 1900.

•The population of indigenous people in New Zealand fell also.

•Indigenous people were run off their lands and restricted to plantations.

10. Give three “geographical” examples of U.S. imperialistic ventures.

•The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867.

•In 1875 the U.S. claimed a protectorate over Hawaii.

•The U.S. took possession of Cuba and Puerto Rico after defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War.

•The U.S. took possession of Guam and the Philippines.

•Panama Canal

Transition from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan

•When Japan attempted to rid itself of European influences during the Early Modern era, representatives from Japan and the U.S. forced the Tokugawa shogun into signing unequal treaties similar to those of the Qing dynasty.

•Opposition forces in Japan used the intrusion of foreigners as an excuse to overthrow the shogun and the Tokugawa bakufu (tent government).

•After restoring the emperor to power in 1868, Japans rulers worked to build a new government and an industrial society.

Transition from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan

•Meiji leaders centralized political power and destroyed the old social order.

•Daimyo were removed from power and the government abolished the samurai class.

•Metropolitan districts were controlled by the central government through newly appointed governors.

•They revamped tax system.

•They established a constitutional monarchy with a “diet,” or legislature.

•They established a modern transportation, communications, and educational infrastructure that established rapid growth and industrialization.

•Meiji leaders transformed Japan into a powerful industrial society.

11. What two wars enabled Japan to become an imperial power during this period? What were the outcomes of each?

•Under the Meiji Restoration, Japan set out to become an imperial power through expansion.

•The Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895): The Japanese army pushed Qing forces out of the Korean peninsula. Korea became a dependency of Japan.

•The Russo-Japanese War (1904): Japanese forces defeated Russia and destroyed their Navy.

•Japanese victory in these two conflicts resulted in Japan being recognized as a major imperial power.

12. Name two major labor migrations that occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries. What were the causes of each .

•Fifty million Europeans migrated to the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Most European migrants traveled as free agents but some went as indentured laborers.

•Migrants from Asia, Africa and the Pacific islands generally traveled as indentured laborers. As the institution of slavery went into declines, planters sought large numbers of laborers to replace slaves who left the plantations.

12. Name two major labor migrations that occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries. What were the causes of each .

•Between 1820 and 1914 about 2.5 million indentured laborers left their homes to work in distant parts of the world.

•The majority of the indentured laborers came from India. The indentured labor trade began in the 1820’s when French and British colonial officials sent Indian migrants to work on sugar plantations in the Indian Ocean Islands.

•Large numbers of Chinese laborers went to work on sugar plantations in Cuba and Hawaii, guano mines in Peru, gold mines in south Africa and Australia.

•Japanese laborers migrated to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations.

Imperialism in Central and SE Asia

French Indochina

Largest southeast Asian colony (1859 to 1893)

Included modern states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos

Introduced European style schools, established close connections with native elites, encouraged conversion to Christianity.

Roman Catholic Church became prominent.

Imperialism in Asia

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Global trade in the products of colonial societies surged during 19th and 20th centuries.

Between 1800 and 1914, fifty million Europeans migrated overseas. Thirty-two million went to the U.S., some as free

agents but most as indentured servants. Migrants from Asia, Africa, and the Pacific usually

traveled as indentured servants.

Legacies of Imperialism

Social Darwinism: “survival of the fittest” was used to justify imperialism

Scientific racists drew from the writings of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of the Species and his theory of survival of the fittest.

Rising tides of nationalism Acquisition of territory was used

as evidence of national strength and superiority

13. What was “social Darwinism” and how was it used to justify European imperialism?

Indian elite Ram Mohan Roy was often called the father of Modern India because he argued for the establishment of a society based on the Indian tradition of Hinduism and European science.

The Indian National Congress (founded in 1885) was a forum for educated Indians to air concerns about Indian poverty and the transfer of wealth from Indian to Britain, and British racism toward Indians.

The All-India Muslim League was the most prominent organization to promote political and social concerns of the Muslims who made up 25 percent of the Indian population.

14. Give one example of a “nationalistic” movement among subject peoples in India

Indian elite Ram Mohan Roy was often called the father of Modern India because he argued for the establishment of a society based on the Indian tradition of Hinduism and European science.

The Indian National Congress (founded in 1885) was a forum for educated Indians to air concerns about Indian poverty and the transfer of wealth from Indian to Britain, and British racism toward Indians.

The All-India Muslim League was the most prominent organization to promote political and social concerns of the Muslims who made up 25 percent of the Indian population.

14. Give one example of a “nationalistic” movement among subject peoples in India

15. Take one commodity mentioned in this chapter and discuss its role in European imperialism:

cotton, tea, rubber, diamonds

“The European scramble for Africa may have been initiated in the 1870’s by French insecurities arising from their defeat by the Germans in 1871, by the bizarre and secretive scheming of Belgium’s King Leopold II, and by British determination to protect their colonial interests in India, but all of those motivations would have been irrelevant had it not been discovered that quinine prevented malaria, or for the new development of steamboats that could open the rivers, or for new technology in guns that killed more efficiently. The new technologies mattered.”

Robert Marks, The Origins of the Modern World