CHAPTERTwenty-two

Imperialism and Colonialism, 1870–1914

Introduction

• Britain, France, Egypt, and the Suez Canal

• Technology, money, and politics

• Western superiority

Imperialism

• Definitions• The process of extending one state’s control

over another• Formal imperialism

• Colonialism or direct control• Colonizing countries annexed territories outright• Established new governments

• Informal imperialism• Allowed weaker state to maintain its

independence while reducing its sovereignty• Carved out zones of European sovereignty and

privilege

Imperialism

• Imperialist endeavors• Europeans took up 90 percent of Africa

(1875–1902)• Small group of European states colonized

one-quarter of the world’s lands (1870–1900)

Imperialism

• Eighteenth-century losses• The British in the North American colonies• French Atlantic trade• Spanish and Portuguese in South America

Imperialism

• Nineteenth-century imperialism• Appeared against the backdrop of

industrialization, liberal revolutions, and the rise of nation-states

• The need for raw materials• Bringing progress to the world• Imperialists sought to distance themselves

from earlier histories of conquest

Imperialism

• Nineteenth-century imperialism• Colonial resistance and rebellion forced

Europeans to develop new strategies of rule• The British granted self-government to Canada,

Australia, and New Zealand

• Nineteenth-century empires established carefully codified racial hierarchies

• Guided more by “settlement and discipline” than independent entrepreneurial activity

• The creation of new kinds of interaction between Europeans and indigenous peoples

Imperialism

• The new imperialism and its causes• Economic arguments

• London as the banker of the world

• Demand for raw materials made colonization a necessary investment

• Strategic and nationalist motives• International rivalries fueled the belief that national

interests were at stake

• The French supported imperialism as a means of restoring national honor

• The link between imperialism and nation building

Imperialism

• The new imperialism and its causes• The cultural dimension

• David Livingston (1813–1873) and putting an end to the African slave trade

• Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) and the “white man’s burden”

• Civilizing the barbaric and heathen quarters

• Imperial policy• Less a matter of long-range planning• More a matter of quick responses to

improvised situations

Imperialism in South Asia

• India and the British Empire• The “jewel of the British Crown”• The British East India Company

• Had its own military divided into European and Indian divisions

• Held the right to collect taxes on land from Indian peasants

• Held legal monopolies over trade in all goods (the most lucrative was opium)

• Constituted a military and repressive government

Imperialism in South Asia

• The Sepoy Rebellion (1857–1858)• Uprising began near Delhi• Social, economic, and political grievances• Indian peasants attacked law courts and

burned tax rolls• A protest against debt and corruption• Hindu and Muslim leaders denounced

Christian missionaries• The British response

• Systematic campaign of repression

Imperialism in South Asia

• After the mutiny—reorganizing the Indian empire• New strategies of British rule• East India Company was abolished• British raj governed directly• Military reorganization• Reform of the civil service• Missionary activity subdued

Imperialism in South Asia

• India and Britain• British indirect rule sought to create an

Indian elite to serve British interests• Large social group of British-educated

Indian civil servants and businessmen• Provided the leadership for an Indian nationalist

movement

Imperialism in China

• Europe and China• Forced trade agreements• Set up treaty ports• Established outposts of missionary activity• British aimed to improve terms of the China

trade

Imperialism in China

• The opium trade• A direct link between Britain, British India,

and China• Opium one of the few products Europeans

could sell in China• A triangular trade

Imperialism in China

• The Opium Wars (1839–1842)• Treaty of Nanking (1842)

• British trading privileges• Hong Kong

• The second Opium War• Britain granted further rights

• Other countries demand similar rights and economic opportunities

• The Taiping Rebellion (1852–1864)• Radical Christian rebels challenged the authority of

the emperor• China’s agricultural heartland was devastated

Imperialism in China

• The Boxer Rebellion (1900)• The Boxers

• Secret society of men trained in martial arts• Antiforeign and antimissionary• Attacked foreign engineers, destroyed railway

lines, and marched on Beijing

• The European response• Great powers drew together• Repression of the Boxers

• The rebellion highlighted the vulnerability of European imperial power

Imperialism in China

• Russian imperialism• Policy of annexation• Southern colonization

• Georgia (1801)• Bessarabia, Turkestan, and Armenia• Brought Russia and Britain close to war,

especially over Afghanistan

• The “Great Game”• Toward the east

• The Russo-Japanese War (1905)• Russian naval forces were humiliated

The French Empire and the Civilizing Mission

• The French in Algeria• Algeria as a settler state

• Not all settlers were French

The French Empire and the Civilizing Mission

• The French in Algeria• After 1870—the “civilizing mission”

• Reinforcing the purpose of the French republic and French prestige

• Jules Ferry (1832–1893) argued for expansion into Indochina

• French acquisitions• Tunisia (1881)

• Northern and central Vietnam (1883)

• Laos and Cambodia (1893)

• Federation of French West Africa (1895)• Rationalizing the economic exploitation of the area

• “Enhancing the value” of the region

• Public programs served French interests only

The Scramble for Africa and the Congo

• The Congo Free State • The 1870s

• A new drive into central Africa—the fertile valleys of the Congo River

• European colonizers under the Belgian king, Leopold II (1835–1909, r. 1865–1909)

• Herbert M. Stanley and his “scientific” journeys• International Association for the Exploration and

Civilization of the Congo (1876)• Signed treaties with local elites• Opened the Congo to commercial exploitation (palm oil,

rubber, diamonds)• The Congo Free State

• Actually run by Leopold’s private company• Slave trade suppressed in favor of free labor• The Congo becomes a Belgian colony (1908)

The Scramble for Africa and the Congo

• The partition of Africa• Colonial powers increase their holdings in

Africa (1880s)• Germany

• Bismarck was a reluctant colonizer• Seized strategic locations (Cameroon and

Tanzania)

• France• Aimed to move eastward across the continent

The Scramble for Africa and the Congo

• The partition of Africa• Britain

• Southern and eastern Africa• Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902)

• Made a fortune from South African diamond mines• Personal goal was to build an African empire founded

on diamonds• Carved out territories in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi,

and Botswana

• The “Cape-to-Cairo” railway• Making Britain self-sufficient

Imperial Culture

• Images of empire• Images of empire were everywhere• Advertising• Museums displayed the products of empire• Music halls and imperial songs

Imperial Culture

• Empire and identity• The “civilizing mission” of the French• Bringing progress to other lands• Women and empire

Imperial Culture

• Theories of race• Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882)

• The Inequality of the Races (1853–1855)• Race as the master key to understanding the

world’s problems• The racial question overshadowed all others• Slavery proved the racial inferiority of the slave

• Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927)• Making racial theory more scientific• Tied racial theories to Darwinism and Herbert

Spencer

Imperial Culture

• Theories of race• Francis Galton (1822–1911)

• Eugenics—the science of improving the racial qualities

• Selective breeding

• The rhetoric of progress, the civilizing mission, and race

• Provided a rationale for imperial conquest

Imperial Culture

• Critics• Joseph Conrad argued that imperialism

signified deep problems• The Pan-African Congress (1900)

• The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of race

Imperial Culture

• Colonial culture• Colonialism created new hybrid cultures• Annexed areas as laboratories for creating

orderly and disciplined societies• Worry over preserving national traditions

and identity• Should education be Westernized?• Fraternization with indigenous peoples might

undermine European power• Sexual relations

• Compromises about “acceptability”

Crisis of Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

• Europe in 1900• Crisis• Sharp tensions between Western nations• The expansion of European economic and

military commitments to territories overseas

• Fashoda (1898)• Britain and France faced one another for

dominance of Africa

Crisis of Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

• South Africa: The Boer War• Afrikaners (Boers)—Dutch and Swiss

settlers who had arrived in the early nineteenth century

• Afrikaners set up two free states—Transvaal and the Orange Free State

• Afrikaners and British went to war (1899)• British army was completely unprepared for

war

Crisis of Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

• South Africa: The Boer War• British government refused to compromise

• The British eventually seized Pretoria

• A guerrilla war dragged on for three years• British used concentration camps where

Afrikaner citizens were rounded up• The Union of South Africa—British and

Boers shared power

Crisis of Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

• U.S. imperialism• Spanish-American War (1898)

• Antecedents• War with Mexico in the 1840s

• The conquest of new territories

• Texas and California

• Conflict with Spain• Spanish imperial authority faced problems in the Caribbean

and Pacific colonies

• American press sided with the rebels

• The United States stepped in to protect its economic interests

• Spanish defeat undermined the Spanish monarchy

Crisis of Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

• U.S. imperialism• The annexation of Puerto Rico and

protectorate over Cuba• Panama

• U.S.-backed rebellion in 1903• Recognized Panama as a republic• The Panama Canal (1914)

• Intervention in Hawaii and Santo Domingo• Renewed missionary activity

Conclusion

• Rapid extension of formal European control

• The West as a self-consciously imperial culture

This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint for Chapter 22.

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