The Building of Global Empires

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Chapter 33

• The Building of Global Empires

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Imperialism in Asia, ca. 1914
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European empires in 1914(1 of 2)
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Definition Imperialism

• Imperialism is when a stronger nation dominates a
  weaker nation in order to control natural
  resources
• Was effected not just through the force of arms,
  but also through trade, investment, and business
  activities that enabled the imperial powers to
  profit from subject societies and influence their
  affairs without going to the trouble of
  exercising direct political control

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Motivation for Imperialism

• Colonial full control
• Military (Pacific Islands, North Africa) used
  for bases
• Economic used for resources, ports, markets to
  sell goods
• European capitalism
• Religious or Socio-Cultural (Africa, India,
  China) Christian converts, built hospitals,
  schools, etc
• Demographic send outcasts (rare)
• criminal populations (Australia)
• Dissident populations

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Forms of Imperialism

• Direct military intervention total control of the
  country
• Protectorate - keep own govt. but guided by
  mother country
• Sphere of influence - imperialist holds exclusive
  economic interests - Trade Rights
• But overall aim was to gain the most at the least
  expense

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Economic Control

• This form of imperialism allowed the area to
  operate as its own nation, but the imperialist
  nation almost completely controlled its trade and
  other business.
• For example, it may impose regulations that
  forbid trade with other nations, or imperialist
  companies may own or have exclusive rights to its
  natural resources.
• During this era, China and most of Latin America
  were subjected to economic imperialism, as was
  India.

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Resources

• Overseas colonies could serve as reliable sources
  of raw materials not available in Europe that
  came in demand because of industrialization
• Rubber in the Congo River basin and Malaya
• Tin in southeast Asia
• Copper in central Africa
• Oil in southwest Asia

Rubber trees in Malaya
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Cecil Rhodes

• Went to south Africa in 1871 and by 1889 he
  controlled 90 of the worlds diamond production
• Also gained a healthy stake in the gold market
• Served as prime minister of the British Cape
  Colony from 1890-1896 and saw the Cape Colony as
  a base of operations for the extension of British
  control to all of Africa

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Political Motives

• Some overseas colonies occupied strategic sites
  on the worlds sea lanes
• Others offered harbors or supply stations for
  commercial and naval ships
• Foreign imperialist ventures were useful in
  defusing social tensions and inspiring patriotism
  at home, often between industrialists and
  socialists

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Example Russians in Tashkent

• The weakening of the Ottoman and Qing empires
  turned central Asia into a political vacuum and
  invited Russian expansion
• In 1865 Russian forces captured Tashkent which
  served as an important location for trade between
  Central Asia and Russia, especially after the
  construction of the Trans-Caspian Railroad in
  1898
• As Russia encroached upon the ill-defined
  northern frontier of British India, Russians and
  British played out the Great Game of
  exploration, espionage and imperialistic
  diplomacy throughout Central Asia

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Socio-Cultural Imperialism

• The dominating country deliberately tried to
  change customs, religions and languages in some
  of the countries.
• A good example was British India, where
  English was taught in schools, Indian soldiers
  dressed British-style, and western trading rules
  were set up.
• Generally, the imperialist countries assumed
  their cultures to be superior, and often times
  they saw themselves as bringing about
  improvements in the society.

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Key Concept Cultural Justifications

• Imperialist Nations needed to justify their
  actions to their modern citizens
• Christian missionaries saw Africa and Asia as
  fertile ground for converts and often served as
  intermediaries between imperialists and subject
  peoples
• Other Europeans sought to bring civilization to
  subject peoples in the form of political order
  and social stability
• Cecil Rhodes believed, We (the British) are the
  finest race in the world and the more of the
  world we inhabit, the better it is for the human
  race.

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Example David Livingstone

• Went to Africa - combination missionary, doctor,
  explorer, scientist and anti-slavery activist.
• Reached and named Victoria Falls in 1855.
• In 1871 journalist Henry Stanley found him at
  Lake Tanganyika, greeting him with the famous
  words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

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Example Suez Canal

• Between 1859 and 1869, the British constructed
  the Suez Canal which links Port Said on the
  Mediterranean Sea and Suez on the Red Sea
• Allows two-way north-south water transport from
  Europe to Asia without circumnavigating Africa
• In 1882 the British army occupied Egypt to ensure
  the safety of the canal which was crucial to
  British communications with India

1869 opening of the Suez Canal at Port Said
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Example Panama Canal

• Between 1904 and 1914, the US built the Panama
  Canal which links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
  without having to transit Cape Horn
• Creates nation of Panama

Gatun locks under construction in 1910
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Key Concept Social Darwinism

• The British believed it was the special genius of
  the Anglo-Saxon race i.e. the British to rule
• Darwinism had been adapted from the plant/animal
  world to the human world
• Suggested some races were better suited to
  survive and flourish
• There was a common assumption that the British
  were indeed the master race
• Britain held a material, scientific, and
  intellectual advantage over all other nations
• They had been successful on a global scale

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More Causes Justifications

• Govt. leaders used mass media to encourage the
  masses, to savor the triumphs
• Special interest groups such as ship builders,
  military suppliers, and steel factory owners also
  pushed for expansion
• White settlers demanded more land and more
  protection
• Ironically, most countries were too poor to pay
  for imported goods

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More Justifications (last time, I promise)

• Many humanitarians built schools to educate the
  natives in European ways
• Rudyard Kipling - most influential writer of the
  1890s wrote Whitemans Burden
• Catholic and Protestant missionaries competed
  with each other and Islam to gain converts to
  save the natives
• Religious success in Africa conflicted sharply
  with failure in Asia and India

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Critics of Imperialism..

• Lenin argued that capitalism must continue to
  grew
• Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness,
  criticized the selfish European for trying to
  civilize the native.
• Critics also castigated the double-standard of
  imperialism and the failure of the imperialist to
  live up to his own noble ideals

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Example The Military Advantage

• Battle of Omdurman (near Khartom on Nile), 1898
• Five hours of fighting
• British six gunboats, twenty machine guns, 368
  killed
• Sudanese 11,000 killed

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Communications

• Correspondence
• 1830 Britain-India 2 years
• After Suez Canal, 2 weeks
• Telegraph
• 1870s, development of submarine cables
• Britain-India 5 hours

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The Jewel of the British Crown India

• East India Company
• Monopoly on India trade
• Original permission from Mughal emperors
• Mughal empire declines after death of Aurangzeb,
  1707

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British Empire in India

• A viceroy represented British royal authority in
  India and administered the colony through an
  elite Indian civil service staffed almost
  exclusively by the British
• The British formulated all domestic and foreign
  policy for India
• Indians served in low-level bureaucratic positions

Lord John Morley served as Secretary of State for
India from 1905 to 1910
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Home of a Wealthy Family in Calcutta
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British Colonial Soldiers
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The Sepoy Mutiny 1857
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Sepoy Revolt, 1857

• Enfield rifles
• Cartridges in wax paper greased with animal fat
• Problem for Hindus beef
• Problem for Muslims pork
• Sepoys capture garrison
• 60 soldiers, 180 civilian males massacred (after
  surrender)
• Two weeks later, 375 women and children murdered
• British retake fort, hang rebels

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Save Me from My Friends
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French in Indochina

• The French were unsuccessful in establishing
  themselves in India, but between 1859 and 1893,
  they did establish a large southeast Asian colony
  consisting of the modern states of Vietnam,
  Cambodia, and Laos
• Indochina would become an important supplier of
  rubber

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The Berlin West Africa Conference (1884-1885)

• Fourteen European states, United States
• No African states present
• Rules of colonization any European state can
  take unoccupied territory after informing other
  European powers
• European firepower dominates Africa
• Exceptions Ethiopia fights off Italy (1896)
  Liberia a dependency of the US

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Africa Berlin Conference

• The Berlin Conference gave European diplomats the
  justification they needed to draw lines on maps
  and carve Africa into colonies
• By the turn of the century, all of Africa was
  divided into European colonies except for
  Ethiopia, where native forces had fought off
  Italian efforts at colonization, and Liberia, a
  small republic populated by freed slaves that was
  effectively a dependency of the US

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After Berlin Conference
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Later Problems

• The invention of rigid tribal categories and the
  establishment of artificial tribal boundaries
  became one of the greatest obstacles to nation
  building and regional stability in much of Africa
  during the second half of the 20th Century
• The arbitrary boundaries of the Berlin Conference
  did not take into consideration the natural
  divisions of the African people (religion,
  culture, language, ethnicity, etc)

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Later Impacts

• When decolonization began in the 1950s, loyalties
  to these natural groups were often stronger than
  those to the arbitrarily-created state, leading
  to civil unrest in many countries
• After independence, the dominant nationalist
  movements and their leaders tended to install
  themselves in virtually permanent power and tried
  to establish single-party states

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European Imperialism in Australia and New Zealand

• English use Australia as a penal colony from 1788
• Voluntary migrants follow gold discovered 1851
• Smallpox, measles devastate natives
• Territory called terra nullus land of no one
• New Zealand natives forced to sign Treaty of
  Waitangi (1840), placing New Zealand under
  British protection

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Australian Aborigine
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European and Native Population in Australia and
New Zealand
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US Imperialism

• President James Monroe warns Europeans not to
  engage in imperialism in western hemisphere
  (1823)
• The Monroe Doctrine all Americas a U.S.
  Protectorate
• 1867 purchased Alaska from Russia
• 1875 established protectorate over Hawaii
• Locals overthrow queen in 1893, persuade US to
  acquire islands in 1898

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Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

• In 1904 the government of the Dominican Republic
  went bankrupt
• President Theodore Roosevelt feared that Germany
  and other nations might intervene forcibly to
  collect their debts 
• Roosevelt asserted that in the Western
  Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to
  the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States,
  however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such
  wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an
  international police power....

Cartoon portraying Roosevelt as an international
policeman wielding his big stick
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US Spanish-American War (1898-1899)

• The US had large business interests in Puerto
  Rico and Cuba, the last remnants of Spains
  American empire
• In 1898 the US battleship Maine exploded and sank
  in Havana harbor
• US leaders suspected sabotage and declared war on
  Spain

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US Spanish-American War

• The US easily defeated Spain and took possession
  of Puerto Rico and Cuba
• In the Pacific, the US took possession of the
  Philippines and Guam
• After the Spanish-American War the US emerged as
  a major imperial and colonial power

Commodore Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in a
single day at the Battle of Manila.