The First Age of Imperialism

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Section I

• The First Age of Imperialism

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The Expansion of Europe1492-1815

• Author H.L. Wesseling
• Thesis England came late to empire building
  because
• Domestic problems (religious wars, legitimate
  claims to the throne)
• Foreign wars France and Spain
• Empire Building in Ireland and Scotland
• Components
• The Beginning
• The Seventeenth Century
• The Eighteenth Century

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People to Remember

• Historical Figures of Importance
• Vasco da Gama
• Suleyman the Magnificent Ottoman Empire
• Admiral Cheng-ho Chinese Empire
• Piet Heyn Dutch
• Jean-Baptiste Colbert Colbertism
• Prince Henry the Navigator Portugal
• Oliver Cromwell Ireland
• Elizabeth I
• Ferdinand Magellan Cape Horn
• John Hawkins First major slave trader (English)
• Francis Drake (El Diablo) and the Sea Dogs
• Sir Humphrey Gilbert
• Sir Walter Raleigh - Roanoke

• Historians
• K.M. Panikkar Vasco da Gama Epoch in Asian
  history
• Adam Smith- the discovery of America, and that
  of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of
  Good Hope, are the two greatest and most
  important events recorded in the history of
  mankind and the colonies were in imagination
  only (England)
• Edmund Burke self-created colonies

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The Beginning

• 1430 the Portuguese on the African Coast
• 1492 Columbus discovers the Americas
• 1498 Vasco de Gamas trip around Africas Cape
  of Good Hope finds a water-route to the East.

• European expansion was not new!
• Roman Empire
• Alexander the Great extended all the way to
  India
• Ming China
• Junk ships with carrying capacities of 1500
  tons
• Admiral Cheng-ho visited East Africa in 1405 and
  brought home a giraffe
• Suleyman the Magnificent (1520 1566) and the
  establishment of the Ottoman Empire

Spanish Reconquista taking back territory lost
to the Ottoman Empire in Africa.
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The Chinese
In 1551, the emperor of China ended exploration
due to the internal struggle for power between
the Mandarins and the Eunuchs.
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European Expansion v. Chinese Expansion

• Europeans were after Gold, God, and Glory
  purely motivated by greed.
• The Chinese were motivated by curiosity.
• Europeans were ruled by many kings (France, Great
  Britain, Spain, Portuguese), resulting in a
  European rivalry for gold and power.
• Europeans wanted Asian spices, silk, porcelain
  and other luxury items, the Chinese didnt want
  anything European.

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The Treaty of Tordesillas - The world was divided
between Spain and Portugal at the meridian
running 600 kilometers to the west of the Cape
Verde Islands.

• The Europeans had a choice, according to Fernand
  Braudel, to
• Colonize America
• To make use of de Gamas trade route into Asia

1494
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The Dutch

• The riches of the New World brought other
  countries to the New World and to Asia
• Piet Heyn and the Mexican Silver Fleet in 1628
• Pieter Dirckszn arrives at Bantam beginning 350
  years of Dutch presence in Indonesia.
• Dutch East India Company (VOC) first
  multinational company (sold shares on the
  Amsterdam (monopoly of trade in Asia and
  administered justice and defense) 1602
• British East India Company (1600) focused on
  India and China

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The French

• All of their companies failed
• Jean-Baptiste Colbert Minister of Finance in
  1661
• Colbertism state intervention in the economy
  and control of trade

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The Dutch

• VOC was the most powerful enterprise in the 17th
  century
• Controlled the Indonesian archipelago and
  controlled the Moluccas (spice trade)
• Trading posts in India, Formosa, Persia, Siam,
  Indochina, and Japan (Nagasaki)
• The VOC founded a colony in South Africa!
• In the West, the Dutch, under the control of WIC
  took control of Brazil briefly, and
• bought Manhattan from the Indians for 60!
• They gave it to the English in the Peace of Breda
  in exchange for Suriname

Mexican Silver Fleet 1628 the Dutch captured 11
million dollars worth of treasure from the
Spanish.
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The Colonization of the Caribbean

• England, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, and
  Denmark.
• Tropical cash crops
• Atlantic Slave Trade
• Importation of ecosystems flora and fauna
• The extermination of 1/3 of the Indian population
  disease, slavery, wars
• Colonization resulted in a mixing of ethnicities.

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Asia

• Spices, teas, textiles, silk, and porcelain in
  exchange for gold bullion for goods
• By the end of the 1700s, the EIC British East
  India Company was the dominant force and
  controlled the trade in India and China.

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The 18th Century

• The Seven Years War (1756-1763)
• Ended French Colonial expansion in the Americas.
• Ended French rule in India
• Canada and North America became for the most part
  English, dominated by the English language and
  culture.
• North America became settlement colonies.

Proclamation of 1763 treaty with the Indians
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Asia in the 18th Century

• No settlement colonies
• Distance was far greater to travel
• Environment was much different, North American
  climate was similar to the European climate.
• Because the indigenous people of North America
  and Australia were exterminated, the new lands
  could be repopulated. China offered no such
  possibilities.

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American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution

• Latin American nations followed the American
  example of revolution and independence.
• Battle of Trafalgar the British defeat a
  French, but 1815 the British dominate the world
  and everyone else gave up any hopes of getting
  their colonies back in the West
• Monroe Doctrine - 1823 American support of
  Southern Independence.

• Industrialization 1750
• James Watt Steam Engine
• Arkwrights water-powered spinning frame
• Cartwrights power loom

Pax Britannica British domination of the world.
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Conclusion

• The French, the English, the Dutch, the Spanish,
  and the Portuguese all explored and expanded
  their empires
• The Dutch East India Company (VOC) was the
  strongest, until surpassed by the British East
  India Company in the 1700s
• The Western Hemisphere was closed down by the era
  of revolutions and the Monroe Doctrine
• Settlement colonies existed in North America, but
  not in Asia.
• Africa, other than the Dutch in South Africa, had
  not been colonized, and most had been left
  unexplored.

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Vocabulary Quiz

1. Spanish efforts to reclaim territory taken by the
   Ottoman Empire in the 1300s
2. Ended with English dominance of North America.
3. Resulted in European countries giving up their
   hopes of reclaiming their colonies in the West.
4. Most powerful trading company in the 1600s
5. Era of British naval and colonial domination
6. Large Chinese ships
7. Americas warning to European nations to stay out
   of the Western Hemisphere
8. Millions worth of treasure captured from the
   French by the Dutch.
9. Established the demarcation line 600 km west of
   the Cape Verde Islands
10. French government intervention in trade and the
    economy.

1. Pax Britannica
2. Battle of Trafalgar
3. Seven Years War
4. Mexican Silver Fleet
5. Monroe Doctrine
6. Junks
7. Treaty of Tordesillas
8. Colbertism
9. VOC
10. Reconquista