19th Century European Imperialism

1
19th Century European Imperialism
Out with the Old and in with the New
2
The Old Imperialism (to 1870)

• During the first three quarters of the 19th
  century, European powers showed little interest
  in overseas expansion.
• In fact, it appeared that imperialism was on the
  way out.
• Economic and political liberalism was largely
  against imperial ventures of political oppression
  and mercantilist trade.

3
The British Empire

• The British Empire was the largest overseas
  empire in the early 19th century, but there was
  little interest in further expansion.
• The American War of Independence still loomed
  over British colonial policy.
• In the Western Hemisphere, British control in
  Canada expanded westward, but discontent was
  growing.
• The British North America Act of 1867 established
  the Dominion of Canada (extensive autonomy in
  domestic policy.
• British continued to control much of the
  Caribbean.

4
The British Empire

• Africa
• The British had captured the Cape Colony during
  the Napoleonic Wars and trading stations along
  the coast.
• In the 1820s, British settlers moved in, causing
  friction with the Boers (descendants of Dutch
  colonists who settled there in the 17th century.)
• In the Great Trek of 1835-1837, Boers moved
  north and established the state of Transvaal and
  the Orange Free State.

5
The British Empire

• India
• In India, most of the British administration was
  controlled by the East India Company.
• In 1857, Indian troops rebelled against British
  rule in the Great Mutiny (aka the Sepoy
  Rebellion).
• This occurred as a result of BEIC abuses,
  cultural frictions, and rumors of pig and cow fat
  used in powder charges (insult to Hindus and
  Muslims)
• As a result, the British government took direct
  rule of India in 1858 (British Raj)

6
The British Empire

• China
• The British established a trade system of
  importing opium from India to China in return for
  tea during the 19th century.
• When the Chinese government attempted to stop
  this, Britain went to war with China in 1842 (the
  Opium War).
• China was quickly defeated, resuming the import
  of opium and Britain annexed Hong Kong in 1842.
• As a result of further conflict, namely the
  Taiping Rebellion, China gave away more of its
  sovereignty.

7
The British Empire

• The British also continued to control several key
  outposts.
• Gibraltar and Malta in the Mediterranean
• Aden in the Red Sea
• Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in the Indian Ocean.
• Singapore in the Pacific Ocean.
• Australia and New Zealand were growing colonies
  for British and Irish settlers.

Gibraltar
8
The British Empire
9
The Latin American Colonies

• The Independence movements between 1804 and 1824
  in Latin America proved for the rest of Europe
  what the American Revolution proved for the
  British.
• Nationalism and liberalism assured that Portugal
  would lose control of its vast territory in
  Brazil, France would lose Haiti, and Spain would
  lose the rest of Latin America, save Cuba and
  Puerto Rico (Spain also retained the Philippines
  in the Pacific).

10
The French Empire

• Through the Seven Years War, and the
  Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, France had
  lost most of its overseas territories.
• All of French North America was lost to the
  British, Spanish and Americans.
• French influence in India was lost after the
  Seven Years War.

11
The French Empire

• The French continued to have island colonies in
  the Caribbean on Guadeloupe and Martinique, as
  well as French Guiana in South America.
• In Africa, the French operated several coastal
  trading stations and exerted some influence in
  Egypt and the Middle East.
• In 1830, the French slowly began acquiring
  territorial rights in Algeria and in Indochina.

12
The Dutch Colonies

• The Dutch, now a second rate power due to its
  small size and domination by surrounding powers
  protected what it had.
• They continued to exploit what they could through
  trade and their island empire in the East Indies.
• A revolt on Java between 1825 and 1830 was
  crushed, bring harsher rule by the Dutch.

13
Russian Expansion

• Russia was the only European power to
  aggressively continue its expansionist policies
  throughout the 19th century.
• In contrast, however, Russian expansion was over
  land and contiguous with its territory.
• Russian expansion came at the cost of the
  crumbling Ottoman Empire along the Black Sea, a
  power vacuum in Central Asia, and Chinese
  weakness along the North Pacific Coast.

14
The Russian Empire
15
Austria, Prussia, and Italy

• During the first half of the 19th century,
  overseas imperial expansion was not an option for
  Prussia, Austria, and the states of Italy.
• Prussia and the Italian states were primarily
  concerned with domestic affairs (Rev. of 1848)
  and their unification movements.
• Austria as well was concerned with internal
  affairs and any expansion came at the price of
  the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans.

16
The New Imperialism

• In the late 1860s and 1870s, European powers
  began to reverse their disdain for obtaining
  formal colonies.
• In the period from 1870 to 1914, European nations
  (as well as the U.S. and Japan) would go on a
  colonization drive like never before.
• In just a couple of decades, nearly all of Africa
  and large areas of Asia and the Middle East would
  come under European domination.

17
Motivations for New Imperialism

• Nationalism and competition among states for
  additional territory was a major political and
  psychological factor.
• The influence of Social Darwinism pushed the
  strongest to survive and to dominate the weak.
• Humanitarian and religious considerations led to
  military interventions, missionary zeal, and the
  civilizing mission.
• European industrial development caused the need
  for natural resources and new markets to sell in
  and invest.

18
Imperialism and European Society

• Policies in colonial possessions were often used
  as test beds for social policy at home
  hospitals, schools, law enforcement, and
  infrastructure was often tested in colonies.
• Imperialistic ventures were used as nationalistic
  propaganda at home and was a way of forming
  national unity in the face of class tensions.
• Liberals often opposed imperial ventures where
  conservatives favored them.

19
The British Empire

• Asia
• Consolidation of the British Raj continued as the
  British government expanded its formal rule over
  greater territories in northern and western
  India.
• In 1877, Queen Victoria was declared Empress of
  India.
• British control expanded eastward into Burma, and
  Malaya and northward to the border with
  Afghanistan (created as a buffer against the
  Russians)

20
(No Transcript)
21
The British Empire

• Egypt
• In 1875, the British bought a 44 percent share in
  the previously French controlled Suez Canal
  (1869).
• The British took a greater role in Egyptian
  affairs until it was made a British Protectorate
  in 1882.
• East and West Africa
• In East and West Africa, Britain expanded its old
  trading posts into full colonies, leading to
  conflict with the natives (example Anglo-Zulu
  War of 1879)
• These included Gambia, Sierra Leone, The Gold
  Coast, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Somalia.

Battle of Roukes Drift in the Anglo-Zulu War.
22
The British Empire

• South Africa
• Led by the efforts of imperialist and capitalist
  Cecil Rhodes.
• Rhodes made fortune in diamonds, discovered in
  Cape Colony in 1869.
• He pressed for British expansion in Southern
  Africa.
• Tensions mounted in the 1880s with the discovery
  of gold in Transvaal, British prospectors moved
  in with the blessing of Rhodes, the PM of Cape
  Colony.

23
The Boer War (1899-1902)

• President Paul Kruger of Transvaal was convinced
  the British were going to annex their state,
  Kruger then tried to ally with Germany.
• Tensions led to war in 1899. The Boers led a
  determined guerilla war that lasted four years
  (first post-modern war?). The Boers were often
  placed in concentration camps.
• With the end of the war in 1902 and the creation
  of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the Boers
  were integrated into the British Dominion and
  came to dominate it.

24
The British Empire
25
The British Empire, 1914
26
The French Empire

• In the 1870s, the French extended their colonial
  control over North and Western Africa.
• Algeria was made a full colony, with large
  numbers of French settlers moving in to farm.
• Control was then extended to Tunisia and Morocco
  and large amounts of territory in French West
  Africa, Senegal, Guinea and the Ivory Coast, as
  well as Madagascar
• In Asia, French Indochina was colonized.

27
Anglo-French Conflict in Sudan

• An uprising in the Sudan under the leadership of
  the infamous Mahdi threatened British interests.
• General Charles Gordon reached Khartoum in 1884
  to evacuate the garrison but was besieged by the
  Madhi, the British troops were massacred.
• In 1897, Lord Kitchener retook Khartoum. He then
  set off down the Nile with a flotilla of gunboats
  to confront French General Marchand at Fashoda.
  This precipitated the Fashoda Crisis when,
  ultimately unable to face a naval war with
  Britain, the French backed down.

28
Scramble for Africa Leopold II

• In the 1870s, King Leopold II of Belgium began
  the process of creating a personal colony in the
  Congo Basin, the Berlin Conference made his
  acquisitions legal. Leopold used forced labor in
  the production of rubber, ivory and minerals.
• As international protests intensified, the
  Belgian government took control of the Belgian
  Congo in 1908.

29
Scramble for Africa Berlin Conference

• Intense rivalries among Belgium, France, Germany,
  Great Britain, Italy, Spain, and Portugal for
  additional African territory, and ill-defined
  boundaries of their various holdings, instigate
  the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 (organized by
  Bismarck)
• Powers defined their spheres of influence and
  laid down rules for future occupation on the
  coasts of Africa.
• No African states were invited to the Berlin
  conference, and none signed these agreements.

30
Africa
31
Imperialism in China

• By the end of the 19th century, every major
  European power had established spheres of
  influence in China.
• The weakening of the Manchu dynasty made the
  situation worse.
• The newly industrial and imperialistic Japanese
  defeated the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese war of
  1894-95, seceding further control of Chinas
  territory.

32
Imperialism in China
33
Migration

• At the same time Europeans were colonizing for
  nationalism, riches and religion, massed of
  people were migrating from Europe to other areas
  of the world.
• Estimates say that over 25 million people
  migrated from Europe between 1875 to 1914.
• Nearly half migrated to the Americas, others went
  to Australia, Africa, and Asia.

34
Effects of Imperialism

• European imperialism had dramatic impact on
  Europe and the wider world.
• European society was altered due to its
  predominate position, economic benefits and
  costs, external influences, and competition among
  states.
• The colonized world was drastically changed, with
  European cultural, economic, and political ideas
  becoming the global norm.
• The positives and negatives for both sides are
  still very much debated today and still affect
  todays world.