Chapter 26: Varieties of Imperialism in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, 1750-1914

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from Chapter 26 and 27 on varieties of Imperialism in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, as well as new power balances and social changes.

Zulu kingdom

A powerful kingdom created by Shaka in southeastern Africa in 1818, known for its strict military drill and close-combat tactics.

Shaka

An upstart military leader (r. 1818–1828) who created the Zulu kingdom in southeastern Africa.

Afrikaners

South Africans descended from Dutch and French settlers of the seventeenth century, who founded new settler colonies in the nineteenth century with their 'Great Trek' and held political power after 1910, imposing apartheid after 1949.

Great Trek

A migration between 1836 and 1839 where Afrikaners left British-ruled Cape Colony for the fertile high veld to the north, establishing new settler colonies.

Cecil Rhodes

British entrepreneur and politician (1853-1902) involved in the expansion of the British Empire from South Africa into Central Africa. He made his fortune in diamond fields and founded De Beers Consolidated.

Boer War (South African War)

A conflict from 1899 to 1902 between the British and Afrikaners (also called Boers) over British attempts to annex the republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State.

Union of South Africa

Created in 1910 by European settlers, where Afrikaners emerged as the dominating element, leading to a system of racial segregation and oppression with the Natives Land Act of 1913.

Usuman dan Fodio

A Muslim scholar (1745-1817) who led a reform movement in the Hausa states (northern Nigeria), condemning existing Muslim rulers and calling for forcible conquest to enforce Islamic laws.

Sokoto Caliphate

A large Muslim state founded in 1809 in what is now northern Nigeria, created by Usuman dan Fodio, and which became a center of Islamic learning and reform.

King Leopold II

King of Belgium (r. 1865–1909) who encouraged the exploration of Central Africa and became the ruler of the Congo Free State until 1908.

Henry Morton Stanley

British American explorer of Africa who helped King Leopold II establish the Congo Free State by setting up trading posts along the Congo River.

Savorgnan de Brazza

Franco-Italian explorer who, serving the French government, claimed part of equatorial Africa for France and founded Brazzaville in 1880.

Berlin Conference

A conference called by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1884 and 1885 to set rules for the partition of Africa, leading to 'effective occupation' and the division of the continent among European powers.

Modernization

The process of reforming political, military, economic, social, and cultural traditions in imitation of the early success of Western societies, often without regard for accommodating local traditions in non-Western societies.

Muhammad Ali

Ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1849, who initiated a series of reforms aimed at creating a modern Egypt, leading to population growth and expanded trade with Europe.

Ismail

Muhammad Ali's grandson (r. 1863–1879) who focused on westernizing Egypt, increasing European advisors and debt, and developing infrastructure like the Suez Canal.

Suez Canal

A ship canal dug across the isthmus of Suez in Egypt, designed by Ferdinand de Lesseps. It opened to shipping in 1869, shortening the sea voyage between Europe and Asia and leading to British occupation of Egypt in 1882.

Téwodros II

Emperor of Ethiopia (r. 1833–1868) who purchased modern weapons and encouraged local weapons manufacture, but whose actions led to a British invasion and his suicide.

Menelik II

Emperor of Ethiopia (r. 1889–1911) who enlarged Ethiopia and famously defeated an Italian invasion at Adowa in 1896, utilizing modern European and American weapons.

Legitimate trade

Exports from Africa in the nineteenth century that did not include the newly outlawed slave trade, such as palm oil, used by British manufacturers.

Recaptives

Africans rescued by Britain's Royal Navy from the illegal slave trade of the nineteenth century and restored to free status, often settled in Sierra Leone.

Samuel Adjai Crowther

Freed from a slave ship in 1821, he became the first Anglican bishop in West Africa in 1864.

Liberia

A settlement founded in 1821 by free black Americans, which grew into a republic, serving as a place of liberty at a time when slavery was legal in the United States.

Maratha Confederation

A coalition of states in central India that, by mid-eighteenth century, controlled more land than the weakened Mughal Empire.

Nawabs

A term used for Muslim princes who were nominally deputies of the Mughal emperor, but carved out powerful states of their own as the Mughal Empire weakened.

Sepoys

Indigenous soldiers in South Asia, especially in the service of the British trading companies, who formed private armies that held the balance of power in divided India.

East India Company (EIC)

A British trading company that gained the right to rule Bengal in 1765 and, by 1818, had annexed large territories to form the core of the 'Bombay Presidency'.

British raj

The rule over much of South Asia between 1765 and 1947 by the East India Company and then by a British government, aiming to remake India on a British model.

Sepoy Rebellion (Mutiny)

The revolt of Indian soldiers in 1857 against certain practices that violated religious customs, shaking the British Empire to its core.

Durbars

Elaborate displays of political power and wealth in British India in the nineteenth century, ostensibly in imitation of Mughal Empire pageantry, used by viceroys to impress Indians.

Indian Civil Service (ICS)

The elite professional class of officials who administered the government of British India, originally composed exclusively of well-educated British men, but gradually adding qualified Indians.

Rammohun Roy

A Western-educated Bengali from a Brahmin family (1772–1833), who promoted Pan-Indian nationalism and founded the Brahmo Samaj to reconcile Western values with Indian religious traditions.

Brahmo Samaj

(Divine Society) Founded in 1828 by Rammohun Roy, it attracted Indians seeking to reconcile Western values with Indian religious traditions, advocating reforms of Hindu customs.

Indian National Congress

A movement and political party founded in 1885 to demand greater Indian participation in government. Its membership was middle class, and its demands were modest until World War I.

Singapore

A new free port established in 1824 by Thomas Stamford Raffles on the site of a small Malay fishing village, which became a paramount center of trade and shipping between the Indian Ocean and China.

Siam (now Thailand)

A kingdom that successfully thwarted Burmese advances in 1785 and remained an independent kingdom despite British expansion in neighboring Burma.

Acheh

A region in northern Sumatra that supplied half the world's black pepper production, where the Dutch fought a ferocious war between 1873 and 1913 against its warriors, inspired by Islamic jihad.

Maori

The indigenous people of New Zealand, who practiced hunting, fishing, and simple agriculture, and whose population was decimated by unfamiliar diseases after European contact.

Emilio Aguinaldo

Leader of the Filipino independence movement (1895–1898) against Spain, who proclaimed the independence of the Philippines in 1899, but whose movement was crushed by the United States Army in 1901.

Platt Amendment

An amendment forced upon the Cuban government by the United States in 1901, giving the U.S. the 'right to intervene' to maintain order on the island, effectively making Cuba an American protectorate.

Panama Canal

A ship canal cut across the isthmus of Panama by United States Army engineers, opened in 1914. It greatly shortened the sea voyage between the east and west coasts of North America.

Haciendas

Large estates in Mexico, where wealthy families of Spanish origin owned 85 percent of the land, and peasants, including mestizos and indigenous people, worked for survival.

Mestizos

People of mixed Indian and European ancestry in Mexico, who were generally peasants working on haciendas or small communal plots.

Porfirio Díaz

General (1830–1915) who ruled Mexico for thirty-four years (1876–1910) under the motto 'Liberty, Order, Progress,' benefiting rich landowners and foreign investors at the expense of average Mexicans.

Mexican Revolution

A complicated series of revolts beginning in 1910 aimed at reducing social inequality and establishing constitutional government in Mexico, leading to a new constitution in 1917.

Francisco I. Madero

American-educated son of a wealthy landowning and mining family (1873–1913) who sparked the Mexican Revolution in 1910 by opposing Díaz and was elected his successor, but was assassinated in 1913.

Emiliano Zapata

Revolutionary and leader of peasants (1879-1919) in the Mexican Revolution. He mobilized landless peasants in south-central Mexico to seize and divide lands of wealthy landowners, though he was ultimately defeated and assassinated.

Francisco “Pancho” Villa

A popular leader (1877-1923) during the Mexican Revolution, who, as a former ranch hand, mule driver, and bandit, organized a cavalry army in northern Mexico and fought for the rights of the landless.

Spanish-American War

War fought in 1898 to expand American imperial possessions. The Treaty of Paris confirmed U.S. control of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and made Cuba an independent republic subject to U.S. interference.

Gutta-percha

The sap of a Southeast Asian tree, used to insulate electric cables, becoming a commercially valuable forest product in demand by industrializing nations.

Cinchona

The source of the antimalarial drug quinine, introduced and vastly expanded in tropical colonies by European botanists, illustrating the application of economic botany in imperialism.

Indentured labor

A voluntary agreement binding a person to work for a specified period of years in return for free passage to an overseas destination. After 1800, most indentured laborers were Asians, migrating to plantations and mines.

Railroads

Networks of iron (later steel) rails on which steam (later electric or diesel) locomotives pulled long trains at high speeds. Their development, starting in the 1830s in England, caused a building boom globally, transforming landscapes and economies.

Submarine telegraph cables

Insulated copper cables laid along the bottom of a sea or ocean for telegraphic communication. The first successful transatlantic cable was laid in 1866, revolutionizing international communication and commerce.

Steel

A form of iron that is both durable and flexible, first mass-produced in the 1860s. It quickly became the most widely used metal in construction, machinery, and railroad equipment, due to new production processes.

Alfred Nobel

Swedish scientist who, in 1866, found a way to turn dangerous nitroglycerin into a stable solid called dynamite, which proved useful in mining, construction, and armaments.

Electricity

A form of energy used in telegraphy from the 1840s on and for lighting, industrial motors, and railroads beginning in the 1880s, radically changing people's lives and increasing productivity.

Michael Faraday

Englishman who, in 1831, showed that the motion of a copper wire through a magnetic field induced an electric current in the wire, laying the foundation for electric generators.

Thomas Edison

American inventor (1847–1931) best known for inventing the electric light bulb (incandescent lamp) in 1879 and creating the world's first electrical distribution network in New York City in 1882.

Victorian Age

The period from about 1850 to 1901, referring to the reign of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and the rigid moral standards and sharply differentiated roles for men and women, especially of the middle class.

Separate spheres

A nineteenth-century idea in Western societies that men and women, especially of the middle class, should have clearly differentiated roles: women as wives, mothers, and homemakers; men as breadwinners and participants in business and politics.

Socialism

A political ideology originated in Europe in the 1830s. Socialists advocated government protection of workers from exploitation by property owners and government ownership of industries, leading to labor parties.

Labor unions

Organizations of workers in a particular industry or trade, created to defend the interests of members through strikes or negotiations with employers, focusing on higher wages and better working conditions.

Karl Marx

German journalist and philosopher (1818-1883), founder of the Marxist branch of socialism. Known for 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' and 'Das Kapital,' he believed industrial capitalism would lead to a revolution by the proletariat.

Proletariat

Industrial workers, who, according to Karl Marx, would ultimately lead a revolution to end capitalism and create a social order of equitable distribution of wealth and scientific progress.

Mikhail Bakunin

Russian intellectual (1814-1876) and anarchist, a political rival of Karl Marx. He argued that peasants and other exploited groups also had revolutionary potential and dismissed Marx's faith in a worker's government as inherently oppressive.

Anarchists

Revolutionaries who believed that revolution could be achieved through direct action by individuals and small groups ('propaganda of the deed') to abolish all private property and governments, usually by violence.

Nationalism

A political ideology stressing people's membership in a nation (community defined by common culture/history/territory). It was a force for unity in West Europe (late 18th/early 19th c.) and hastened disintegration of Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires (late 19th c.).

Liberalism

A political ideology emphasizing citizens' civil rights, representative government, and private property protection. Derived from the Enlightenment, it was popular among property-owning middle classes in Europe and North America.

Giuseppe Mazzini

Italian liberal (1805–1872) and leading intellectual among Italian patriots, who dedicated his life to promoting unification and republicanism, founding the 'Young Italy' organization.

Count Camillo Benso di Cavour

The prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia (1810-1861) who used geopolitical rivalry with France and Austria to instigate war and unify northern and central Italy under a moderate constitutional monarchy.

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Italian nationalist and revolutionary (1807-1882) who conquered Sicily and Naples with his followers in 1860, intending to found a democratic republic, but was eventually sidelined in favor of Piedmont-Sardinia's monarchy.

Otto von Bismarck

Chancellor (prime minister) of Prussia (1862-1871) and later of Germany (until 1890). A conservative nationalist, he led Prussia to victory against Austria (1866) and France (1870), responsible for the German Empire's creation.

Wilhelm II

Grandson of Wilhelm I (r. 1888–1918), an insecure and arrogant German emperor who dismissed Bismarck and pursued a belligerent 'global policy,' demanding a colonial empire and contributing to Great Power rivalries that led to World War I.

Social Darwinists

Philosopher Herbert Spencer and others who superficially applied Charles Darwin's ideas of 'natural selection' and 'survival of the fittest' to human societies, creating pseudo-scientific theories to justify social and racial inequalities and imperialism.

Charles Darwin

English biologist (1809-1882) whose 1859 book 'On the Origin of the Species' challenged religious beliefs by arguing that all life forms evolved through natural selection or became extinct over vast periods of time.

Tokugawa Shogunate

The secular government under a military leader (shogun) that governed Japan from 1600, with its capital in Edo (modern Tokyo), until its overthrow in 1868.

Treaty of Kanagawa

A treaty signed in 1854 by representatives of the Japanese shogun, modeled on unequal treaties with China, after Commodore Matthew C. Perry's demand to open Japanese ports to trade, leading to internal political crisis.

Meiji Restoration

The political program following the destruction of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, where young leaders set Japan on a path of centralization, industrialization, and imperialism, transforming the country into a world power.

Zaibatsu

Large Japanese industrial and financial conglomerates, like Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Yasuda, and Mitsui, which controlled most of Japan's industry and commerce after the government sold state enterprises to private investors post-1881.

Yamagata Aritomo

A leader of the Meiji oligarchs who believed that for Japan to be independent, it needed a 'sphere of influence' including Korea, Manchuria, and parts of China, laying out the path to Japanese imperialism.

Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)

A war fought between Japan and China over Korea, resulting in Japan's clear victory. China was forced to evacuate Korea, cede Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula, and pay a heavy indemnity.

Boxer Uprising

Antiforeign riots encouraged by Chinese officials (including Empress Dowager Cixi) in 1900, where the Righteous Fists (Boxers) threatened foreign legations in Beijing, ultimately put down by an international force.

Young Turks

A group of officers in the Ottoman army who blamed Sultan Abdul Hamid II for the empire's decline and plotted to force him to reinstate a suspended constitution, later overthrowing him in 1909 and advocating Turkification.

Triple Alliance

An alliance formed in 1882 between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, standing at the center of Europe's divided power blocs prior to World War I.

Entente

An 'understanding' reached in 1904 between Britain and France, later joined by Russia in 1907, forming one of the two major power blocs in Europe prior to World War I.

Western Front

A line of trenches and fortifications in World War I that stretched without a break for over 300 miles from Switzerland to the North Sea, becoming the scene of most of the fighting between Germany, France, and Britain.

Battle of Jutland

A naval confrontation in May 1916 between the German High Seas Fleet and the British Grand Fleet off the coast of Denmark, where both sides lost roughly equal numbers of ships.

Lusitania

A British ocean liner that was sunk by a German submarine in early 1915, killing 1,198 people, including 139 Americans, leading to U.S. protests and a temporary halt in Germany's submarine campaign.

Bolsheviks

A radical Marxist political party founded by Vladimir Lenin in 1903. Under Lenin's leadership, they seized power in November 1917 during the Russian Revolution and won the civil war that followed.

Vladimir Lenin

Leader of the Bolshevik (later Communist) Party (1870–1924) who spent years in exile before returning to Russia in 1917 to lead the Bolsheviks to victory in the Russian Revolution and the subsequent civil war.

Provisional Government (Russia)

Formed by leaders of parliamentary parties in Russia in March 1917 after the tsar's abdication, following the February Revolution, but ultimately overthrown by the Bolsheviks.

February Revolution (Russia)

Began in early March 1917 when food ran out in Petrograd, leading to mass demonstrations, soldiers' mutinies, and the formation of soviets, culminating in the tsar's abdication and the formation of the Provisional Government.

October Revolution (Russia)

The Bolsheviks' seizure of power in Petrograd on November 6, 1917, during which they overthrew the Provisional Government and arrested Mensheviks and other rivals.

Cheka

A secret police force created by Lenin to enforce Bolshevik rule, with powers to arrest and execute opponents, used to nationalize land and factories.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

A peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the Bolsheviks and Germany/Austria-Hungary, resulting in Russia losing territories containing a third of its population and wealth, and the independence of Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states.

Woodrow Wilson

President of the United States (1913–1921) and leading figure at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. He proposed the Fourteen Points peace program but was unable to persuade the U.S. Congress to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations.

Fourteen Points

A peace program presented by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in January 1918. It called for German evacuation of occupied lands, self-determination in territorial disputes, and founding an association of nations to preserve peace and territorial integrity.

Treaty of Versailles

The treaty imposed on Germany by France, Great Britain, the United States, and other Allied Powers after World War I. It demanded Germany dismantle its military, give up land to Poland, and pay reparations, leaving Germany humiliated but largely intact.

League of Nations

An international organization founded in 1919 to promote world peace and cooperation, proposed by President Wilson but weakened by the U.S. refusal to join. It proved ineffectual in stopping aggression in the 1930s and was superseded by the United Nations in 1945.