WHAP Unit 6

Imperialism

A policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force.

Social Darwinism

The application of ideas about evolution and "survival of the fittest" to human societies - particularly as a justification for their imperialist expansion.

Nationalism

A strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's country

White Man's Burden

idea that many European countries had a duty to spread their religion and culture to those less "civilized" based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling

Civilizing Mission

The notion that colonialism was a duty for Europeans and a benefit for the colonized.

Direct Rule

system of colonial government in which the imperialist power controlled all levels of government and appointed its own officials to govern the colony.

Indirect Rule

Colonial government in which local rulers are allowed to maintain their positions of authority and status

Europeans, USA and Japan

Who were the leaders of the "New Imperialism" 1750-1900

Spain and Portugal

Whose influenced declined between 1750-1900?

Settler Colonies

Colonies in which the colonizing people settled in large numbers, rather than simply spending relatively small numbers to exploit the region; particularly noteworthy in the case of the British colonies in North America, South Africa, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Scramble for Africa

Sudden wave of conquests in Africa by European powers in the 1880s and 1890s. Britain obtained most of eastern Africa, France most of northwestern Africa. Other countries (Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, and Spain) acquired lesser amounts.

Berlin Conference

A meeting from 1884-1885 at which representatives of European nations agreed on rules colonization of Africa without input from Africans

Sepoy Rebellion (1857)

Rumor spread that stated the cartridges of guns were greased with cow fat (offended Hindus) and pig fat (offended Muslims), troops than refused to use the guns, British arrested them an a rebellion began. An illustrative example of an indigenous response to state expansion.

Zulu Kingdom

Founded by Shaka Zulu in southeastern Africa. Conquest was made possible with highly trained soldiers and short, stabbing spears. An illustrative example of the creation of a new state and anti-imperial resistance.

Indentured Servants

People who could not afford passage to the colonies could become indentured servants. Another person would pay their passage, and in exchange, the indentured servant would serve that person for a set length of time (usually seven years) and then would be free.

ethnic enclave

A place with a high concentration of an ethnic group that is distinct from those in the surrounding area (ex: Chinatown);

a result of migration movements driven by industrialization

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States

White Australia Policy

A policy that intentionally restricted non-white immigration to Australia

Economic Imperialism

Independent but less developed nations controlled by private business interests rather than by other governments. Also known as neocolonialism.

King Leopold II

the Belgian king who opened up the African interior to European trade along the Congo River and by 1884 controlled the area known as the Congo Free State

Dutch East India Company

Government-chartered joint-stock company that controlled the spice trade in the East Indies.

Anticolonial movements

Examples would be the Indian Revolt of 1857 and the Boxer Rebellion. 1750 CE-1914CE.

Tupac Amaru II

Member of Inca aristocracy who led a rebellion against Spanish authorities in Peru in 1780-1781. He was captured and executed with his wife and other members of his family.

Yaa Asantewaa War

a war between the Asante and the British in 1900

Sokoto Caliphate

A new state founded in 1809 by Uthman dan Fodio, this African state was based on Islamic history and law.

Cherokee Nation

Native American tribe that was forced to leave their land because of the Indian Removal Act.


1. adopted "white" customs including dress, some were wealthy farm owners and cattle ranchers
2. had their own language and newspaper
3. established its own constitution


3. fought for sovereignty and won under Supreme Court ruling

Ghost Dance Movement

a Native American movement that peacefully called for a return to traditional ways of life and challenged white dominance in society

Xhosa Cattle Killing Movement

Pivotal movement that broke the back of the Xhosa and ushered in a new era of colonial expansion and domination of South Africa by the British. The prophecy was that killing all cattle would bring back ancient chiefs and ancestors.

Resource Export Economies

- Cotton production in Egypt
- Rubber Extraction in the Amazon and the Congo Basin
- Palm oil trade in West Africa
- Guano industries in Peru and Chilie
- Meat from Argentina and Uruguay
- Diamonds from Africa

Opium War (1839-1842)

War between Britain and China over trading rights, particularly Britain's desire to continue selling opium to Chinese traders. The resulting trade agreement prompted Americans to seek similar concessions from the Chinese.

Which migrants in this period returned?

- Japanese agricultural workers in the pacific

- Lebanese merchants in the Americas

- Italian industrial worker in Argentina

Migrant ethnic enclaves

- Chinese in Southeast Asia

- the Caribbean, South America, and North America

- Indians in East and Southern Africa

- the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia

- Irish in North America

- Italians in North and South America

Cecil Rhodes

British entrepreneur and politician involved in the expansion of the British Empire from South Africa into Central Africa. The colonies of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) were named after him.

Economic Interests causing "New Imperialism"

- manufactures wanted access to more natural resources, as they were creating products faster as a result of the industrial revolution

- new markets for people to sell and an outlet for a growing population to migrate to

Political Motives causing "New Imperialism"

steam powered merchant and navy ships needed bases to resupply

increasing national security and stopping other nations from expanding

Humanitarian and Religious goals of "New Imperialism"

Many europeans felt concern for "Godless heathens" of the world

Westerners wanted to spread western culture and civilization

Environmental PUSH Factors of Migration

- limited natural resources
- famine
- pollutions, temperature extremes, illness

Human PUSH Factors for Migration

- poverty
- isolation
- oppressive situations

Ideological PUSH Factors for Migration

perception of lesser freedoms or persecution

Enviromental PULL Factors for Migration

- availability of in-demand natural resources
- suitable land
- temperate environment, reduced exposure to disease

Human PULL Factors for Migration

- employment opportunities
- easy communication or transportation via rivers or roads
- favorable social structure or access to family and friends

Ideological PULL Factors for Migration

- greater freedoms or reduced persecution

indigenous people

people with a cultural or historical territory before the beginning of modern governments organizing borders.

Samori Toure

fought French forces in West Africa where he was building his own empire

Guano

A highly effective fertilizer made from bird or bat poop. It became a major commodity traded globally in the 19th century from industries in Peru and Chile

Commodities leading to European + American economic Advantage

- Cotton grown in South Asia and Egypt and exported to Great Britain and other European countries
- Opium produced in the Middle East or South Asia and exported to China
- Palm oil produced in sub-Saharan Africa and exported to European countries
- Copper extracted in Chile

Urbanization of cities - 19th Century

Migration and new modes of transportation led to an increase in Urbanization as people relocated to cities, while allowing them to permanently or periodically return to their home societies.

New Imperialism

Historians' term for the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century wave of conquests by European powers, the United States, and Japan, which were followed by the development and exploitation of the newly conquered territories.

Convict labor

Public service for criminals which displayed disciplinary methods and created living and working conditions reminiscent of slavery where prisoners were housed and treated like animals with a high mortality rate.

Sino-Japanese War

(1894-1895) Japan's imperialistic war against China to gain control of natural resources and markets for their goods. It ended with the Treaty of Portsmouth which granted Japan Chinese port city trading rights, control of Manchuria, the annexation of the island of Sakhalin, and Korea became its protectorate.

Formosa

Former name of Taiwan

Phrenologists

Those who attempted to describe personality by feeling the bumps on a person's skull

Charles Darwin

English naturalist. He studied the plants and animals of South America and the Pacific islands, and in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) set forth his theory of evolution.

Herbert Spencer

English philosopher and sociologist who applied the theory of natural selection to human societies (1820-1903)

David Livingstone

A Scottish explorer and missionary who hoped to open the African interior to trade and Christianity and to end slavery...found Dr. Watson.

East India Company

British joint-stock company that grew to be a state within a state in India it possessed its own armed forces.

Quinine

a drug used for fighting malaria and other fevers

Suez Canal

A human-made waterway, which was opened in 1869, connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea

Corvee Labor

unpaid forced labor usually by lower classes, forced upon them by the government

European Imperialism

The political and economic control by European powers of areas in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.

Boers

Also known as Afrikaners, the sector of the white population of South Africa that was descended from early Dutch settlers.

Boer Wars

Wars between the Dutch and British in Africa. A sort of cold war between the two powers. The Dutch wanted slavery but the English didn't

Afrikaners

South Africans descended from Dutch and French settlers of the seventeenth century. Their Great Trek founded new settler colonies in the nineteenth century. Though a minority among South Africans, they held political power after 1910.

Concentration Camps

Detention centers for civilians considered enemies of the state

Congo Free State

a large area in Central Africa that was privately controlled by Leopold II of Belgium. He was able to secretly treat the people of the colony very badly until he was forced to give it up.

Abyssinia

The ancient name for Ethiopia. One of only two African countries/kingdoms that were not conquered by European powers during this time period.

Liberia

A West African nation founded in 1822 by the American Colonization Society to serve as a homeland for free blacks to settle

Seven Years War

(1756-1763)-Worldwide struggle between France and Great Britain for power and control of land. The American theater of the war came to be called the "French & Indian War".

Spheres of Influence

Areas in which countries have some political and economic control but do not govern directly (ex. Europe, Japan, and U.S. in China during 19th century)

Taiping Rebellion

The Taiping Rebellion was a massive civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted from 1850 to 1864.

After fighting the bloodiest civil war in world history, with 20 to 30 million dead, the Qing government won decisively, although at a great price to its fiscal and political structure.

The uprising was commanded by Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka (a Han subgroup) and the self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ. Its goals were religious, nationalist, and political in nature and included the following:

*Hong Xiuquan sought the conversion of the Han people to a syncretic version of Christianity, Daoism, & Confucianism

*To overthrow the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty

*A state transformation--Rather than supplanting the ruling class, the Taipings sought to upend the moral and social order of China.

The Taipings established the Heavenly Kingdom as an oppositional state based in Tianjing (now Nanjing) and gained control of a significant part of southern China, eventually expanding to command a population base of nearly 30 million people.

Empress Dowager Cixi

Ultraconservative Empress of Qing China and mother of Emperor Guangxi. She put her son under house arrest, supported anti-foreign movements like the so-called Boxers, and resisted reforms of the Chinese government and armed forces. She ruled China in the turbulent late 19th century, not as a true Empress but as an Empress Dowager.

Boxer Rebellion

1899 rebellion in Beijing, China, started by a secret society of Chinese who opposed the "foreign devils". The rebellion was ended by British, American, German, and Japanese troops.

Commodore Matthew Perry

A navy commander who, on July 8, 1853, became the first foreigner to break through the barriers that had kept Japan isolated from the rest of the world for 250 years.

Meiji Restoration

In 1868, a Japanese state-sponsored industrialization and westernization effort that also involved the elimination of the Shogunate and power being handed over to the Japanese Emperor, who had previously existed as mere spiritual/symbolic figure.

Colonization Society

Partly to relieve population pressures in rural areas and partly to gain knowledge of foreign places, Japan's government formed a program/group in 1893 to establish colonies in Mexico and Latin America.

Japan set up an empire in East Asia that included parts of China, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Pacific islands that lasted from the 1890s until the end of WWII in 1945.

Indochina

a French colony comprised of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam; it won independence from France in 1954

Malaya

British colony conquered in the 1870s which provided abundant supplies of tin rubber. Gained independence as 'Malaysia' in the mid 20th century.

Siam

The Kingdom of \_____, known today as Thailand, remained relatively independent during through the nineteenth century because they served as a buffer between the colonies of Britain and France in Indochina.

Dutch East Indies

Colony controlled by the Dutch East India company exported cash crops of sugar, tea, coffee, and tobacco, plus rubber and tin making it a valuable colony. Gained independence as 'Indonesia' in the mid 20th century.

Penal Colony of Australia

A remote colony to which British convicts were sent as an alternative to prison.

Maori

New Zealand indigenous culture established around 800 CE

Indian Territory

Area that is now Oklahoma and parts of Kansas and Nebraska to which Native Americans were moved

Trail of Tears

The Cherokee Indians were forced to leave their lands. They traveled from North Carolina and Georgia through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas-more than 800 miles (1,287 km)-to the Indian Territory. More than 4, 00 Cherokees died of cold, disease, and lack of food during the 116-day journey.

Monroe Doctrine

1823 - Declared that Europe should not interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere and that any attempt at interference by a European power would be seen as a threat to the U.S.

It also declared that a New World colony which has gained independence may not be recolonized by Europe. (It was written at a time when many South American nations were gaining independence).

Mostly just a show of nationalism, the doctrine had no major impact until later in the 1800s.

Manifest Destiny

A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.

Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War (April 21 - August 13, 1898) was an armed conflict between the empire of Spain and the United States. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence.

The war led to the U.S. emerging predominant in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions. It led to U.S. involvement in the Philippine Revolution and later to the Philippine-American War.

The main issue was Cuban independence. Revolts had been occurring for some years in Cuba against Spanish colonial rule. The U.S. backed these revolts upon entering the Spanish-American War.

The war ended with the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the U.S. It ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine islands from Spain to the U.S. and granted the U.S. temporary control of Cuba. The cession of the Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($620 million today) to Spain by the U.S. to cover infrastructure owned by Spain.

The defeat and loss of the Spanish Empire's last remnants was a profound shock to Spain's national psyche and provoked a thorough philosophical and artistic reevaluation of Spanish society known as the Generation of '98.

The United States meanwhile not only became a major power, but also gained several island possessions spanning the globe, which provoked rancorous debate over the wisdom of expansionism.

Roosevelt Corollary

Roosevelt's 1904 extension of the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the United States has the right to intervene and protect its economic interests in South & Central America by using military force, if necessary.

Catherine the Great

This was the empress of Russia who continued Peter's goal to Westernizing Russia, created a new law code, and greatly expanded Russia. She ruled from 1762 to 1796, added new lands, encouraged science, art, literature. Russia became one of Europe's most powerful nations.

Russian-American Company

Russian trading company that had monopoly over trade with and control of Alaska.

Seward's Icebox

Derogatory term that referred to territory of Alaska purchased from the Russians by U.S. Secretary of State William Seward.

The Great Game

Used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict in central Asia between the British Empire and the Russian Empire before WWI.

Balkan Peninsula

A large peninsula in southern Europe bounded by the Black, Aegean, and Adriatic seas. Includes the modern countries of Greece, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, etc.

Indian Removal Act

(1830) a congressional act that authorized the removal of Native Americans who lived east of the Mississippi River to reservations west of the Mississippi, including in the 'Indian Territory' now called Oklahoma.

Ghost Dance

A ritual and religious movement that tried to call the spirits of past warriors to inspire the young braves to fight. It was crushed at the Battle of Wounded Knee after spreading to the Dakota Sioux. The Ghost Dance led to the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. This act tried to reform Indian tribes and turn them into "white" citizens. It did little good.

Benito Juarez

Mexican national hero; brought liberal reforms to Mexico, including separation of church and state, land distribution to the poor, and an educational system for all of Mexico

Sepoys

Indian soldiers in the British army

Sepoy Rebellion

The revolt of Indian soldiers in 1857 against certain practices that violated religious customs; also known as the Sepoy Mutiny

British Raj

The name given to the period and territory of direct British colonial rule in South Asia between 1858 and 1947--from the time of the attempted Indian Revolt (Sepoy Mutiny) to the Independence of India.

Indian National Congress

Indian nationalist group formed to work for rights and power for Indians under British rule.

Philippine-American War

armed conflict between the Filipinos and the United States Army from 1899-1902. It was a continuation of the Philippine struggle for independence against Spain. The Philippines declared war on the US and it became a savage conflict with guerilla warfare. The war ended when Aguinaldo surrendered in 1902. The Philippines remained an American colony until after WWII, when it was granted independence in recognition of Filipino assistance fighting Japanese forces during the war.