10.04 - Imperialism

Afrikaners

a South African of Dutch ancestry

Berlin Conference

(1884-1885) was a meeting held in Berlin, Germany and organized by Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, during which European countries decided how they were going to divide up Africa for colonization

Boer Wars

(1880-1881; 1899-1902) conflict between Afrikaners (Boers) and the British over land where diamonds and gold were discovered; the British defeated the Afrikaners, but soon after the Afrikaners retained power in South Africa

Boxer Rebellion

(1900) a conflict in which a group of religious Chinese nationalists opposed to foreign influence in the country attacked and killed missionaries and other foreign officials, and invaded the capital before being defeated by an international force of soldiers from imperial countries

British East India Company

a trading company that was given the exclusive right to trade with India from the British government in the 1600s and who expanded their power to control most of India until being replaced by the British government in 1858

British Empire

the collective name for the lands formerly ruled by the British monarch

Cecil Rhodes

(1853-1902) a British businessman and politician who was the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony in modern day South Africa; he founded Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe and Zambia)

colonization

the process of dominating a country's political, economic, and/or cultural life

Congo Free State

a region of central Africa, today known as the Democratic Republic of Congo that was controlled by Belgium

famine

a great lack of food over a wide area

imperialism

another term for colonialism; the domination by one country of the political, economic, and/or cultural life of another country or region. Countries or regions controlled by another country are called colonies

Industrial Revolution

the period in which the production of goods shifted from hand production methods to complex machines. This period of industrialization resulted in social and economic changes. The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain around 1750. The process of industrialization spread throughout the world in the following centuries.

manufactured goods

items produced from raw materials

market

an area for buying and selling goods

missionary

a person sent to promote a religion in a foreign place

Natives' Land Act

(1913) a law in the Union of South Africa that restricted African land ownership to "reserves" that segregated black and white South Africans and gave white people more and higher quality land

natural resources

materials the occur in nature and can be used for economic gain (to make money) like forests, water, fertile land, oil, or coal

Opium Wars

(1839-1842; 1856-1860) two wars fought in the mid-19th century between China and the British Empire over the British trade of opium and China's independence

raw materials

an item (usually a natural resource) used to create manufactured goods

Rudyard Kipling

(1865-1936) was a British short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Scramble for Africa

(1881-1914) a period of time during which European countries competed for control over African land and resources

Sepoy Rebellion

(1857-1858) was a revolt of soldiers employed by the British East India Company against the Company, also known as India's First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, and the Indian Rebellion of 1857

Social Darwinism

a theory that was popular in the United States and European nations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries based on a misreading of the work of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) that states that people are engaged in a competition or "struggle for survival" in which the weakest people and nations would be destroyed and dominated while the strong grew in power and influence some people thought that inferiority was based on skin color and used the theory to justify imperialism

sphere of influence

a country or an area of a country that another country has the power to affect what happens there

Treaty of Nanjing

(1842) the agreement signed at the end of the first Opium War that was the first of many unequal treaties China was forced to sign in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

unequal treaty

an agreement that greatly favors one country over another

westernize

to make something or someone more European or American

White Man's Burden

the popular idea in the 19th and 20th centuries that that Europeans and people of European descent (like Americans) had the responsibility to bring their culture to other parts of the world to "civilize" them. The term was coined by Rudyard Kipling in at 1899 poem entitled "The White Man's Burden."

Zulu

an ethnic group in Southern Africa