Week 3: Empire and Race

Empire

They are large, hierarchical, heterogenous polities that have a center power and rule over territories outside their original border.

Coronil (2007) defines them as relatively large geopolitical formations that establish domination by hierarchically differentiating populations across transregional boundaries.

Informal Empires

is a nation that exerts economic, cultural or political control over a nominally independent country without establishing direct territorial rule or formal colonial administration.

Such as when Wester powers forced China to open their border for trade and grant legal privileges after the Opium Wars.

Core-Periphery Model

‘hub and spoke’. This model contains a ‘core’ region (metropole) that extracts resources, wealth and power from a subordinate ‘periphery’. Power is a unindirectional and focus on material exploitation and hierarchical relations. Ex. Roman Empire

Network-and-Web Model

Multidirectional flows, with multiples centres of power and agents contesting and cooperating with one another. Highlights hybridization, pre-existing structures, complex relations. Ex. British Empire

Analytical Bifurcation

a way to organize social science in an artificial structure and divide analytical spaces such as European/non-European, state/society.

It divides social relations into binaries.

New Imperialism

rapid expansion of European empires in the 19th Century through wars, diplomatic domination and eonomic exploitation of the ‘non-West’.

Mostly territorial, economic penetration, industrial exploitation and brutal implementation of colonialism.

Suez Canal

British empire sought the shareholding of the canal and occupied Egypt to protect financial investments and strategic access. It also provided shorter route to India and military mobility.

Berlin Conference (1884)

International meeting hosted by Otto von Bismarck to regulate European colonization and trade in Africa.

It impacted on Africa creating arbitrary borders and accelerating colonization.

“Scramble for Africa”

the rapid invasion, occupation and colonization of African territory by European power(1880-1914).

From 10 to 90 percent of control of the territory.

White Man’ Burden

is the 19th C. ideological concept that asserted white Western nations has a moral obligation to rule over and ‘civilize’ non-white people.

Dutch East Indies

dutch colony compromising the modern day Indonesia (1800-1949).

It went from VOC (trading company) to colonial possession with plantations, infrastructure development and monopoly.

Congo Free State

large private colony owned by King Leopold II of Belgium (1885-1908).

It forced labor from the local Congolese and Publique Force -private military force to enforce strict work.

Millions died from violence, diseases and starvation.

Saint-Domingue

most lucrative colony of the French empire, 50% of coffee and 40% of sugar in Europe. It relied on brutal chattel slavery.

Society was divided between Grand Blancs, Petit Blancs, Free coloured and Noirs (enslaved).

Petit Blancs (Haiti)

“lesser whites”, artisan shopkeepers, overseers, clerks, etc.

They worked for wages or ran small business, resented the Grand Blancs.

They first revolted.

Free Coloured (Haiti)

mixed race individuals, many fathered by white landowners with enslaved women.

They grew substantially, acquired land and even owned slaves.

They were under discriminatory laws which kept them subordinated to whites.

W.E.B DuBois

American historian, sociologist and civil rights activist.

Domestically, he advocated for fuel civil rights, political representation and education.

Internationally, Pan-Africanist, organized conference to advocate for freedom of Africans in colonies.

Great Chain of Being

hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval islamic world and medieval christianity, to have been decreed by god.

Scientific Racism

pseudoscientific belief that there is empirical evidence(observed) to support or justify racial discrimination through claims of racial superiority and inferiority.

Haitian Revolution

historic and successful insurrection by enslaved Africans that overthrew French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue.

The revolution was unthinkable for Western thought.

The French parlament thought it was false news.

“resistance and defiance did not exist, since to acknowledge them was to acknowledge the humanity of the enslaved”, Michel-Rolp Troillot.

Race

is the idea that human specie are divided into distinct groups on the basis of inherited physical and behavioral differences.

It is imposed in cultural groupings. Attempting to biologize and naturalize social differences.

Racism

ideology of racial superiority underpins the concept of race. It was not present till 1500s to explain inequalities and then as religious justification for the 19th C. imperial world-system.

How did imperialism change compared with the 18th century? How did it change over the course of the long 19th century?

18th C.

• From trade to territorial control: In the 18th century, European powers often focused on trade, coastal trading posts, and controlling valuable resources. In the 19th century, they increasingly conquered and controlled large inland territories.

• From mercantilism to industrial capitalism: Earlier imperialism aimed to enrich European states through trade and precious metals. In the 19th century, industrial powers also sought raw materials, new markets, and places to invest their capital.

• From coastal settlements to global empires: European powers expanded their control across Africa and Asia rather than concentrating mainly on coastal areas and existing colonies.

• From commercial influence to direct rule: European states increasingly established colonial administrations, imposed their laws, and controlled local governments.

• Stronger ideological justifications: In the 19th century, imperialism was increasingly justified through nationalism, racism, Social Darwinism, and the claimed mission to spread Christianity and European civilization.

• Greater technological advantage: Industrialization brought steamships, railways, modern weapons, and improved communications, making conquest and administration easier.

19th C.

• Imperialism became more extensive, more technologically driven, and more closely connected to industrial capitalism and nationalism.

• European continued to relied on trade in existing colonies, however the American and Haitian revolution challenged the colonial rule and slavery.

• While slavery was abolished in some place by mid 19th C., forced labour continued as well as imperial expansion.

• Industrialization created more demand for raw materials with made the European power spread to Asia through, trade, military intervention and informal control.

• New Imperialism, by the end of 19th C.

What were the main driver of the New Colonialism of the 19th C.?

• Industrialization: European countries wanted cheap raw materials(cotton, minerals), new markets to trade with and places to invest their capital.

• Ideology: White man’ burden, nationalism (show prestige), social darwinism, ‘civilizing people’.

• Political: competition between Imperial powers, divert attention from domestic problems and encourage national pride.

• Strategic: military bases, protect trade routes and increase geopolitical influence

How is race and racism a historical process?

• Race is socially constructed, which means that change over the course of societies and thus over the devlopment of history.

• Slavery needed to be legitimized, and created biological differences to justified the unequal treatment. (scientific racism)

• The classification of race changed from one place to another, showing that racism is created, reinforced, challenged and transformed through historical events(imperialism) and changing in power relations (hierarchy).

Why is race fundamental to the international system of the 19th C.?

• Legitimized slavery

• helped organized global power relations (racial hierarchy, international law, unequal sovereignty)

-In which the European powers claim economic, political and cultural superiority.

• justified imperial expansion (white man’s burden)

How did the Haitian Revolution challenge this system?

European power did not think of enslave people as human, this it was impossible for them to revolt against a powerful state like France.

The hierarchical rule in Saint Domingue was unequal and forced labour, which made the enslaved people revolt against the French.

It was successful and they got their independence 1804.

Haiti threat imperial powers by showing an example of a population that revolted against colonial rule and won, challenging the sovereignty of their land as their.

Other colonial power feared now the revolt in their colonies, thus they refused to recognized or cooperate with the new state.