APWH Strayer Chapter 10 Vocabulary

Scientific Racism

the use of scientific theories to support or validate racist attitudes or worldviews; also, to support classification of human beings into distinct biological races

Civilizing Missions

the concept that Western nations could bring advanced science and economic development to non-Western parts of the world that justified imperial administration

Social Darwinism

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

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.

Boer War

Lasting from 1899 to 1902, Dutch colonists and the British competed for control of territory in South Africa.

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.

Indian Rebellion of 1857-58

Indian rebellion against the English East India Company to bring religious purification, an egalitarian society, and local and communal solidarity without the interference of British rule.

Sepoys

Indian troops who served in the British army

Maji Maji Rebellion

Rebellion (1905) of east Africans that sought to defeat the Germans through traditional magic.

Bwana

Swahili word that means "master" or "boss"

Apartheid

A social policy or racial segregation involving political and economic and legal discrimination against non-whites.

Statute Labor

a practice in which natives in European colonies were obligated to work for the state. The work was often hard and officials abusive

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.

Leopold II of Belgium

governor of the Congo Free State who authorized private companies to cruely force villagers to collect rubber in the forest. This practice didn't allow for the villagers to grow food for themselves, and they were often killed or maimed if there was no more rubber

Cultivation System

Peasants were forced to cultivate specified cash crops and meet tax requirements by the state, helped the Dutch but really hurt the natives

Royal Africa Company

English trading company that traded in enslaved people, gold, and ivory along the West African coast.

Swami Vivekananda

Leading religious figure of nineteenth-century India (1863-1902); advocate of a revived Hinduism and its mission to reach out to the spiritually impoverished West.

Edward Blyden

Prominent West African scholar and political leader (1832-1912) who argued that each civilization, including that of Africa, has its own unique contribution to make to the world.