Strayer chapter 10

Scientific Racism

 A new kind of racism that emerged in the nineteenth century (1800s) that increasingly used the prestige and apparatus of science to support European racial prejudices and preferences.

Civilizing Mission

A European understanding of empire that emphasized Europeans’ duty to “civilize inferior races” by bringing Christianity, good government, education, work discipline, and production for the market to colonized peoples, while suppressing “native customs,” such as polygamy, that ran counter to Western ways of living.

Social Darwinism

An outlook that suggested that European dominance inevitably led to the displacement or destruction of backward peoples or “unfit” races; this view made imperialism, war, and aggression seem both natural and progressive.

Scramble for Africa

The process by which European countries partitioned the continent of Africa among themselves in the period 1875 - 1900.

Indian Rebellion of 1857-1858

Massive uprising of much of India against British rule caused by the introduction to the colony’s military forces of a new cartridge smeared with animal fat from pigs and cows, which caused strife among Muslims, who regarded pigs as unclean, and Hindus, who venerated cows. It came to express a variety of grievances against the colonial order.

Congo Free State

A private colony ruled personally by Leopold II, king of Belgium; it was the site of widespread forced labor and killing to ensure the collection of wild rubber; by 1908 these abuses led to reforms that transferred control to the Belgian government.

Cultivation System

System of forced labor used in the Netherlands East Indies in the nineteenth century (1800s); peasants were required to cultivate at least 20 percent of their land in cash crops, such as sugar or coffee, for sale at low and fixed prices to government contractors, who then earned enormous profits from resale of crops. 

Cash-Crop Production

Agricultural production of crops for sale in the market rather than for consumption by the farmers themselves; operated at the level of both individual farmers and large-scale plantations.