AP World History - Unit 6

Rationales For Imperialism

Imperialism: the policy of extending a country's power and influence by exploiting another country through diplomacy or military force for economic gain

• Europeans often justified this through the “white mans burden”: believing they were biologically superior and colonization would help “inferior” people in the world.

Nationalist Motives for Imperialism:

With West Europe create various nation states as consequence to nationalist movements, imperials empires were able to help assert national control

European Nationalism: after losing American colonies, they controlled:

• Australia (New South Wales)

• The Indian Subcontinent

Similarly, France was able to compensate it’s loss with Prussia by expanding territory into North Africa and various Islands

Japanese Nationalism:

Sino-Japanese War:

• Japan began to assert itself into Korea, which upset the Chinese, who had a strong presence there as well.

• This conflict was won by the Japanese, who gained control of Korea.

• Japan later seized Taiwan (Formosa)

Cultural and Religious Motives for Imperialism:

Colonizers saw themselves as protectors rather than invaders:

Racial Ideologies and the Misuse of Science:

• Phrenologists: studied skull sizes and “proved” that Africans, Indigenous people, and Asians had small skull sizes, and therefore: mentally incompetent

• Social Darwinism: The adaptation of Darwin’s biological theory into society, and was used to justify imperialism and white superiority

Cultural Ideologies:

Colonial powers imposed their own culture onto diverse colonies and tribes as well as education and religious institutions

Religious Motives:

Main influence was Missionary work from Portuguese and Spanish. Missionaries often pointed out their ‘humanistic” efforts such as:

• Education

• Medical Care

• Some missionaries like David Livingstone worked to end the slave trade

Global Economic Development:

Natural resources, new markets, and low-wage labor drove economic imperialism.

Technological Developments:

Railroads:

• Before the introduction of railroads, transportation from the interiors of colonies to coastal ports was by water or by roads.

• Railroads helped lower shipping costs and open colonial markets

• Cecil Rhodes: invested in a railroad project connecting all of British African colonies; however British never gained control of all land, leading the project to fail

Steamships:

The development of new steam engines allowed for long distance travel

Telegraph:

Allowed for instant communication between Europe, South America, and Asia

Agricultural Products:

Under control of imperialist powers, subsistence farmers abandoned their traditional ways and grew cash crops instead (grown for commercial use rather than subsistence use)

• Meat was able to be shipped and processed over long distances

• Guano: a natural fertilizer that was exported by millions for agricultural use

Raw Materials:

Export Economies: colonies extracted raw materials that could be processed into manufactured goods and shipped away—often back to the providers of raw material

Cotton:

• Indian textiles were banned as they competed with the native wool industry

• Due to cotton production being cut off by the American Civil War, food production was replaced with cotton around the world

• Egypt produced and exported copious amounts of cotton which supported British textiles

Rubber:

• Rubber was used to produce tires for bicycles (and eventually automobiles), hoses, gaskets, waterproof clothing, and shoe soles, among other items.

• Rubber trees allowed for the extraction of latex and were killed in the process

• Rubber Barron’s: forced indigenous people into virtual slavery

Palm Oil:

• machinery in Europe's factories required constant lubrication to keep it working, creating a demand for palm oil

• Palm oil became an extremely valuable cash crop, even used as money in African Cultures

Ivory:

• was prized for its beauty and durability made from elephant tusks

• The Ivory Coast (Cöte d'Ivoire) got its name from the fact that the French originally set up trading posts there for the acquisition of ivory and slaves.

Minerals:

• Mexico Produced Silver

• Chile (along with Congo + Zambia) produced copper, used for power lines / cables

• Bolivia, Nigeria, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies produced tin, which helped meet the growing demand for food products in tin cans.

• Australia and South Africa, as well as parts of West Africa and Alaska, produced large deposits of gold.

Diamonds:

• De Beers Mining Company: founded by Cecil Rhodes; mined a large amount of the worlds diamond production in South Africa

• Rhodes became prime minister and began to establish apartheid or racial segregation in South Africa

Global Consequences:

• Industrialization was accompanied by the need to find raw materials that could be turned into finished products to be sold global

• As the industrialized nations grew wealthier, stock exchanges developed, allowing more people to invest their capital

Consequences of Commercial Extraction:

• Monocultures: or a lack of agricultural diveristy due to as farmers were only allowed to grow one cash crop

• Deforestation and soil depletion

State Expansion

Imperialism in Africa

Most European countries had declared the importation of slaves illegal

• Europe continued to export guns, alcohol and goods to Africa and import raw goods such as palm oil, gold, ivory.

  • palm oil was in demand as it kept machinery running

Expanding Beyond Trading Posts: or most of the 1800s, European presence in Africa was restricted to trading posts

• French seized Algeria

• Dutch and British colonists came to South Africa

• Quinine: a medicine that treats malaria, allowing Europeans to explore inner Africa

British Control of Africa:

Suez Canal: short water route that connected the Red and Mediterranean sea, allowing shorter travel from Europe to Asia

Corvee Laborers: unpaid workers who were forced to work on the project as a form of taxation.

British West Africa:

Britain spread Western education, the English language, and Christianity in West African colonies

Sierra Leone: home for freed people throughout the British Empire who had been enslaved

Gold Coast: became a crown colony

Britain used both diplomacy and warfare to expand its empire

• Many African rules agreed to diplomatic treaties, believing they were protecting trade rights

• As competition increased the treaties came to be meaningless and warfare was the inevitable result

The French In African

• Algeria had become a settler colony, attracting Spanish, Italian, and Maltese as well as French immigrants.

European Scramble for Africa

Berlin Conference: fearing the Scramble for Africa would lead to war this conference was held by Otto von Bismark, where European Powers participated in the orderly colonization of Africa

• These new borders drawn by Europeans divided / grouped indigenous culture groups

South Africa and the Boer Wars:

• British replaced Dutch in the Cape Colony (Southern Africa)

• Afrikaners: dutch settlers who conflicted with indigenous groups

Boer Wars: conflict between British & Afrikaners over land

• Afrikaners and Africans were forced into concentration camps

Congo:

King Leopold II: Belgian ruler who oversaw invasion of Congo in order to have colonial expansion

• Used a ruthless economic exploitation system

• this allowed him to keep the profits made by the Congo Free State

Independent Countries:

Abyssinia & Liberia: only non colonized African countries

Imperialism in South Asia

Portugal, France, and England competed for control of India's spices, gems, and trade with regions to the east.

Seven Year’s War: Conflict where British drove French out of India

• The British EIC encroached the land of the Mughal Empire and took control of the entire Indian subcontinent including

  • Ceylon: Sri Lanka

Imperialism in East Asia

China remained it’s own government however, europeans economically dominated:

• spheres of influence: European Nations had exclusive trading rights within china and access to natural resources

• Taiping Rebellion: internal conflict within China, making it easy for westerners to economically dominate the country

• Flooding of the Yellow river destroyed agricultural lands, leading to famine

• Anti-Imperialist Boxers attacked Westerners with the encouragement from Empress Cixi

Japan:

• Japan rapidly industrialized and established an empire in East Asia

• Colonization Society: plans to establish colonies In Mexico and Latin America for Japan

Imperialism in Southeast Asia

The Dutch in Southeast Asia:

• Once the VOC folded, the government took control of the Dutch East Indies

• Plantations produced cash crops for export purposes

The French in Southeast Asia:

• France gained control of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, forming French Indochina

The British in Southeast Asia:

• Founded the port of Singapore and controlled Malaya and Myanmar.

Siam: The only Southeast Asian nation that avoided European clutches and instituted modern reforms.

Australia and New Zealand

• located a penal colony (oversea settlement for convicts) in Australia

• produced wool, copper and gold, attracting settlers

Treaty of Waitangi: Granted indigenous Maori inhabitants protection, however, war still broke out

U.S. Imperialism in Latin America and the Pacific

Trail of Tears: US forced Native Americans into new Indian Territory

Monroe Doctrine: stated European nations should not intervene in affairs within the Western Hemisphere

Expansion Overseas:

Economic considerations, as well as feelings of nationalism and cultural superiority, drove Americans' desire for territorial conquest.

• Overthrew Hawaii’s constitutional monarchy

• Spanish-American War: brought Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines under U.S. control.

• Roosevelt Corollary: stated that if countries in Latin America demonstrated “instability” the US would intervene

Russia Expansion

• Catherine the Great sought to expand Russia; annexing nearby territory

• Sponsored voyages to Alaska through the Russian-American Company

• They ended up selling Alaska to the US

• Great Game: Russian and British empires competed unsuccessfully for dominance in Afghanistan

Indigenous Responses to State Expansion

Nationalist Movements in the Balkans

Balkan Peninsula: contained remaining Ottoman territories the empire was slowly losing

• Siberia and Greece won independence, with other territories rebelling against the ottomans

Resistance and Rebellion in the Americas

Proclamation of 1763: This British act reserved all the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River for Native Americans

Cherokee Nation:

• The Cherokee assimilated to white settler culture, adopting colonial methods of farming, weaving, and building.

• adopted a constitution based on the U.S. Constitution

• Indian Removal Act of 1830: the Cherokee and other Southeast Native American tribes were forced to relocate to what is now Oklahoma.

Ghost Dance: rituals of dances and songs were meant to hasten the belief that the dead would soon come back and drive out the whites

Tupac Amaru II:

• Incan descendant with Jesuit education led revolt against Spanish

French Intervention in Mexico:

• a group of Mexican conservatives conspired with Emperor Napoleon Ill of France to overthrow the liberal government of Benito Juårez

• Mexicans later forced the French to withdraw from Mexico

South Asian Movement

Indian Rebellion of 1957: Sepoys (Indian Soldiers) under British employ rebelled as they were convinced the British were trying to convert them to Christianity

British Raj: colonial govt in India that took orders directly from the British government

Indian National Congress: established by British-educated Indians and began to call for self rule

Southeast Asian Resistance

Vietnam: Many Vietnamese resisted French colonialism

Philippine Resistance:

• Jose Rizal: Filipino with European educated who started a reform movement

• Philippines Revolution: several revolts broke out in provinces around Manila

• Treaty of Paris: result of Spanish-American war that transferred philippines to the US

• failed Philippine-American War

Resistance in Australia and New Zealand

Aboriginal: Indigenous Australians who have the oldest continuous culture on Earth

• not protected by law and were killed trying to defend land

African Resistance

Pan-Africanism: a shared identity and nationalism between western-educated Africans

Usman dan Fodio: Islam among the Hausa tribes of the region.
Sokoto Caliphate: established the slave trade as a means of economic growth at a time which British opposed

Xhosa: began to kill their cattle and destroy their crops in the belief that these actions would cause spirits to remove the British settlers from their land which caused famine

Anglo-Zulu War: went in favor of the Zulus, but eventually the British defeated them, and their lands became part of the British colony of South Africa.

Samory Touré's War: Samory Toure established African kingdom that opposed the French’s attempts

Muhammad Ahmad: declared himself the Mahdi, or "guided one," who would restore the glory of Islam in Sudan

• fought British Military

Yaa Asantewaa War:

• British attempted to subjugate the Asante Empire and were originally unsuccessful

• Yaa Asantewaa: a mighty warrior queen, led a rebellion against the British, encouraging men to fight

Economic Imperialism

The Rise of Economic Imperialism

Economic imperialism: a situation in which foreign business interests have great economic power or influence

• People, raw materials, and refined materials were the main resources exploited.

Economic Imperialism in Asia

British and Dutch took spice trade from Spanish and Portuguese

India:

• British EIC dominated textile trade, with India supplying raw cotton

Dutch East Indies:

• had a monopoly in the VOC

Culture System: forced farmers to choose between growing cash crops for export or performing corvée labor, compulsory unpaid work.

China:

Chinese goods were in demand in Britain, however, China wasn’t interested in British Goods

• EIC forced India to grow opium and illegally sold it to China for silver

• Opium War: the chinese objection to this drug: The Chinese seized opium production and lost due to the fact that the British were more industrialized

• Treaty of Nanking: required China to open trade and cede Hong Kong to Britain

• The second Opium War included France, and resulted in the legalization of Opium

• Spheres of Influence: Japan, France, Russia & The US forced China

  to give them exclusive trading rights

Economic Imperialism in Africa

A Transition for subsistence agriculture to cash crop production

Egypt: embraced cotton as a cash crop

• cotton was a cash crop in Sudan and Uganda as well

Kenya: Cocoa became a major cash crop on the Gold Coast

Slavery in Africa:

While outlawed in British colonies, it still persisted in Africa

• Slave labor was used to produce Cash Crops

Economic Imperialism in Latin America

Latin America was subjected to imperialist aggression from both Europe and the United States.

Role of the United States: US investment were first concentrated in Mexico and Cuba

Investment in Argentia: British highly invested in Argentina

• British entrepreneurs turned it into the richest Latin country

• Pampas: large grassy plains that improved breeding stock and large scale farming

• Building projects like railroads + ports

Mining in Chile: Copper became a pillar of Chilean economy

Central America and the Caribbean:

The United Fruit Company was an American corporation that traded in tropical

fruit, primarily bananas, grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the

United States and in Europe.

• banana republics: small Central American countries under the economic power of foreign-based corporations.