New Imperialism 10/22/25

I. When?

II. Who?

III. Where?

IV. What?

V. Why?

VI. How?

VII. New imperialism in Action

When?:

Who?:

• Britain and France, Germany and Italy brand new nations who want empires and there was also Portugal and Belgium and also non European imperial powers like the US

Where?:

• It was directed towards Africa and Asia

What?:

• The rapid and dramatic expansion of western control across the globe, what made this new was because it was deliberate and carried out by governments.

Why?:

• Governments did this because it was politically and economically motivated. Political motivations were German and Italy being brand new nations who wanted to prove themselves as great powers and being a nation wasn’t enough. To show that Thea re a great nation they had to have an empire. This was also fueled by mass politics and political parties had to now appeal to workers and peasants, they tried to find things they would support. They promised to give them victory, prestige, that they were the winning empire and it some cases this worked.

• Economic motivations came from more competition as the Industrial Revolution spread. There was more competition for raw materials, markets and not all companies were doing well these industries began pleading with their government for help. Many governments decided that imperliasm was the answer and that they would help alleviate the competition by acquiring sources of raw materials in protected markets. They came up with the imperial mission

• The famous poem “white mans Burden” sums it up. This was for the us telling them to not let their Europeans carry the burden by themselves.

• Pseudo scientific racism- they saw them and inferior and used this to justify them conquering them.

How?:

• They accomplished this through the industrial revolution as it lowered the cost of imperialism. New imperialism was allowed by 3 technological developments; the steam ship with his they could said anywhere in the world and make ships as big as they wanted but this was to possible with wooden sail boats, the second was Quinine which was used to prevent tropical disease and Europeans were not able to move into Africa with no issues and the third development was the breach loaded repeating rifle (the earliest machine guns) they were far superior to muskets

New Imperialism action:

• Stronger tribes were in the interior of Africa and the weaker tribes were on the coast. Periodically the stronger tribes would raid the coastal tribes usually for new slaves. The coastal tribes wanted guns to essentially get revenge on the tribes in the interior so as a result of European intervention the power dynamic in Africa has flipped. Now it was the strong tribes on the coast and the weaker tribes in the interior this led to a lot of war and bloodshed. The problem with a war zone is it made it very difficult to trade in a war zone which meant this violence was cutting into supplies of palm nuts, the British was not able to get any. They decided to send in soldiers to keep the peace so the tribes would continue collecting the palm nuts they needed. This went fine until the French started claiming territory in west Africa and so did the Germans. SO the British now felt threatened that the French might take their trade in the Niger delta and so will the Germans. This was when Britain officially took over the territory. However, this still led to conflicting claims because France and Germany said that they claimed the territory and some of these conflicting claims almost led to war. But this was when Automon Bismarck came and ordered them to settle this in a civilized manner. Claims were resolves through who had effective occupation in order to determine who gets what part of Africa. This meant that they had to prove they had one person in this territory they could claim it.

• Long story short, the Europeans sit down on a map and decide that Germans get this, Portugal gets that, British gets this, Belgium’s get that, etc. Only two places go unclaimed, Liberia and Ethiopia but Liberia doesn’t really count because this was set up for the US to send slaves. Ethiopia maintained its independence , Italy tried to claim and conquer Ethiopia and so the Italians sent in an army armed with the latest technology and they got lost and walked right into an ambush where they were slaughtered. They were able to defeat them due to Menelik II, he did two things; forged Ethiopia into a modern centralized state which made them good at collecting taxes he used the money to use he latest military technology and he brought in European experts to teach his soldiers strategy, tactics and how to use the technology, the second thing he did was to instill in his people a sense of patriotism not nationalism the difference was that patriotism was loyalty to a leader/ruler long story short when Ethiopia was invaded the people responded that they would fight to protect their king.

10/24/25

Asia:

• In the near east as it was known Europeans had already started partitioning the automan empire so they were slowly but surely dismembering the automan empire. The big battle was the battle of Omdurman a force of 8000 British soldiers defeated a force of 50,000 Sudanese. The big reason the British won’t as because they had machine guns this was the first battle of machine guns. As a result the British lost less than 4000 soldiers while the Sudanese were all caught or slaughtered.

• In the far east china was forced to open more ports to foreign trade And every European power took its own port and was granted extra territoriality which meant they were exempt from Chinese law. Which meant china was slowly losing sovereignty, losing control of its own territory. Then china went to war against Japan which they lost and their self strengthening movement didn’t work, Japan took over Korea and Taiwan from China. But things still get worst for china thanks to the boxer rebellion which was an anti-foreigner rebellion for decades the Europeans had been exploiting china forcing them to adopt free trade and taking over more and more of their territory essentially they want foreigners out of China. All across china we see the formation of a secret society known as the righteous and harmonious fists which the Europeans called the boxers. These secret societies trained for battle and they were committed to killing as many foreigners as they could they also had the secret support of the Manchu dynasty. In 1899 the rebellion began and they went on a rampage killing Europeans, attacking embassies, rail road stations, burning churches, Chinese who converted to Christianity, etc. The foreigners reacted by bringing together a combined relief force so all the foreign powers who had interest in China sent soldiers to be a part of the force to put down the rebellion. British, French, German, Russian, American, Japanese all contributed soldiers to put down this force. They were able to crush the boxer rebellion and now the foreigners demanded an official polity from the Manchu dynasty and they were no longer going to sell them weapons and their soldiers were stying in china to maintain order. Chinese sovereignty was all but destroyed and this paved the way for the end of the Manchu dynasty and china became a republic.

Japan:

• Why wasn’t japan taken over by Europeans and how did they take over china. They did not have any commodities the Europeans wanted; tea, silk, etc. Japan would also close itself off from the world when they saw what was happening in china which lasted until 1854 when the US forced Japan to reopen. Japan was weak because it had just fought a civil war so they were now open to be dominated. However, the Europeans were busy dealing with other things s nobody really had the time or resources to take over Japan. Then japan got their act together from the Meiji Restoration, Japan abolished feudalism and instead they would become a centralized state rules by the Emperor. This new government decided they needed to modernize fast or else they would suffer the same fate as China. So they decided to industrialize, modernize their navy and army. Within 10 years Japan was ready to become an imperial power itself. They first picked on China and got Taiwan and Korea.

• They also started in roads to claim Manchuria however a Europeans power lost wanted Manchuria which led to the Russo- Japanese war where Russia and Japan fought over who got Manchuria and h Japan won which marked the first time a Asian state was to defeat them.

• Siam- Mongkut and Chulalongkorn was able to preserve Siamese independence by turning Siam into a modern centralized state which was really food at collecting taxes which they used to build schools, hospitals, etc. The other thing they did was become experts at diplomacy. These Siamese appealed to the British whenever the French made a move and whenever the British started making in roads to take over Siam they appealed to French to run them away and this went on for decades. But them French and British came together to sign a treaty to make Siam neutral.

• New imperialism destroyed entire societies it also created dependent economies. For example the French only really wanted one thing from indo-china which was rubber and they became dependent on rubber ties was called monoculture dependency. Lastly, new imperialism permanently altered whatever trajectory these societies were on by European occupation and control.