mcq - unit 6

European conquest in Africa in the late 19th century was facilitated by warfare and diplomacy (the art of negotiation).

Infer: suggest

Scramble for Africa: European nations colonizing Africa (1850-1910).

There was A LOT of migration in the 1800s around the world.  Steamships and Railroads made travel much easier and cheaper.  Oftentimes, men were mostly the ones who traveled to new countries in search of better work, better pay.  Most of them settled into urban areas, leading to the further growth of cities (urbanization).  This left women who stayed behind to do jobs that in the past would have been done by men.  These were mostly rural jobs (farming jobs).

By the late 1800s, the Japanese were a formidable military power.  They became industrialized by mimicking western practices, both militarily and culturally.

Indian indentured servants went to work in British colonies in the Caribbean (19th century) in part because the British banned slavery and now needed workers to work the fields.

Migrants often lacked opportunities for economic and social advancement as a result of anti-immigrant prejudice and racism in the countries they migrated to.

Ironically, when the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade came to an end in the 19th century, it led to an increase in slavery within Africa.

When western powers colonized other areas, they often only planted cash crops (tobacco, sugar, coffee) leading to a great dependence by those who were colonized on foreign markets for other foods and goods.

Western powers imposed their culture on those they colonized.

European states worked diplomatically to colonize Africa (Berlin Conference, 1884-1885).

In the 1700s, India led the world in cotton cloth production.  When England industrialized their textile industry in the 1800s, they replaced India as the cloth-making leader.  England got their cotton from the U.S. (until the Civil War, 1860s), India, and Egypt.

Immigrants often adopted the dominant culture of the country’s they migrated to.  

Italy (1861) and Germany (1871) were newly formed nations and therefore were late to the colonialism/imperialism game.

A lot of Europeans migrated to new lands in the late 19th century because they wanted to own their own land.  European countries were overcrowded and land was largely unavailable to the common person.  

Once western Europe industrialized, it led to an increased demand for commodities such as cotton (Egypt, India) and palm oil (West Africa).

Japan industrialized in the mid to late 19th century (Meiji Restoration).  This enabled them to conquer Korea, Southeast Asia, and much of eastern China in the first half of the 20th century.

The United States more than doubled its size in the 19th century (Louisiana Purchase, and land acquired after the Mexican-American War).

Japan’s territorial acquisitions in Southeast Asia during the period 1933–1942 were driven by the desire for more natural resources to further fuel industrial production.  (You can draw a parallel with the British East India’s reasons for dominating India in the 19th century).

Social Darwinism: The belief that certain individuals or groups (ethnicities) are naturally superior to others, and that social, economic, and political inequalities are the result of natural selection and survival of the fittest in human societies.  Western powers used this to justify conquest of other peoples.  (ex. England in Australia, England in India)

Australia and New Zealand were settler colonies, meaning England sent people there (sometimes forcibly) to occupy the land.

By the end of the 19th century, the western powers controlled an estimated 85% of the world’s habitable land.  This land grab took place very quickly (second half of the 19th century). 

Economic imperialism: The domination of one country's economy by another, where the dominant power controls resources, trade, and financial systems in a way that benefits its own economic interests at the expense of the subordinate country.

The colonization of Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, etc.) was mainly about one thing: the desire to extract natural resources (rubber, spices, etc.).

The establishment of Dutch economic and political influence in Southeast Asia (1600-1900) was achieved thanks to the efforts of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) which was the most powerful joint stock trading company of its time.  

Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia during the Second World War (1939-1945) weakened European colonial influence in the area.  After the war, these states, one by one, gained or were given their independence. 

Most of the western countries outlawed the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the early 1800s. However, because the demand for enslaved labor remained high in places like Brazil and Cuba, the slave trade would continue well into the 19th century.  (Brazil and Cuba finally banned slavery in the 1880s.)