Unit 6: Consequences of Industrialization (1750-1900)

• New wave of imperial expansion from Industrialization

❓ Why Imperial States Expanded

• Motivations for Imperialism

  • (review) Nationalism - Shared sense of commonality based on shared language, religion, or social customs

    • Came with a desire to gain more power and land for their nation

    • Increasing competition between nation states

  • Social Darwinism

    • Like Bio Darwinism but in human societies

    • Only the fittest can survive, because they are the best adapted to their environment

    • Applies laws of nature to society and politics

    • Provided justification for strong nations to eat weak nations

    • Scientific Racism - Divided the world into various races and ranked their in a hierarchy

      • Justified imperialism

  • Civilizing Mission - Imperial states felt a sense of duty to civilize those they conquer

    • Ex: Rudyard Kipling’s poem The White Man’s Burden

      • claims that the white man has the responsibility to civilize “lower races“ (deemed half devil and half child)

    • encouraged Europeans to convert colonized people to Christianity

    • Imperial states established Western-style schools and religious instruction in order to suppress indigenous culture and religion

    • “kill the Indian to save the man“ - Imperialists

⚔ How Imperial States Expanded

• Colonization wasn’t the same everywhere:

Private Control → State control on colonies

• Ex: Belgian Congo

  • King Leopold II of Belgium made a colony in the Congo for himself because the Belgian state wasn’t interested

  • Exploited the land for raw materials such as rubber and brutalized the population

  • Became so bad that the Belgian state took it away from him and took control

Diplomacy

• Negotiation rather than warfare

• Ex: Berlin Conference (end of 19th century)

  • Lots of competition and warfare between Europeans to make colonies in Africa

    • “Scramble for Africa“

  • Otto von Bismarck of Germany called this conference

  • Major European powers negotiated who would get what part of Africa

  • No input from African leaders, so the maps ended up dividing unified groups and combining rival groups

Warfare

• Ex: British South Africa

• British took control of South Africa from the Dutch

• There were still Dutch South Afrikaners living there

• British provoked several conflicts with the remaining Dutch

• Led to Boer Wars

  • British consolidated power in their colony and drove out Afrikaners and Indigenous South Africans into brutal refugee camps

  • killed >10,000 black South Africans

Settler Colonies

• Colonies where large numbers of people from the Imperial culture go and settle

• Ex: British Australia and New Zealand

  • When the British took control, lots of people went to go settle that place and produced a “neo-European“ society

  • Introduced diseases that killed lots of the indigenous population

• Ex: Scramble For Africa (French Algeria)

Conquering Neighboring territories (below are examples)

🇺🇸 United States

• Manifest Destiny - The desire for westward expansion in the United States given by god

• Pushed out Indigenous people who lived there into reservations

• Completed by the end of the 19th century

• Spanish-American War

  • United States gained control of the Philippines and other Pacific territories

  • Shows the trend of older imperial powers such as the Spanish and Portuguese were declining in power as new states expanded

🇷🇺 Russia

• Pan-Slavism - idealogy that was a militant political doctrine that aimed to unite all Slavic people under Russian rule

• Desire to achieve great power status on the world stage

• Both of these above led to Russian Expansion into the Pacific Ocean, South into the Kazakh steppe and Uzbek states, and West into the Caucasus mountain region

🇯🇵 Japan

• Rapid industrialization through the Meiji Restoration modernized its military

• Wanted to build an empire (racial superiority)

• Expanded their influence into Korea, Manchuria, and China

• Went to war with Russia and won (Russo-Japanese War)

  • Shows the might of an industrialized empire and elevated Japan on the world stage

🪙 Economic Imperialism

• Economic Imperialism - the act of one state extending control over another state by economic means

• Retained culture and political structure of target areas but wanted to take control of their economy

🇨🇳 China

• Weak during this era due to a lack of industrialization

• Britain had a large trade imbalance with China as the British desired Chinese goods like Porcelain, Silk, and Tea while the Chinese didn’t buy much from Britain

• British increased Opium production in India and sold it to China

• China didn’t like how everyone was getting stoned so they destroyed shipments in Canton which angered the British

• Led to the First Opium War which the British won

  • Shows how the dominance of Industrial powers

  • Treaty of Nanjing - ended the First Opium War and favored British interests heavily

    • Gave European states economic advantage in China as the Chinese couldn’t stop the importation of Opium

• Taiping Rebellion - killed tons of people and weakened China even more

• Second Opium War

  • French joined in with the British and made the Chinese sign another unequal treaty

  • This treaty opened up more ports to Western powers

  • Western European nations such as Russia and Japan joined in and they all carved China up into spheres of influence

🌎 Latin America

• United Fruit Company - American Fruit Company that took over Latin American territories and organized their economies around the export of fruit (bananas, “banana republics“ lmao)

  • Costa Rica - US made a deal with them so the UFC (United Fruit Company) took over 800,000 acres for 99 years and will build railroads and shipping ports to export goods

    • This deal heavily favored the US, showing their economic imperialism

📈 Economics of Imperialism

• Economics of Imperialism - How global economics changed as a result of imperialism

  • NOT Economic Imperialism

• Many colonial economies transformed into export economies

  • Before, economies of the places such as the Congo were based on the needs of the people and were more balanced

  • With the intervention of Imperial states, these economies became heavy one exports

  • They did this in order to get more raw materials and new markets for their industrial goods

    • Was a big motivation for the First Wave of Imperialism during the last period like in Spanish Colonies with cash crops

• Many imperial states narrowed the scope of colonial economies to export a few goods the imperial state desired in order to manufacture goods

  • They also needed big plantations to feed their growing urban populations

Export Economies

• Cotton

  • British transformed economies of India and Egypt to focus on cotton exports

• Palm Oil

  • West African economies were reorganized to focus on exporting palm oil

    • Used to make household goods and lubricate factory machines

• Cash Cropping

  • For high demand food products like coffee and meat

Effects of Export Economies

• Profits colonial states gained were often used to purchase manufactured goods from their Imperial parents

  • Enriched Imperial empires

  • Ex: Indian Cotton

    • British colonies in India exported cotton but their textiles had to be imported from Britain

• Economic Dependence

  • Colonial economies were made to serve the empire, not the indigenous population

  • Very unstable - based on the global prices of the goods the colony specialized in

🚢 Migration in the Industrial Age

• People were able to migrate more easily because of the abundance of new and cheap transportation technologies like railroads and steam ships

  • Because of this greater access, some migrants returned home

Causes of Migration

• Environmental

  • Demographics change caused migration to spike

  • European population was exploding due to increasing life spans, so people were moving to cities for jobs

• Natural disasters

  • Ex: Irish potato famine in the 1840s

  • Millions of Irish people emigrated to other places such as the East Coast of the US

• Search of work

  • Irish migration to the US

  • Because many places abolished slavery (enlightenment ideas) imperial states used indentured servitude (semi-coerced labor system)

  • Poverty in India caused the British to facilitate migration of Indian people to other parts of the British Empire such as the Caribbean and South Africa

  • British also facilitated the migration of Chinese indentured servants to mines in Malaysia due to poverty as well

    • These contracts of indenture were presented to workers in languages they couldn’t read, if they could read at all

    • Workers didn’t know what they were agreeing to - such as long work hours and no days off

  • Convict Labor

    • British established penal colonies in Australia

    • French established penal colonies in French Guiana

    • Sent convicts to work many years of hard labor in imperial projects such as railroads

Effects of Migration

• Gender Imbalance

  • Majority of migrants leaving to find work were men, leaving an abundance of women

  • Women stepped in to traditional male roles

• Ethnic Enclaves - geographic areas with a high concentration of people of the same ethnicity and culture within a foreign culture

  • Ex: Chinatowns

    • Chinese migrants in Southeast Asia clustered together and became key players in colonial economies

  • Indians migrating to Mauritius and Natal were both Muslim and Hindu (practiced both religions)

  • These enclaves introduced new cultural traits like food or religion

• Nativism - a desire to protect the interests of native born people against minority populations

  • Rooted in ethnic and racial prejudice

  • Ex: Irish immigrants to the US were marginalized for being Catholic

  • Ex: Chinese immigrants to the US were marginalized for being deemed a lower race

  • Nativism was often manifested in government policies to restrict the flow of immigrants

    • Ex: Chinese Exclusion Act - cut off the flow of Chinese immigrants to the US

      • Despite the fact that their work was important for building railroads

    • Ex: White Australia policy - restricted Asian immigrants to Australia

✊ Causes of Imperial Resistance

• Questioning Political Authority

  • Western education taught enlightenment ideas such as natural rights and popular sovereignty

    • Caused colonial people to question the authority of the Imperial empire

  • Citizens of imperial states also objected to the imperial ventures

    • Ex: Joseph Conrad wrote the novel Heart of Darkness to criticize King Leopold’s brutal policies in the Congo

    • Economist J.A. Hobson wrote papers arguing that imperialism was a detrimental economic system in the long run as it depended on unstable markets

• Growing Nationalism among colonial peoples

  • People who were taken control of by imperial states had their own nationalist movements

  • Led to efforts resisting imperial intrusion

  • Nationalism defines a common vision for a future while defining a common enemy that’s inhibiting that future

✊ Forms of Imperial Resistance

• Direct resistance within empires (fighting)

  • Ex: Yaa Asantewaa war in West Africa (War of the Golden Stool)

    • Asante had a golden stool which symbolized their national unity

    • Whoever sat on it had the right to rule over the Asante

    • British wanted to expand colonial holdings, so they wanted to sit on that stool

      • Yaa Asantewaa rallied her people to fight back, but lost to the industrial might of the British

  • However, due to inter ethnic conflicts between Africans ultimately hindered their ability to resist European imperialism

• Creation of new states at the Periphery of Imperial states

  • Ex: Cherokee Nation near the US

    • in Oklahoma territory

    • Arranged their own government

    • Somewhat retained their culture

  • Ex: Zulu kingdom near British South Africa

    • Resisted British intrusion

    • Guerrilla tactics

  • Almost always eventually fell to the power of the Industrial states

• Religious Movements

  • Ex: Ghost Dance movement in the US

    • Native people’s attempt to rehabilitate their culture

    • Believed that a return to traditional ways would lead to the restoration of their lost lands, way of life, and the dead returning

    • fostered a sense of hope and community among Native tribes

  • Ex: Xhosa Cattle killing movement in South Africa

    • Coastal people of South Africa Resisted British Intrusion with violence

    • Lost more and more territory until they could not survive

    • Religious movement arose that was built around a prophecy that if they killed all the cattle infected with European diseases, then new healthy cattle would rise to replace them and imperial invaders would be driven away by the ancestral dead of the Coast

    • Prophecy did not come true

    • Lots of their people died from starvation

    • British gained full control

📒 Topics

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-world-history-modern-course-and-exam-description.pdf