In Search of Natural Resources

• Europe has coal and iron for power and factory equipment, but needed raw materials that didn’t grow there - solution = colonization

• Colonization has given industrial countries great wealth

• Europe had colonized nations on every continent - depleted raw materials in these nations at extreme speed and destroyed and polluted environments

• Transnational Businesses: international corporations that strengthened Europe’s economic power in Asia and Africa

European Justification

• Europe was very ethnocentric - other cultures were barbaric and uncivilized, even as progressives were denouncing the slave trade - why?

  1. Social Darwinists: applied natural selection to sociology - there were dominant races or classes , therefore Britain was the most powerful/fit

  2. Moral obligation to civilize others - Rudyard Kipling’s poem “White Man’s Burden” described colonization as justified

European Imperialism in India

• India had many luxuries to Europeans - tea, sugar, silk, salt, jute

• India was vulnerable to external powers after wars in 18th century Mughal empire and religious conflict

• France and England battled each other in Seven Year’s War for colonial superiority and Britain won

• British East India Company: joint-stock company like a multinational corporation - had exclusive British trade rights in India - led by Robert Clive

• Britain started slowly taking over Mughal Empire territory and setting up administrative regions through empire - first, island of Ceylon, then Punjab Northern India, then Pakistan and Afghanistan

• Sepoy Mutiny: Indians who worked for British as soldiers were called Sepoys - they rebelled against British Muslim/Hindu disrespect in 1857, but it failed

  • British then made all of India a crown colony - Queen Victoria made Empress of India above almost 300 million Indian subjects

  • Mughal Empire ended when last ruler Bahadur Shah II was sent into exile

• India became model of British imperialism - upper castes taught English, Christianity spread, industrialization and urbanization - but more and more Indians dreamed of being free from Britain

  • 1885: group of Indians formed Indian National Congress to fight for independence - wouldn’t be achieved until mid-20th century

European Imperialism in China

• Up until 1830s, Europe could only trade with China in city of Canton - China was relatively isolationist, until Europe gained industrial power and barged in with weapons

• Opium Wars: British traders brought Opium to China in 1773 and widespread addiction was caused - forbidden and seized in 1839

  • Britain wanted to continue trade, so brought war to China

  • Treaty of Nanjing: China forced to sign unequal treaty that gave Britain considerable rights to expand trade with China

  • Hong Kong declared crown possession of Britain in 1843

  • Second Opium War occurred in 1856 for four years when Britain tried to further trade and China lost again - all of China opened to trade

• British takeover caused Chinese to turn on their government’s failings

  • White Lotus Rebellions (beginning of 19th century): Buddhists who were frustrated over taxes and government corruption

  • Taiping Rebellion (mid-19th century): rebels led by religious zealot who almost succeeded in taking down Manchu government

  • Self-Strengthening Movement (1860s): Manchu Dynasty attempt to get its act together, which failed

  • Korea declared independence from China in 1876

  • Sino-French War (1883): Chinese lost control of Vietnam

  • Defeated by Japan in Sino-Japanese War

  • Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895): China forced to hand control of Taiwan to Japan and give them trading rights

  • France, Germany, Russia, Britain took their own spheres of influence in China - not quite colonies as Manchu Dynasty still had authority

  • in 1900, US pledged to support sovereignty of Chinese government and equal trading to prevent full British takeover (Open Door Policy) - despite barring Chinese immigrants from US in 1882 (Chinese Exclusion Act)

• Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, or Boxers: Chinese peasant nationalists attempted to rebel by slaughtering Christian missionaries and controlling foreign embassies in response to government’s defeats and concessions to the West, but failed

  • Boxer Protocol: China forced to pay Europeans and Japanese with rebellion costs

• Chinese culture also started to crumble - imperial government ended in 1911 and a republic was established in China

Japanese Imperialism

• Japan kept Europeans away in 17th and 18th centuries - until European and US appetite for power intensified and Commodore Matthew Perry arrived from US in a steamboat in 1853 - Japan felt obligated to join industrialized world

• Treaty of Kanagawa (1854) was a trade agreement with the West

  • Samurai revolted against shogun who ratified it and restored Emperor Meiji to power

• Meiji Restoration: era of Japanese westernization - Japan became a world power

  • 1870s: built railways and steamships, abolished samurai warrior class

  • Prioritized military power - took control of Korea and Taiwan from China in 1895 - military pageantry became a cultural movement

  • 1890s: Japan became powerful enough to reduce European and US influence

European Imperialism in Africa

• Interior Africa remained unknown to Europeans - costal regions used for limited trade, ship stopping points, and the slave trade

• 1807-1820: most European nations abolished slave trade as Enlightenment principles gained more force - slavery abolished a few decades later

  • No new enslaved people entered Europe but those still in slavery were not free until mid-century

  • Former slaves returned to Africa or established their own nations

• South Africa: Dutch first arrived and settled Cape Town - British seized it in 1795

  • South African Dutch (Boers) moved northeast and discovered diamonds and gold - British followed and fought the Boer War (1899-1902) to gain rights to resources, which they won

• Egypt: when Napoleon tried to take control of Egypt in 18th century during the weak Ottoman rule, Muhammad Ali defeated the French and the ruling Ottoman Empire in 1805 - began industrialization and agriculture expansions

  • efforts just temporarily halted by Abbas I

  • Suez Canal constructed with French and completed in 1869 - connected Mediterranean to Indian Ocean (eventually British took control of it too)

Berlin Conference

• Otto van Bismarck hosted European powers in Berlin in 1884 to discuss land claims in African Congo - encouraging colonialism

• By 1914, almost all of Africa was colonized by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium (except Ethiopia and Liberia)

• Europeans added substantial infrastructure to the continent, but stripped Africa of resources, most exercised direct rule and implementation of customs over African people (except British who were already busy with India)

• Europeans disregarded African boundaries, cut tribal land in half or forced enemy tribes together, ignoring history and culture

• Traditional African culture also started falling apart

  

US Foreign Policy

• Monroe Doctrine: US President Monroe declared Western Hemisphere off-limits to Europeans in 1823 - Britain agreed out of fear of Spain’s potential actions

• Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine: US would be responsible for intervening in financial disputes between Americas and Europe, if to maintain peace because Europe was still investing in Latin industry

• US was exercising own imperialism over Latin America - built their Panama Canal in Panama

• US launched Spanish-American War in 1898 to aid Cuba in their conflict with Spain - defeated Spain and gained control over Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba (given independence in exchange for construction of US military bases)