Imperialism

Theme: How imperialistic nations were able to expand their power and control at the expense of weaker nationsLesson 13

ImperialismImperialism is a term associated with the expansion of the European powers, and later the US and Japan, and their conquest and colonization of African and Asian societies, mainly from the 16th through the 19th CenturiesWas effected not just through the force of arms, but also through trade, investment, and business activities that enabled the imperial powers to profit from subject societies and influence their affairs without going to the trouble of exercising direct political control

MotivationsMany Europeans came to believe that imperial expansion and colonial domination were crucial for the survival of their states and societiesMotivations can be grouped as economic, political, and cultural

Economic MotivesOverseas colonies could serve as reliable sources of raw materials not available in Europe that came in demand because of industrializationRubber in the Congo River basin and MalayaTin in southeast AsiaCopper in central AfricaOil in southwest AsiaRubber trees in Malaya

Cecil RhodesWent to south Africa in 1871 and by 1889 he controlled 90% of the worlds diamond productionAlso gained a healthy stake in the gold marketServed as prime minister of the British Cape Colony from 1890-1896 and saw the Cape Colony as a base of operations for the extension of British control to all of Africa

Political MotivesSome overseas colonies occupied strategic sites on the worlds sea lanesOthers offered harbors or supply stations for commercial and naval shipsForeign imperialist ventures were useful in defusing social tensions and inspiring patriotism at home, often between industrialists and socialists

Russians in TashkentThe weakening of the Ottoman and Qing empires turned central Asia into a political vacuum and invited Russian expansionIn 1865 Russian forces captured Tashkent which served as an important location for trade between Central Asia and Russia, especially after the construction of the Trans-Caspian Railroad in 1898 As Russia encroached upon the ill-defined northern frontier of British India, Russians and British played out the Great Game of exploration, espionage and imperialistic diplomacy throughout Central Asia

Cultural JustificationsChristian missionaries saw Africa and Asia as fertile ground for converts and often served as intermediaries between imperialists and subject peoplesOther Europeans sought to bring civilization to subject peoples in the form of political order and social stabilityCecil Rhodes believed, We (the British) are the finest race in the world and the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race.

The White Mans BurdenTake up the White Mans BurdenSend forth the best ye breedGo bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives need;To wait in heavy harness,On fluttered folk and wildYour new-caught, sullen peoples,Half-devil and half-child.Rudyard Kipling

David LivingstoneWent to Africa as a missionary but was a combination of missionary, doctor, explorer, scientist and anti-slavery activist. Reached and named Victoria Falls in 1855. In 1871 journalist Henry Stanley found him at Lake Tanganyika, greeting him with the famous words Dr. Livingstone, I presume?

Technologies that made Imperialism PossibleTransportationMilitaryCommunicationsCartoon showing China being divided by the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, France, and Japan

Transportation TechnologiesSteamships allowed imperial powers to travel upriver much further than sailboats so imperialists could project power deep into the interior regions of foreign landsThe USS Monocacy was used to protect US interests along the Yangtze River in China

Transportation TechnologiesThe construction of new canals enhanced the effectiveness of steamships and the building of empires by enabling naval vessels to travel rapidly between the worlds seas and oceansThey lowered the costs of trade between imperial powers and subject lands

Suez CanalBetween 1859 and 1869, the British constructed the Suez Canal which links Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea and Suez on the Red SeaAllows two-way north-south water transport from Europe to Asia without circumnavigating AfricaIn 1882 the British army occupied Egypt to ensure the safety of the canal which was crucial to British communications with India1869 opening of the Suez Canal at Port Said

Panama CanalBetween 1904 and 1914, the US built the Panama Canal which links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans without having to transit Cape HornGatun locks under construction in 1910

Military TechnologiesBreech-loading firearms with rifled bores provided European armies with an arsenal vastly stronger than any other in the worldEuropean armies could impose colonial rule almost at will

British soldiers show a Maxim gun to an elderly Zulu chief in 1901

Communications TechnologiesOceangoing steamships reduced the time required for imperial capitals to deliver messages to colonial landsIn the 1850s engineers began developing submarine telegraph cables to carry messages through oceansBy 1902, cables linked all parts of the British Empire throughout the worldInsignia of the British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company

British Empire in IndiaIn the 18th and first half of the 19th Century, the East India Company established a strong presence in India(Remember the East India Company was one of the joint-stock companies we learned about in Lesson 3)In 1858, the British government intervened, preempting the East India Company and establishing direct imperial rule in IndiaIn 1857 Hindu sepoys mutinied against the East India Company

British Empire in IndiaA viceroy represented British royal authority in India and administered the colony through an elite Indian civil service staffed almost exclusively by the BritishThe British formulated all domestic and foreign policy for IndiaIndians served in low-level bureaucratic positionsLord John Morley served as Secretary of State for India from 1905 to 1910

British Empire in IndiaThe British transformed India by clearing forests, restructuring landholdings, building railroad and telegraph networks, encouraging the cultivation of valuable crops, and constructing canals, harbors, and irrigation systemsEstablished English-style schools for Indian children and suppressed Indian customs that conflicted with British values

The British forced the Indians to ban sati, the practice of burning widows on their husbands funeral pyres

British in BurmaIn the early 1820s, British colonial officials in India had conflicts with the kings of Burma (modern Myanmar) while seeking to expand their influence to the Irrawaddy River deltaBy the 1880s, the British had established colonial authority in BurmaBurma provided teak, ivory, rubies, and jade1905 watercolor painting of a temple scene in Burma

British in SingaporeIn 1824, Thomas Stamford Raffles founded the port of Singapore, which soon became the busiest center of trade in the Strait of MelakaSingapore Harbor

British in SingaporeSingapore was administered by the colonial regime in IndiaIt served as the base for the British conquest of Malaya (modern Malaysia) in the 1870s and 1880s

British in MalayaMalaya provided outstanding ports that enabled the British navy to control sea lanes linking the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea ands also provided abundant supplies of tin and rubberPlanter supervising workers on a Malayan rubber plantation

French in IndochinaThe French were unsuccessful in establishing themselves in India, but between 1859 and 1893, they did establish a large southeast Asian colony consisting of the modern states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and LaosIndochina would become an important supplier of rubber

French in IndochinaUnlike the British in their colonies, the French encouraged conversion to Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church became prominent throughout Indochina, especially in VietnamWell talk more about this in Lesson 25

AfricaUntil 1875, Europeans maintained a limited presence in AfricaAround then, the adventures and reports of explorers such as David Livingstone, Henry Stanley, Richard Burton, and John Speke began to excite merchants about business possibilities in AfricaRichard Burton explored east Africa with John Speke, seeking the source of the Nile

Africa: the CongoIn the 1870s King Leopold II of Belgium employed Henry Stanley to help develop commercial ventures and establish a colony called Congo Free State in the basin of the Congo RiverLeopold said the Congo Free State would be a free-trade zone open to all European merchants in order to forestall competition from his more powerful European neighborsLeopold II

Africa: the CongoIn reality, Leopold ran the Congo Free State as a personal colony and filled it with lucrative rubber plantations run under brutal conditionsHumanitarians protested Leopolds colonial regimeIn 1908 the Belgium government took control of the colony and it became known as Belgian CongoClearing tropical forests ate away at Leopolds profit margins so Congolese farming villages such as this one were leveled to make way for rubber tree plantations

Africa: South AfricaThe Dutch East India Company had established a supply station at Cape Town in 1652 and settlers began expanding outward to take up ranching and farmingThese settlers were called Boers (the Dutch word for farmer) or Afrikaners (the Dutch word for African)During the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), the British took over the Cape and established British rule in 1806

Africa: South AfricaBritish rule disrupted Boer society because it brought in English law and languageWhen Britain abolished slavery in 1833, Boer financial viability and lifestyles were further threatenedChafing under British rules the Boer began migrating eastward where they established several independent colonies such as the Orange Free State (1854) and the South African Republic or Transvaal territories (1860)

Africa: South AfricaThe lenient British attitude toward this changed when diamonds were discovered on Boer-populated territories in 1867 and gold in 1886Two Boer Wars were fought from 1880-1881 and 1899-1902 with the British winning and putting an end to the Boer independent republicsBy 1910, Britain had consolidated the provinces into the Union of South AfricaBoer guerrillas during the Second Boer War

Africa: Berlin ConferenceTensions among the European powers seeking African colonies led to the Berlin West Africa Conference (1884-1885), during which delegates from 14 European states and the US (no Africans were present) devised the rules for the colonization of AfricaThe conference produced an agreement that any European state could establish African colonies after notifying the others of its intentions and occupying previously unclaimed territory

Africa: Berlin ConferenceThe Berlin Conference gave European diplomats the justification they needed to draw lines on maps and carve Africa into coloniesBy the turn of the century, all of Africa was divided into European colonies except for Ethiopia, where native forces had fought off Italian efforts at colonization, and Liberia, a small republic populated by freed slaves that was effectively a dependency of the US

Colonial RuleThree typesConcessionary companiesDirect ruleIndirect rule

Concessionary CompaniesThis was the earliest approach to colonial ruleEuropean governments granted private companies large concessions of territory and empowered them to undertake economic activities such as mining, plantation agriculture, or railroad constructionStamps issued by the Mozambique Company which received a 50-year administrative charter from Portugal in 1891

Concessionary CompaniesThis system allowed European governments to colonize and exploit immense territories with only a modest investment, but the brutal practices of the private companies produced a public outcry and the imperial countries decided to establish their own ruleThe Imperial British East Africa Company began work on the Uganda Railway in 1896. 2,500 workers died during the construction.

Direct RuleThe concessionary companies gave way to direct or indirect imperial ruleUnder direct rule, administrative districts headed by European personnel collected taxes, recruited labor and soldiers, and maintained law and orderDirect rule was typical of the French colonies

French colonial administrator Louis Lon Csar Faidherbe served as governor of Senegal from 1854 to 1861 and from 1863 to 1865. He transformed the colony into the dominant political and military power in West Africa.

Direct RuleAdministrative boundaries intentionally cut across existing African political and ethnic boundaries in order to divide and weaken potentially powerful indigenous groups Direct rule aimed at removing strong kings and other leaders and replacing them with more malleable peopleThe underlying principle was to keep African populations in check and permit European administrators to engage in a civilizing mission

Indirect RuleIndirect rule exercised control over subject populations through indigenous institutions such as existing tribal authorities and customary lawsIndirect rule work in places where Africans had already established strong and highly organized states, but elsewhere erroneous assumptions about the tribal nature of African societies caused problems

Later ProblemsThe invention of rigid tribal categories and the establishment of artificial tribal boundaries became one of the greatest obstacles to nation building and regional stability in much of Africa during the second half of the 20th CenturyThe arbitrary boundaries of the Berlin Conference did not take into consideration the natural divisions of the African people (religion, culture, language, ethnicity, etc)

Later ImpactsWhen decolonization began in the 1950s, loyalties to these natural groups were often stronger than those to the arbitrarily-created state, leading to civil unrest in many countries After independence, the dominant nationalist movements and their leaders tended to install themselves in virtually permanent power and tried to establish single-party states

US in Latin AmericaIn 1823 President James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine that warned European states against imperialist designs in the western hemisphereAny European attempt to reassert control over former colonies or to establish new ones would be considered as a threat against the US and an act of provocationThe Monroe Doctrine served as a justification for US intervention in hemispheric affairs

Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe DoctrineIn 1904 the government of the Dominican Republic went bankrupt President Theodore Roosevelt feared that Germany and other nations might intervene forcibly to collect their debts Roosevelt asserted that in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power....Cartoon portraying Roosevelt as an international policeman wielding his big stick

Early 20th Century US Interventions in Latin AmericaCuba

Dominican Republic

Nicaragua

Honduras

Haiti

US: Alaska and HawaiiIn 1867 the US purchased Alaska from RussiaIn 1875 the US claimed a protectorate over Hawaii, where US entrepreneurs had established highly productive sugarcane plantationsIn 1893 a group of businessmen and planters overthrew Queen Liliuokalani and invited the US to annex HawaiiHawaii became a US possession in 1898Queen Liliuokalani

US: Spanish-American War (1898-1899)The US had large business interests in Puerto Rico and Cuba, the last remnants of Spains American empireIn 1898 the US battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana harborUS leaders suspected sabotage and declared war on Spain

US: Spanish-American WarThe US easily defeated Spain and took possession of Puerto Rico and CubaIn the Pacific, the US took possession of the Philippines and GuamAfter the Spanish-American War the US emerged as a major imperial and colonial powerCommodore Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in a single day at the Battle of Manila.

Puerto Rico and Cuba TodayToday Puerto Rico is a commonwealth associated with the USIn 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship In plebiscites held in 1967, 1993, and 1998, voters chose to retain commonwealth status

Puerto Rico and Cuba TodayThe Spanish-American Wars Treaty of Paris established Cuban independence, which was granted in 1902 after a three-year transition period In 1959, Fidel Castro established a communist government in CubaHowever based on a series of agreements beginning in1903, the US has been able to lease Guantanamo Bay for $4,085 a year

Philippines and Guam TodayThe Philippines were ceded to the US in 1898 In 1935 the Philippines became a self-governing commonwealth with independence to be gained after a 10-year transition. In 1942, the Japanese occupied the PhilippinesWell talk about this in Lesson 21In 1946 the Philippines became independentIn 1992, the US closed its last military bases on the islands Clark Air Force Base was once the largest overseas U.S. military base in the world

Philippines and Guam TodayGuam was ceded to the US by Spain in 1898 and remains an organized, unincorporated territory of the USIt was captured by the Japanese in 1941 and retaken by the US three years laterWell talk about this in Lesson 21Guam continues to host important US naval and air force bases

US: PanamaIn 1903 the US supported a rebellion against Colombia and helped rebels establish a breakaway state of PanamaIn exchange for the support the US won the right to build a canal across Panama and control the adjacent territory known as the Panama Canal ZoneThe Canal opened in 1914

US: PanamaThe Torrijos-Carter Treaties in 1977 caused the Canal Zone to cease to exist in 1979 and the US to relinquish control of the Canal on Dec 31, 1999The US conducted Operation Just Cause in 1989-1990 to capture Panamanian dictator Manuel NoriegaCanal Zone Governors House

Imperial JapanReview from Lesson 11In 1894 the Sino-Japanese War broke out over control of KoreaThe Japanese navy quickly gained control of the Yellow Sea and then the Japanese army pushed Chinese forces off the Korean PeninsulaIn the peace treaty, China recognized Korean independence which made Korea a virtual dependency of Japan

Imperial JapanReview from Lesson 11The Japanese victory alarmed European powers, especially Russia, who shared interests with Japan in Korea and ManchuriaThe Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904 with Japan emerging victorious and gaining recognition as a major imperial power

Imperial JapanBritain and the US began to see Japan as a threat to their naval dominanceIn 1922 The Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty establish a ratio of capital ships asBritain 5United States 5Japan 3France 1.67Italy 1.67In the 1930s, an increasingly militant Japan demanded parity with the U.S. and Britain.When the request was denied, Japan gave notice in 1934 that it would withdraw from the treaty in two years and did so

Imperial JapanJapan continued to see the US and others as a threat to its influence in Asia and in 1940 the Japanese began developing plans to destroy the US Navy in HawaiiOn Dec 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl HarborWell discuss this in Lesson 18In May 1940, the main part of the US fleet was transferred to Pearl Harbor from the west coast

NextDebate: Defense of Imperialism