1. Imperialism
The what, the how, the why and the where

2. What is it?
• Imperialism: The conquest of foreign lands
and the control of the resources of those
lands

3. Why does it happen?
• Colonies are needed to support
industrialization (economic)
• Demonstration of strength (military)
• Defuse internal tensions brought by
socialism/increase patriotism (political)
• convert & “civilize” (religious/cultural)

4. Why Europe?
Technology, man, Technology

5. Advantage: Europe
• Transportation Technology:
• Steamships
• Railroads
• Infrastructure
• Suez Canal built
• Panama Canal built

6. Advantage: Europe
• Weaponry
• Breech Loaders vs. Muzzle Loaders
• Maxim Gun 11 rounds per second fired
• Battle of Omdurman: Brits vs. Sudanese
1898. Brits have 20 maxim guns
• 5 hours of fighting: Brits: 368 dead
• Sudanese 11,000 dead

7. Advantage: Europe
• Correspondence:
• 1830’s: Britain-India takes 2 years
• after Suez Canal built, two weeks
• Telegraph invented and cables laid in 1870s
• Britain-India takes 5 hours max.

8. Where does it happen?
• India and Central Asia First
• SE Asia/Oceania
• Africa

9. Central Asia
• British, French and Russians compete
• France drops out after Napoleon
• Russia active after 1860s in Tashkent, Bokhara,
Samarkand, and approached India
• The “Great Game”: Russian vs. British intrigue in
Afghanistan
• Preparation for imperialist war
• Russian Revolution of 1917 forestalled war

10. India
• Grows out of the British East India
Company presence
• Mughals grant EIC permission to build forts
on coastline
• Mughals weaken after Aurangzeb dies in
1707.
• EIC pushes British govt to take over

11. India falls
• EIC’s expand control around forts using
small numbers of British troops and Indian
soldiers called Sepoys.
• May 1857 Sepoy Mutiny occurs

12. Britain in control
• Britain establishes Direct Rule of India
• Institutes Civil Service staffed by English
• Indians at low levels of government
• Organizes agricultural production
• Tea, opium, cotton
• Impresses British culture on society

13. The Imperialists of SE
Asia
Britain is the big dog, France, Spain, Holland are all
playaz too

14. Imperialism in Asia

15. Who is where?
• France in IndoChina--Vietnam, Cambodia,
Laos
• Encourages conversions to Christianity
• Spain: Philippines
• Dutch: Indonesia (Dutch East Indies)
• Britain: Burma, Singapore founded to
control Melakan Strait, Malaysia

16. Africa
• The “Scramble”
• Europeans all want a piece of the “Dark
Continent”
• Belgium, France, Portugal, Britain, Germany
all compete to establish colonies

17. contrast is interesting!

18. South African/Boer War
Dutch East India establishes Cape Town (1652)
Farmers (Boers) follow to settle territory, later called Afrikaners
Competition and conflict with indigenous Khoikhoi and Xhosa peoples
British takeover in 1806, slavery a major issue of conflict
Afrikaners migrate eastward: the Great Trek, overpower Ndebele and Zulu
resistance with superior firepower
Establish independent Republics
British tolerate this until gold is discovered
White-white conflict, black soldiers and laborers
Afrikaners concede in 1902, 1910 integrated into Union of
South Africa

19. Berlin West Africa
Conference (1884-85
Fourteen European states & United States
No African states present
Rules of colonization: any European state can take
“unoccupied” territory after informing other
European powers
European firepower dominates Africa
Exceptions: Ethiopia fights off Italy (1896); Liberia
a dependency of the US

20. 3 Types of Rule
• #1: Concessionary Companies
• Private companies granted rights to rule
• Exploitative, tax locals, extract
resources
• Leads to horrible abuses
• Profit margins are minimal

21. 3 Types of Rule
• #2 Direct rule
• Europeans try to directly govern.
• Chronic shortage of personnel
• Language and cultural and religious
barriers
• “Civilizing missions”

22. 3 Types of Rule
• #3 Indirect Rule
• Place sympathetic natives in charge
• use indigenous institutions
• but impose arbitrary boundaries
• disregard tribal distinctions and other
pre-existing barriers

23. Imperialism in Oceania

24. Oceania
• Largely commercial
• Whaling ports, merchants seeking items
to sell in China
• Missionaries seeking souls
• British, French, German and Americans
carve up islands

25. NKOTB: US
• US late to the party, but plays the game well
• Monroe Doctrine issued 1823
• 1867 purchases Alaska from Russia so they can
see Russia from the porch
• 1875 establish Hawai’ian protectorate, take it
over in 1898 per “local” request
• Queen Lili’uokalani overthrown

26. NKOTB: US
• US declares war on Spain after USS Maine
sunk in Havana, Cuba 1898-99
• Takes Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, Philippines as a
• Philippines revolt vs. Spain and then US
• 4200 US soldiers, 215,000 locals die
• Then US intervenes in Caribbean and Central
American areas, per Roosevelt Corollary
• Takes Dominican, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti

27. NKOTB: Japan
• 1870’s expand to local islands like Okinawa
• 1876 purchase gunships from Britain, Use
them to take over Korea
• Sino-Japanese War over Korea (1894-5)
win for Japan
• Russo-Japanese war (1904) win for Japan
• Japan eyes China...

28. NKOTB: Japan
• Japan pursues the same Unequal Treaties
imposed by Europe on it
• China gives up Taiwan, the Liaodong Penn.
and Pescadores to Japan.
• Korea is a dependency of Japan
• Manchuria becomes Japanese as well
• All about access to resources

29. Consequences
• Colonial holdings are encouraged to
develop & exploit natural resources
• NOT develop manufacturing or industry
• Developed a dependence on imperial
power for those products
• i.e.: Indian Cotton
• Crops are transplanted/new to a region

30. More Consequences
• Migration
• Europeans move to temperate climates
• Free cultivators, industrial laborers
• 32 million alone to the US 1800-1914

31. More Consequences
• Africans, Asians, Pacific Islanders move to
tropical/sub-tropical destinations
• indentured laborers, manual laborers
• 2.5 million between 1820-1914

32. Still More
Consequences
• Conflict
• Thousands of insurrections vs. colonial
rule
• Tanganyika Maji-maji vs. Germans in 1905
• sprinkle with magic water to deflect
bullets/protect vs. modern weapons
• 75,000 killed

33. Even More
Consequences
• “Scientific” Racism
• Race codified as a reason for colonial
dominance
• Builds off of Darwin’s work
• Morton and de Gobineau lead the way

34. Darwin’s Idea

35. Morton’s Idea

36. Morton’s
Proof

37. Go to Wikipedia
Look up: An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races
for de Gobineau’s contributions

38. A response to Kipling
Pile on the Black Man’s Burden.
'Tis nearest at your door;
Why heed long bleeding Cuba,
or dark Hawaii’s shore?
Hail ye your fearless armies,
Which menace feeble folks
Who fight with clubs and arrows
and brook your rifle’s smoke.
Pile on the Black Man’s Burden
His wail with laughter drown
You’ve sealed the Red Man’s problem,
And will take up the Brown,
In vain ye seek to end it,
With bullets, blood or death
Better by far defend it
With honor’s holy breath.
Source: H.T. Johnson, “The Black Man’s Burden,” Voice of Missions, VII (Atlanta: April 1899), 1.
Reprinted in Willard B. Gatewood, Jr.,Black Americans and the White Man’s Burden, 1898–1903
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 1975, 183–184.