Download 17 Imperialism - Herbert Hoover High School

Chapter 17: Nineteenth Century Imperialism
Although much of Chapter 16 dealt with Euro-American Imperialism, this chapter will study the
phenomenon in more detail. What is imperialism? How did it affect other nations, especially India, Africa
and the Pacific Ocean Basin (Oceania)?
I. Imperialism
Imperialism is the rule or influence by one government, nation, or society over another. Empire
building is the logical extension of Imperialism and is nothing new in world history. Strong societies have
often preyed upon weaker societies. Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Alexander the Great, Mauryan India, Rome and
Han China all dominated large areas of the ancient world. In the seventh century Islam expanded from the
Atlantic to Southeast Asia; and Tang China forced tributary status on its neighbors. Turkish invaders built
empires from Europe to India and China; Sundiata and Mansa Musa held sway over West Africa; the
Mongols built the largest empire of world history while the Aztecs and Inca dominated the Americas.
Imperialism was reborn in the West with the emergence of the modern nation-state and the Age of
Exploration. Europeans first established colonies in sparsely inhabited lands along the coast of Africa and
also in lands where ancient civilizations and states had flourished for centuries. European settlers migrated to
their colonies in a process called colonization. And since these migrants possessed superior organization and
technology, they generally assumed that they were superior culturally toward the native populations in and
around their colonies. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the Portuguese and the Dutch built
“Trading Post Empires” in Africa and Asia for the exploitation of the resources and commerce with
societies already developed. The Spanish and Portuguese established colonies in the New World in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to exploit the mineral wealth of the lands they conquered. The British
and French imperialists eagerly colonized North America, Africa and Asia. Acting on Mercantilist
Principles the European nations in the eighteenth century attempted to regulate the trade of their colonies in
the interests of the mother country.
As the nineteenth century dawned, imperialism seemed to be on the decline. Britain had lost its Thirteen
Colonies in North America; the Haitian Slave Rebellion had been successful; Spain and Portugal had lost
most of Latin America and the Dutch were having difficulties holding onto the East Indies. Even though
American Manifest Destiny and the eviction of Siberian tribes and Latin American Indigenous peoples
continued the practice of imperialism, it was in the second half of the 19th century that Western Europeans
carried Imperialism and Empire-building to an unprecedented scale. Equipped with industrial and military
might, the English, French, Germans and Dutch imposed their control over the world on a scale unimagined
by earlier conquerors. By the end of the century, Japan and the United States would join the European
Imperialists. Although imperialism encouraged global trade, it also created hard feelings between the few
wealthy industrialized nations and the great mass of countries that were reduced to colonial or economic
tributary status; the byproduct of which was more often than not virulent racism.
a. The Motives of Imperialism
The first motive of Imperialism was and is Power: either by military force or through trade domination,
investment and business activities – or, as often happened, a combination of any or all of these.
The second was Colonization: often driven by population pressure, Europeans established colonies (1) either
in sparsely populated lands (sweeping away and/or marginalizing native inhabitants) such as in North America
and Australia, or (2) dominating/conquering and creating settlements in more populated lands with roots
dating to ancient civilizations and millennia old cultures such as in India, Egypt and Latin America.
-1-
The third motive was Economics. Imperialism was the lifeblood of Mercantilism (Bullionism) Remember that
Mercantilism is the economic philosophy that tries to increase the power of a nation by increasing its
monetary wealth through policies designed to secure an accumulation of bullion (gold ingots), a favorable
balance of trade, the development of agriculture and manufacturing, and the establishment of foreign trading
monopolies. Thus European merchants and entrepreneurs would often advocate aggressive imperialism,
because it protected their wealth and investments. Entrepreneurs needed the raw materials such as rubber, tin,
petroleum and copper found in underdeveloped countries to keep their factories producing. And it is
important to understand that large profits were also made when entrepreneurs turned raw materials into
finished goods and then sent them back to the colonial nations for sale, often wrecking local economies.
The fourth motive was politics. Even if colonies were not profitable, they could still occupy strategic sites
on the world’s sea-lanes or offered harbors for merchant and naval vessels. Military considerations were
often paramount reasons for maintaining colonies. Moreover, imperial expansion also provided more jobs for
European workers and thus defused many internal tensions.
Lastly, there was the Cultural Motive. Many European countries felt that their culture was superior to those
of the lands they dominated. Entrepreneurs and the officers of profit driven companies like the EEIC or VOC
were often ruthless in their exploitation and domination of native populations. Missionaries on the other hand
had a more positive influence. As they flocked to foreign lands and preached the Christian gospel, they often
were domineering; but they also often frustrated colonial officials by supporting and defending the local
population – and they brought education, medical assistance and social aid (such as orphanages).
But whatever their motivations, Europeans generally believed that had a responsibility to impose their own
superior culture. Consider these passages from Rudyard Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden:
Take up the White Man's burden; Send forth the best ye breed
Go, bind your sons to exile; To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness; On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught sullen peoples; Half devil and half child.
Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) was a British businessman who moved to South Africa in 1871 for health reasons.
By 1889, at the age of thirty-five, he had almost complete control of diamond mining in South Africa, or
90% of the diamonds mined in the world. He was an imperialist to the core. He envisaged (foresaw) a British
zone of control (string of colonies) stretching from South Africa up the entire continent all the way to Egypt.
Moreover, Rhodes believed that British culture and civilization were the most noble and superior in the
world. He even dreamed of bringing the United States back into the British Empire. Near the end of his life,
Rhodes wrote, "I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit
the better it is for the human race. I contend that every acre added to our territory means the birth of more
of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence.”
b. The Tools of Empire
Industrialization gave Europeans technological superiority and this superiority showed itself in three areas:
transportation, military force and communication. The most important innovation was the steam engine
applied to ships and locomotives. When military technology was applied to steamships, the result was
powerful naval vessels that were faster and stronger than any sailing ships afloat. Particularly effective in
subduing countries in Africa and Asia were gunboats, which were designed to sail far up rivers from the sea
so as to penetrate deep into another country to enforce European demands.
-2-
We have already seen how British steam powered gunboats led an expedition up the Yangtze River and
brought the Opium War to a successful conclusion for the British. The construction of new canals, such as
the Suez Canal (completed in 1869) and the Panama Canal (finished in 1914) further increased the
effectiveness of European military, passenger and cargo steamships. Once in control of a land, European
powers built railroads, which were immensely helpful in helping them organize and maintain power in
colonial lands. Railroads could efficiently move not only raw materials and finished goods, but also move
armies just as efficiently.
In the area of military technology, increasingly efficient and effective riffles and primitive machine guns
called Maxim Guns (sometimes called Gatling Guns) enabled the Europeans to overwhelm African and Asian
societies. This superiority was demonstrated in 1898 at Omdurman, near Khartoum on the Nile River when
a British Brigade of 3,000 men, 20 machine guns and six gunboats encountered a numerically superior
Sudanese army. In five hours of fighting the British lost 368 men killed and the Sudanese lost 10,000 men
killed, 16,000 men wounded and 5,000 men taken prisoner.
Communication underwent a dramatic revolution as well. In 1800, it took six months for a sailing ship to sail
from England to India and back. During the 1850s, steamships cut the time to four months. After The Suez
Canal opened in 1869, the time was further cut to less than two weeks. By the turn of the twentieth century,
telegraph wires on land and under the oceans cut the time of communication between England and India to
minutes. By 1902, every part of the British Empire was linked by cable and telegraph.
II. European Imperialism in Action
a. The British Empire in India
During the last half of the Eighteenth Century, India was divided into three very complicated types of states.
First the once-mighty Mughal Empire still claimed most of India, but in reality had lost control of most of
the sub-Continent. Second, regional rajas or city-states again ruled many areas that were once ruled by the
Mughal Empire. Thirdly, European colonies were steadily enlarging their territorial holdings
During the 1750s, the British East India Company, under Sir Robert Clive, defeated the Mughals in
numerous engagements culminating in Battle of Plassey in 1757. After Plassey, the Mughals were forced to
grant the British such extensive military and economic concessions, that Great Britain became the strongest
power on the Sub-continent. Then in 1763, the British expelled the French from India at the conclusion of the
Seven Years War. The British Raj (code for British rule in India) began to grow.
It is important to understand that British expansion was a combination of deliberate effort and
random circumstance. The British East India Company (EEIC) continued its economic penetration, but, in
many cases, local rajas, especially those not under Mughal control, would resist the British or threaten British
interests. The British then would be forced to defeat these rulers and occupy their territories, which often
meant that the British acquired an empire by accident.
By 1800, the British East India Company controlled almost one-fourth of India, including the Island of
Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka. Also in British hands were Bombay and most of the southwest coast, as well
as all of the East Coast including Calcutta and most of the Province of Bengal. As the nineteenth century
opened, the British moved west and north from Calcutta and occupied most of the Ganges River Valley, to
New Delhi and beyond. The British soon also took outlying areas such as Punjab and parts of Afghanistan.
-3-
From the beginning, British rule was harmful to the local population in several ways. First, the profits
generated by Indian raw material industry (especially cotton growing) were sent back to Britain, rather than
benefiting the local economy. Second, the size and efficiency of the British-built textile mills in Great
Britain overwhelmed and drove out of business Indian textile producers, which were usually small protoindustrial operation, often run by women. Third, British tax law applied to the British zone of control and it
allowed British authorities to confiscate land from the peasants unable to pay their taxes. When the British
created their tax system, they thought they had created a fair system. However, they left the collection of
taxes to local officials, called Zamindars, who lost no time in overtaxing their fellow countrymen and
making themselves rich by using British law to seize land from bankrupt peasants. Such land theft became so
common by the 1770s that agricultural production decreased sharply and resulted in a series of famines that
killed almost a third of the Indian population, mostly poor peasants.
The Sepoy Rebellion: the defining moment in the history of the British Raj. The British East India Company
maintained its authority with a small British army assisted by a large number of native Indian soldiers called
Sepoys. In 1857, the Sepoys were given new Enfield rifles that fired bullets from cartridges. To protect them
from moisture, the cartridges came in paper waxed with animal fat. With unbelievable insensitivity, British
officers ordered the Sepoys to tear the paper off with their teeth. Hindu Sepoys refused to comply because
the fat might have come from cows, which were sacred to Hindus. Muslim Sepoys also refused because the
fat might have come from pigs, which Muslims are forbidden to eat. Even though the British changed their
orders, the Sepoys revolted and tried to restore Mughal rule. Peasants joined the rebellion and soon the
fighting threatened British rule in all of India. After atrocities by both sides, the British army finally crushed
the rebellion the following year. But the London government realized that the EEIC was unable to administer
India properly; so to keep order, the British government replaced the EEIC with direct British rule.
British imperial rule now meant that a Viceroy and British officials ran India, formulating all domestic and
foreign policy. They reconstructed Indian land holdings and encouraged cultivation of commercial crops like
tea, coffee and the EEIC favorite, opium. By the end of the nineteenth century British controlled India was
the world’s leading producer of cotton. The British also built extensive railroads and telegraph networks,
along with canals and harbors. Lastly they imposed English culture on India by establishing English style
schools for Indian elites and suppressing Indian customs the conflicted with British culture, such as Sati.
b. Imperialism in Central and Southeast Asia
In the last chapter we learned that the Russians were frustrated when they tried to expand southwestward
towards Constantinople. The resulting conflict, the Crimean War, halted their thrust and revealed their
weaknesses compared to the industrialized states of Europe. And we saw how the Russian government
continued to expand southeastward from the Caucuses Mountains towards India absorbing what the old
Khanates of the Silk Road – what today is Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan. We also saw how the British, who held and India, and the Russians played the “Great Game” of
espionage and diplomatic intrigue in the decades leading up to World War I.
Spain held the Philippines and the Dutch extended their control over all the Dutch East Indies. Cash crops
such as sugar, tea, coffee, and tobacco along with tin, rubber and petroleum deposits made the Dutch East
Indies a valuable colony. (Remember: Royal Dutch Shell).
The British also expanded into Southeast Asia. In the 1820s they forced their way into Burma (Myanmar)
and soon supplied the British with teak, ivory, rubies and jade. In 1824 Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
founded the port of Singapore, which soon became the trade center in the Straits of Melaka. From there the
British spread to Malaya in the 1870s, which provided vast quantities of tin and rubber.
-4-
The French had been defeated by the English for control of India and their imperialistic ventures were
delayed by the Napoleonic wars, but in the latter half of the nineteenth century they established control of
French Indo China or what is today, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Like the British, they introduced
European style schools and encouraged conversions to Christianity, and, as a result, Roman Catholicism
became and remains a major religion in Vietnam to this day.
By the end of the nineteenth century all of Southeast Asia was under European colonial control, except the
kingdom of Thailand (Siam), which preserved its independence because it provided a buffer state between
British and French interests. Siam’s king, Mongkut who ruled from 1851 to 1868 carefully studied Western
culture, languages and technology. He shrewdly used this knowledge to negotiate with the Western powers
and was able to sign Unequal Treaties, but maintain his kingdom’s independence.
c. The Carving up of Africa
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Europeans knew very little about Africa, except for the coastal
areas where they had trading posts and contacts with the indigenous peoples. But by the end of the nineteenth
century, Europeans would dominate and colonize almost the entire continent.
West Africa: the Rise of the Asante
The Asante developed a highly centralized, semi-military government led by a chief known as the
Asantahene. After the fall of the Songhay in the late 1600s, the first Asantahene, Osei Tutu, created the
Asante kingdom, which controlled the Sahara trade and acquired firearms from European slave traders. They
used these weapons to build a strong army and dominate the region around Ghana. Their power grew until
the early 1800s when they even opposed Euro-American attempts to destroy the slave trade. In 1821 the
British began a 70-year struggle with the Asante and by 1900 had subdued the Asante.
South Africa
The Dutch had colonized South Africa in the mid 1600s. For a century and a half these Afrikaner Boers had
pushed aside the indigenous peoples and taken the best lands. When the British assumed control over South
Africa during the Napoleon Wars, the Boers were themselves displaced. In the 1830s, the Boers made their
Great Trek to the north and east, eventually founding the Orange Free State and South African Republic
(Transvaal) just north of British South Africa. As both the British and Boers pushed north, they came into
contact with the Zulu.
The Zulu, a Bantu-speaking people, had been relatively quiet and peaceful before 1800. In 1816 a strong
chief, Shaka, united the various Zulu clans. Shaka was called the Black Napoleon because he taught the
Zulu to fight in an organized, efficient manner. Under Shaka, the Zulu became gained a fearsome military
reputation and not only dominated the native peoples in Southern Africa, but also came into conflict with the
Boers and the British who, between them, finally subdued the Zulu by 1879.
Some historians argue that the modern era in South African history began with the discovery in the early
1870s of enormous diamond and gold deposits at Kimberly. Such great wealth caused the British and the
Boers to exploit the indigenous peoples and in the 1880s to institute racial segregation in the mines in the
form of labor compounds and pass laws (or travel restrictions). These set a precedent for the Apartheid Laws
of the white South African government in the 1960s.
-5-
East Africa
Ethiopia, which earlier had allied with Portugal against Muslim invaders, expelled the Portuguese, largely
over religious tension, in 1632. For the next two and a half centuries, Ethiopia went into isolation, and then
modernized under Theodore II, who came to the throne in 1855. Although Theodore was defeated by the
British (and committed suicide rather than surrender), his successors were able to keep Ethiopia independent.
In 1889, Menelik II continued modernization, building roads, setting up Western style schools and hiring
European military experts to bring the army up to European standards. In 1896, the Italians invaded and
Ethiopia surprised the world by its decisive victory at Adowa. Ethiopia would remain independent until
Mussolini’s invasion of 1936.
The East African coast, which had come under Portuguese domination between the late 1400s and late
1600s, enjoyed a period of relative independence when the Arabs in 1728 drove the Portuguese from the port
of Mombassa, marking the waning of Portugal’s strength. The Portuguese retained only Mozambique.
By the early 1800s, Omani Arabs controlled trade between the East African coast and India. By far the most
important East African port was Zanzibar, on a small island off the coast of Tanganyika, and through
which flowed cloves, spices, sugar and ivory. Ironically as the demand for slaves in the Atlantic was finally
disappearing, there was a major resurgence in the Arab-East African slave market due to new plantation
activity in East Africa. It took decades for western powers to eliminate the East African Slave trade and the
great slave market in Zanzibar was finally closed down in 1873 and the British soon occupied the city
d. The Scramble for Africa
Between 1875 and 1900 a prodigious and unprecedented outburst of imperialism took place in Africa.
Outside of the Portuguese colonies in Angola and Mozambique, the French colony in Algeria and small
British and Dutch colonies in South Africa, Europeans had a limited presence in Africa. The exploiting of
African resources and frenzy for Empire in the last quarter of the nineteenth century led to the “Scramble for
Africa”.
The European imperialists built on the information compiled by a series of adventurers and explorers who
charted the interior regions of Africa that Europeans have never before visited. The best known of these was
Dr. David Livingston, a Scottish minister, who traveled through much of central and southern Africa in the
mid-nineteenth century in search of suitable location for missionary outposts. Other travelers were the
American Henry Morton Stanley who led a famous search for Livingston, and two English Geographers,
Richard Burton and John Speke who charted the source of the Nile River at Lake Victoria.
In 1876, King Leopold II of Belgium employed Henry Stanley to help develop commercial ventures and
establish a colony called the Congo Free State. (Today the Republic of Congo) Leopold announced that he
Congo would be a free-trade zone for all merchants and businessmen, but working conditions were so brutal,
taxes so high and abuses so many, that Leopold was forced to let the Belgian government administer the
colony, thereafter known as the Belgian Congo.
From 1867 to 1869, a French company built the Suez Canal across Egyptian territory between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Steamships could now sail to India without passing round the southern
tip of Africa. Like the Ottoman government in Istanbul, the Egyptian government became hopelessly
unstable because it could not pay its European creditors. So, in 1882, Britain took over the administration of
the country to protect British financial interests and ensure the safety of the Suez Canal which was crucial for
British control over India. They then moved into the Sudan. At the same time, British colonists in South
Africa were interested in extending their possessions northwards, particularly since gold and diamonds had
been found in the interior of the region.
-6-
We have already met Cecil Rhodes, who dreamed of building a railway right across Africa, from Cairo in
the north to the Cape in the south. The Dutch settlers in South Africa proved to be an obstacle to his plan. It
took the British two difficult wars, in 1895 and 1899-1902, to defeat the Boers. By 1914, the British had
almost completed their string of north-south colonies: Egypt, Sudan, British East Africa and Uganda (German
East Africa or Tanganyika the one blocking piece); then Rhodesia and South Africa. Britain also had seized
Gambia, the Gold Coast (the Asante kingdom), Sierra Leone and Nigeria in Western Africa.
In West Africa trade in palm oil and timber stimulated European colonization. The French were particularly
active in West Africa. After defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and loss of Alsace-Lorraine, some
French politicians, led by Jules Ferry, sought commercial gain and national prestige by expanding
eastwards into the African interior from Senegal and southwards from Algeria and Tunisia. At the same time,
Ferry was the driving force to colonize French Indo-China and Madagascar. By 1914, the French held
Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa and Madagascar.
The establishment of Belgian, British and French colonies alarmed many European leaders, especially
Bismarck who invited delegates of fourteen states to meet in Berlin and devise ground rules for the
colonization of Africa. The Berlin Conference (1884-1885) produced agreement that any European state
could establish African colonies after notifying the others of its intentions and occupying previously
unclaimed territory. So armed with superior weapons and the Berlin Conference agreement, European
imperialists began to carve up Africa.
In spite of its defeat at Adowa, the Italians still managed to seize Italian Somaliland and Eritrea in East
Africa and Libya. Spain seized Rio de Oro on the Atlantic. The German Empire seized German East Africa,
Southwest Africa, Togoland and Cameroon. So by 1900, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, a small
republic in West Africa populated by freed slaves and protected by the United States, all of Africa was
colonized by European powers.
e. Australia and the Pacific
It was on Captain James Cook’s recommendation that Australia was established as a British penal colony.
From this starting point the European population in Australia grew rapidly, expanding across the entire
continent. But Australia was also of great strategic importance to Britain, and it provided both a base for the
Royal Navy as well as a point of economic opportunity for the surrounding region. Then, in the Late 1700s
Captain John Macarthur began experiments in breeding fine-wool sheep using Spanish Merinos from
Cape Province, South Africa. The merino was gradually transformed into a superior wool-growing animal
and the wool industry flourished as the sheep population grew from 34,000 in 1820 to 405,000 in 1850.
The discovery of gold brought a flood of new migrants in 1851. The Europeans displaced many of the native
tribes and the diseases they brought, like smallpox and measles, devastated the aboriginal populations. As the
aboriginal population fell from 650,000 to 90,000 by 1900, the European population reached 3.75 million by
1900.
In 1823, New South Wales was granted the first constitutional charter by a British law authorizing creation
of a council with limited legislative power. Two years later Tasmania formed similar councils. Like Canada
Australia moved amicably and peaceable towards self-rule and, by the end of the century, the British
Parliament ratified an Australian Constitution and the Commonwealth of Australia came into being on
January 1, 1901.
-7-
The Colonization of New Zealand was much the same with the principal migrant industries being whaling,
agriculture and forest products. During the nineteenth century, the indigenous population, The Maori, fell
from 200,000 to 45,000 while the European population grew to 750,000. In both Australia and New Zealand
the Europeans came into frequent dispute with the native populations. Because these populations did not
occupy lands permanently, British settlers considered the continent terra nullius or land belonging to no
one. They took brutal steps to forcibly occupy the land inhabited by indigenous peoples and relocate them to
the most worthless lands. When they were tricked into signing the Treaty of Waitangi, they resisted more
fiercely than the aboriginal population of Australia. But they were no match for European organization and
weapons – and they too, like the Aborigines and the American Indians were sent to live on reservations. The
Maoris however were resilient than the Aborigines. They were able to build up immunities to European
diseases, learned to use European laws and institutions, and organized to the point where a multiracial
society formed which preserved much of their traditional culture.
In the Pacific Islands the early European visitors were mostly whalers, merchants and missionaries, but in the
latter half of the nineteenth century, European states began to establish what they called protectorates in
which they ruled the local inhabitants. By 1900 only the Kingdom of Tonga was independent. The Pacific
islands were valuable as ports, coaling stations, as well as unique Pacific agricultural products: sugarcane in
Hawaii and Fiji and copra in Samoa, French Polynesia, and the Melanesian and Micronesian islands. Copra
(dried meat of the coconut) was used to produce vegetable oil for making soap, candles and lubricants. New
Caledonia had rich veins of nickel and many Pacific islands had abundant supplies of guano, bird droppings
that made excellent fertilizer.
Captain Cook opened Hawaii to the west and there met his death. His and later visits convinced a young
Hawaiian prince, Kamehameha, to imitate western ways and, using British military technology, founded a
Hawaiian kingdom. After his death in 1819 his successors promoted economic change and began trading
with western merchants. They accepted many western cultural changes. Protestant missionaries from New
England made many conversions and brought about many social changes such as the muumuu and western
education systems. The Hawaiian language was given an Alphabet.
Western businessmen exploited the economy and convinced Hawaiian monarchs to issue the Great Mahele,
an edict, which imposed western concepts of private property on Hawaii. The newly created lands went to
the nobles and kings who sold it off to western entrepreneurs (mostly American) who built large sugar
plantations. This economic growth combined with a Hawaiian population decline because of western
diseases caused much Chinese and Japanese migration and the resulting stresses of multiculturalism. After
1872 the Hawaiian kings declined and in 1875 the United States declared Hawaii a protectorate. In 1887 the
United States claimed the right to build a naval base at Pearl Harbor and an American take over was just a
matter of time.
III. The United States and Japan join the Imperial Powers
a. The United States
After the United States won its independence Great Britain, it turned an imperialist eye towards the North
American continent and by the 1840s developed the idea of Manifest Destiny. But America was also
worried about Europe in the Americas. Between 1810 and 1830, Spanish colonies had won their
independence from Spain. In the shadow of the Congress of Vienna’s efforts to restore the ancient regime,
James Monroe (America’s 5th president) was concerned that the European powers would attempt to restore
Spain's former colonies. So, in 1823, he proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine in which he declared that any
attempt by a European power to control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile
act against the U.S. In essence Monroe proclaimed the Americas to be a U S protectorate.
-8-
American foreign policy was shaped by an ideology called American Exceptionalism which seems to have
developed along three lines. First, American Exceptionalism believes that from the achievement of
independence, the United States was a unique nation unlike all other nations of the world which was based
on liberty, equality, rejection of monarchy and an aristocracy, democracy and laissez-faire economics; and
most uniquely individualism. Second, was the idea that Americans had an obligation (almost a sacred duty)
change the rest of the world by transmitting American values (in other words, by example); and third, that
American uniqueness gave Americans a superiority of all other nations. Thus American Exceptionalism
makes it easy to explain the fundamental essence of both Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.
After its independence in 1824 and its becoming a republic in 1824, Mexico went through a period of
political instability. In 1836, Texans revolted and won independence. In 1845, Texas accepted an annexation
offer by the United States. This resulted in the Mexican American War which gained the United States by the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo what is now California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of New
Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. In 1846, President James Knox Polk settled the Oregon boundary with
Great Britain and in the period leading up to the Civil War, even urged the annexation of Cuba but after the
Civil war, American leaders became anxious to acquire overseas territories.
Ever since its defeat in the Crimean War, Russia was worried that Great Britain, operating from British
Columbia (Canada) might seize Alaska. So Tsar Alexander II decided to sell Alaska and approached the
British and the Americans. The United States finally purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. Although there
was some opposition (they called Alaska Seward’s Icebox), the majority of Americans supported the purchase as
part of the fulfilment of Manifest Destiny.
In 1875 the Hawaiian Islands were declared a protectorate in order to protect profitable American-owned
sugar plantations. In 1893, a group of planters and businessmen in Hawaii overthrew the last Hawaiian
monarch, Queen Liliuokalani (r. 1891-1893), and invited the United States to annex Hawaii. President
Cleveland opposed the idea, but his successor, President Mc Kinley, however was an imperialist and so the
United States annexed Hawaii in 1898.
Also in 1898, the United States became involved in a war with Spain, when an American Battleship, the
Maine, mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, Cuba. The cause was not known, but the U S suspected
sabotage. The Spanish tried to comply with U S demands, but the American imperialists won and day and
declared war against Spain. The U S quickly destroyed the Spanish fleets in the Atlantic and Pacific and
seized Cuba, Puerto Rico, the island of Guam and the Philippines. The U S decided not to give the
Philippines their independence, but governed the country as a protectorate. The Philippine leader Emilio
Aguinaldo who had fought the Spanish now attacked American forces. His bitter insurrection lasted until
1906. America would grant full independence to the Philippines in 1946.
President Theodore Roosevelt was anxious to build a canal across Panama and connect the Atlantic and
Pacific shipping lanes to protect American shipping. He offered to buy land from Colombia but Colombia
refused. So in 1903, he supported a rebellion by Panamanian rebels against Colombia and helped the rebels
establish the Country of Panama. In return the new government of Panama gave the United States the right to
build the canal, which opened in 1914.
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, stating
that in the event of flagrant wrongdoing by a Latin American State, the U.S. had the right to intervene in its
internal affairs. So, the United States used this Corollary to occupy Cuba and to intervene in the unstable
governments of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua both to keep order and to protect
American business interests.
-9-
b. Imperial Japan
Since the Japanese leaders deeply resented the unequal treaties forced upon them, they learned quickly and,
as they industrialized rapidly, they also lost no time in joining imperialist expansion. In the 1870s, they
consolidated their hold on Hokkaido and the Kurile Islands to the north, and they encouraged Japanese
immigrants to populate the islands in order to forestall Russian expansion. In 1879, they established control
over Okinawa and the Ruykyu Islands to the south. In 1876, Japan purchased modern warships from Great
Britain and they soon used their naval power to force the same unequal treaties they had hated upon Korea.
Japanese were also making plans for future wars of expansion.
In 1894, a conflict with China over Korea erupted. The Qing government had sent soldiers to put down an
anti-foreigner rebellion in Korea, but Japan objected because they already had important business holdings in
Korea. They declared war on China and quickly demolished the Chinese navy. Their army then pushed the
Chinese army out of Korea. As a result of this Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese were forced to recognize the
independence of Korea, which really meant that Korea was now a protectorate of Japan. China’s ceding of
Taiwan, the Pescadores Islands and Liaodong Peninsula to Japan completed her humiliation.
This unexpected power unleashed by Japan startled the European powers, especially Russia, because Russia
was hoping to expand into Manchuria and Korea. During the 1890s, as Tsar Nicholas II was preparing to
expand into Manchuria, the Liaodong Peninsula and Korea, Japan was preparing for a showdown. As we saw
in the last chapter, war broke out in 1904 when a Japanese sneak attack destroyed the Russian fleet at Port
Arthur. Better trained Japanese troops then defeated poorer quality Russian troops before reinforcements
could arrive from Europe. The Russian Baltic Fleet then sailed around the world only to be destroyed at the
Battle of Tsushima in 1905. Russia was in grave trouble with riots at home and no hope for victory over
Japan, so they signed a humiliating treaty with Japan in which they gave up their economic interests in
Manchuria and ceded the Southern half of Sakhalin Island to Japan. The Meji had achieved their ambition.
They were a major imperial power.
IV. The Legacies of Imperialism
a. Economic changes
Economic Changes can best be illustrated by what happened to the cotton industry in India. The cultivation
and weaving of cotton textiles went back to around 5000 BCE. However, in the nineteenth century the
British reoriented the cotton industry to best serve the interests of England. They encouraged native growers
to produce cotton for export rather than for local consumption, and they build railroads to easily transport
raw cotton to the coast to be shipped to England where mechanized factories turned out large quantities of
high-quality textiles. Then they shipped finished textiles back to India and undermined the Indian cotton
industry. These policies impoverished many Indians and transformed India from the world’s largest center of
cotton manufacture to a supplier of raw cotton and a consumer of textiles produced in Great Britain.
In Ceylon, even the landscape changed. When British colonial officials introduced tea bushes from China
into Ceylon, they cut down most of the trees on the Island and converted rain forests into tea plantations, and
recruited Ceylonese women by the thousands to carry out the labor-intensive work of harvesting tea leaves.
Much of India saw a similar change. Tea consumption was almost negligible in South Asia, but the increased
output met the demand for tea in Europe.
Malaya and Sumatra saw a similar change in the landscape, but not with tea. There, British and Dutch
colonial agents cut down rainforests and established rubber plantations to meet the need of growing demands
for rubber in the Euro-American industrialized societies.
- 10 -
b. Labor Migrations
Imperialism also encouraged immigration to develop resources and maximize profits. Migrants were usually
of two classes: either they were European who went mostly to temperate lands to become farmers (free
farmers not peasants) join the ranks of industrial workers; or they migrated from Asia, Africa and Oceania
to mostly tropical and subtropical lands as indentured workers on plantations or laborers in mines or vast
construction projects.
Between 1800 and 1914, at least fifty million European migrants lefts their homes and sought opportunities
across the ocean. Generally these immigrants were poor farmers from all over Europe and the vast majority
went to the United States. Many (especially in the early years of the nineteenth century) came for farmland that
they might cultivate. But later immigrants settled in the cities of the Northeast where they provided labor for
industrialization after the Civil War. Large numbers of Europeans also settled in Canada, Argentina,
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Sometimes they went as free people and sometimes as indentured
servants. These migrants almost always found a better economic life than in Europe.
In contrast to European migrants, large numbers of Asian, African and Pacific Island peoples generally
traveled to the same countries as indentured laborers. As slavery became less profitable and declined, they
supplied contract labor forces for many plantations. Most came from India and worked on sugar plantations
around the globe, but also on rubber plantations in Southeast Asia, guano mines in Peru, tin mines in Malaya,
gold mines in South Africa and Australia, and railroad constructions sites in the United States, Canada and
Peru. After the Mejii restoration, many Japanese migrated to sugar plantations in Hawaii.
All these migrations reflected the global influence of imperial powers. European migrations were possible
only because European and Euro-American peoples had established settler societies in temperate regions
around the world. Movements of indentured laborers were possible because colonial officials needed cheap
labor for plantations and mining. But in both cases, these migrations would leave long lasting effects on
many societies around the globe.
c. Conflict
Colonial policies by imperial powers often caused violent conflict with native peoples, as we saw in the
Sepoy rebellion of 1857. Resistance was common in all colonial lands, often due to the tyrannical behavior
of colonial officials, in forced introduction of European schools, high taxation and economic slavery (i.e.,
being forced to grow certain crops and supply labor for European interests.) Many rebellions drew strength from
traditional religious beliefs and were led by native priests or prophets. In Tanganyika (German East Africa) a
local prophet organized the massive Maji Maji rebellion of 1905-1906 to expel the Germans from East
Africa. Rebels sprinkled themselves with magic water “maji-maji”, which they believed would protect them
from German weapons and the result was 75,000 dead rebels.
Most conflicts however were not openly hostile, but passive as local peoples resisted colonial rule by
boycotting European goods, organizing political parties and pressure groups, publishing anticolonial
newspapers and magazines and pursuing anticolonial policies through churches and religious groups.
Colonial policy also created multicultural societies as, for example, when workers from many societies were
brought together on a plantation or mining company. In Hawaii, the laborers who came from China, Japan,
Portugal and (to a lesser degree) from the Philippines formed one of the most diverse multicultural societies,
Korea and other Pacific islands.
- 11 -
d. The Uses and Misuses of Science
In 1859, Charles Darwin (1809-1882), an English biologist, wrote his famous book, The Origin of Species,
in which he argued that all living species had evolved over thousands of years in a ferocious contest for
survival. Species that adapted well to their environment survived, reproduced and flourished, while others
that did not adapt, declined and went into extinction.
Theorists known as Social Darwinists seized upon Darwin’s ideas and adapted them to human races
and societies. Thomas Malthus (Chapter 14; An Essay on the Principle of Population) believed that increasing
the food supply would not solve the problem of feeding the poor because the poor would just beget more
poor is often considered a precursor of Social Darwinism. The English philosopher Herbert Spencer (18201903), used Malthus’ and Darwin’s theories to explain differences between strong and weak societies and
individuals. Spencer who is also credited with the phrase, Survival of the Fittest, believed that European
imperialism was justified by natural scientific principle.
Social and cultural differences were also the foundations of an academic pursuit known as scientific racism,
which became quite popular after the 1840s. Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882) took race as the
most important index of human potential and in his four-volume essay on the Inequality of the Human
Races, Gobineau divided humanity into four main racial groups, each of which had its own peculiar traits.
He characterized Africans as unintelligent and lazy; Asians as smart but docile; the native peoples of the
Americas as dull and arrogant; but Europeans as intelligent, noble and morally superior. Well into the
twentieth century, racist thinkers would try to identify racial groups on the basics of skin color, bone
structure, nose shape, cranial capacity and other physical characteristics, always agreeing that Europeans
were the superior group.
In 1896, a British colonel, Francis Younghusband, wrote about his travels in Asia: No European can mix
with non-Christian races without feeling his moral superiority over them…It is not because we are any
more clever than the natives of India, [or] because we have more brains or bigger heads than they have,
that we rule India; but because we are stronger morally than they are. Our superiority over them is not
due to mere sharpness of intellect, but to that higher moral nature to which we have attained in the
development of the human race.
The result was that many Europeans along with many Americans and Japanese accepted these views. The
Japanese may have been more pragmatic and overbearing and the Americans relatively benign, but both - in
the final analysis - were as racist and harsh as the European powers. President McKinley justified American
actions in repressing Philippine Independence as an effort to civilize and Christianize a culture he did not
understand; and after the Russo-Japanese War many, Japanese leaders openly showed contempt for Koreans
and Chinese calling them stupid, dirty and backward, which, of course, “justified” their imperialistic
ambitions.
e. Nationalism and Anticolonial Movements
During the nineteenth century, while the British were exploiting their country, Indian elites, led by Ram
Mohan Roy (1772-1833) helped forge a sense of Indian identity. Roy is sometimes called the Father of
Modern India or the Father of the Indian Renaissance because he argued for building a new society based
on both modern European science and the Indian traditions of devotional Hinduism. He supported some
British colonial policies, such as the campaign to end Sati (where an Indian widow commits suicide on her
husband’s funeral pyre); and he worked with Christian social reformers to improve the status of women. Yet it
must not be forgotten that Roy, although he recognized that Hinduism had to make some changes, was still
nonetheless deeply seeped in Hinduism and not only drew powerful inspiration from the Vedas and
Upanishads but also sought to bring Hindu spirituality to bear on the problems and conditions of his times.
- 12 -
After 1850, Indian reformers continually called for self-government. These reformers were mostly uppercaste and well-to-do Hindus but some were Muslims and still others represented diverse groups such as the
peasants, the landlords and the lower castes. Most of these leaders had been well educated in British
universities and drew inspiration from such Enlightenment principles as equality, freedom and popular
sovereignty.
The most important of the reform groups was the Indian National Congress, founded in 1885 with British
approval, as a forum for educated Indians to communicate their views on public affairs to colonial officials.
The Congress aired Indian grievances: especially the transfer of wealth from India to Great Britain, racism
and misrule by British colonial officials; but most of all, their demand for self-rule. Eventually, the most
famous and most influential member of the congress was Mohandas K. Gandhi, who was born in 1869.
Gandhi was trained as a lawyer in London and became famous in South Africa from 1893 to 1915, defending
the rights of Indian immigrant workers living under the apartheid system. Gandhi would become the most
important figure in India’s campaign for Independence in the first half of the twentieth century.
In 1906 the Congress joined forces with the All-India Muslim League, which represented 25% of the
population to work together for self-rule. In 1909, colonial authorities allowed wealthy Indians to elect
representatives to local legislative councils, but it would not be until 1947 when Indian Nationalism would
come to fruition with independence. It is very important to understand that India served as a model for
anticolonial campaigns in other colonial lands.
V. The Destiny of Imperialism
As Europeans established their colonial empires, racism and snobbery accelerated. There was a time when
Europeans would imitate the habits of dressing, eating and social pastimes of cultures with which they
interacted. However, by the end of the 19th century, they no longer saw themselves simply as economic or
political competitors, but as superior beings with a superior culture.
In spite of the fact that Euro-Americans sometimes had respect for some aspects of individual native cultural
traditions, as with their respect for Polynesian cultures, they nevertheless assumed it was their God given
destiny to impress European values of hard work and discipline, education and social mores on their colonial
peoples. Nevertheless, in this forcing of cultural imperialism on societies that had ancient patterns cultures
and patterns of civilized life, Europeans often aroused only resistance and resentment. The irony was that,
over time, colonial peoples used European tools of empire building, organizational, communicational and
educational, to create nationalism dedicated to restoring their own cultures. Their resistance to colonial
domination would become one of the dominant themes of global history in the twentieth century.
- 13 -