Colonial Encounters: 1750-1914

Chapter 20, Strayer

The Big Ideas

• A second wave of European conquests• Under European control– Cooperation and rebellion– Colonial empires with a difference

• Ways of working: Comparing colonial economies

• Believing and belonging: Identity and cultural change in the colonial era

A Second Wave of European Conquests

Part 1

Old versus New Imperialism

• Old Imperialism: 1500s-1750, conquest of the Americas and establishment of trading posts

• New Imperialism: 1750-1914– Focused on Africa and Asia– Featured Germany, Italy, Belgium, the US and

Japan, in addition to Britain and France– Spain and Portugal largely uninvolved– Some formal, but mostly informal colonies

established

• Empire building depended on force or threat of force, Briton Hilaire Belloc said:

“Whatever happens we have got the Maxim Gun and they have not.”

• New European empires greatly impacted colonial people– Mixed together enemies and split up tribes– Loss of political sovereignty– All people became subjects of European empires

• Different ways of establishing colonies– Britain and France took advantage of the

fragmenting Mughal empire to divide and conquer– The Dutch took advantage of local rivalries to gain

control in Indonesia– In both cases colonization was a slow and

unorganized process– Later colonization in Africa and South East Asia

and the Pacific were much more deliberate

• The Scramble for Africa– Intense European competition to divide up the

continent– Formalized by the Berlin Conference of 1885– By 1900, most of Africa was under European

control– Only Liberia and Ethiopia remained sovereign– Europeans knew little about the people they

conquered– Europeans used a variety of methods to gain

control; treaties, trickery, and conquest– Creation of random political boundaries laid the

foundation for future ethnic conflict

• The Islands of the South Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand– Colonized by the British– More similar to conquest of the Americas than

Africa– Europeans established settler societies and white

dominions– Isolated indigenous peoples died at high rates

from Afro-Eurasian diseases

• Other variations on the theme– Japan’s conquest of Taiwan and Korea were very

similar to European conquests in East Asia– US westward expansion and Russian expansion

into Central Asia were similar and often facilitated by building rail roads

– The US also acquired overseas colonies by defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War in 1898

• Local leaders took many actions to try to avoid foreign rule– Sometimes they enlisted the help of other

Europeans– Signed treaties (often unequal)– Attempted to make Western powers fight each

other– Attempted to directly fight Europeans

Questions

1. Describe how Western powers established colonies in different places around the world

Under European Rule

Part 2

Point of View

• 1902, a British soldier in East Africa described the conquest of a village:

“Every soul was either shot or bayonetted… We burned all the huts and razed the banana

plantations to the ground.”

• Retired Vietnamese government official Nguyen Khuyen wrote this lament following the French conquest:

Fine wine but no good friendsSo I buy none though I have money

A poem comes to mind, but I choose not to write it down

If it were written, to whom would I give it?

Cooperation and Rebellion

• Many colonized people worked for their colonizers– There was a shortage of European officials and

soldiers in the colonies– Members of former ruling classes used being

employed by European powers to maintain their own status

– In India, the British established Princely States, areas ruled by Mughal princes loyal to the British

• Colonial governments and missionary groups set up schools– Local education led to the emergence of a group of

low level administrators– Wealthy and powerful colonial people were able to

send their children abroad for formal educations– This group of Western educated elites who filled key

colonial positions– Western powers became ever more dependent on

this class of people– This group eventually led the nationalist

independence movements of the 20th century

• Despite the cooperation, there were also rebellions– 1857-1858: Sepoy Mutiny aka Indian Rebellion– A mutiny led by Hindu and Muslim sepoy over

mistreatment and cultural insensitivity– Brutally crushed by the British East India Company– An outrage Parliament disbands the BEIC and

takes direct control over India– Racial tension grows

Colonial Empires with a Difference

• White Dominions often saw greater separation between colonizers and colonized

• In South Africa, black South Africans were forced into “homelands” by Europeans attempting to exploit laborers while limiting their position in society

• European technology: rail roads, telegraphs, and medicines also planted seeds of change

• Social Darwinism and racism influenced race relations among colonial peoples– In India, Brahmins were considered more “white”

by the British and used that to keep power– In Rwanda, the Belgians emphasized the

differences between the Hutus and Tutsi laying the foundation of the 1994 genocide

• Ironically colonialism contradicted many of the Enlightened ideas shaping political change in the West

Questions

1. What are some reasons colonial peoples might cooperate with outside powers?

2. Why might they oppose foreign rule?3. How were European colonies of the 19th

century different from earlier colonies?

Ways of Working: Comparing Colonial Empires

Part 3

Economies of Coercion: Forced Labor and the Power of the State

• Colonial peoples were often forced to provide manual labor laying rail roads, clearing land, mining, collecting rubber, and growing cash crops

• In Africa and South East Asia, European rule was especially brutal

• Belgium’s King Leopold II was notorious for his brutal treatment of people in the Congo

“We were always in the forest to find rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating in the gardens. Then we starved…. We begged the White Man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the White Man and the soldiers said “Go. You are only beasts yourselves….” When we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our town and killed us. Many were shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied with ropes around their necks and taken away.”

• In the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) peasants were forced to cultivate 20% of their land with sugar or coffee to pay as taxes to the Dutch– Most peasants suffered under double taxes

growing cash crops for the Dutch and for local leaders

– Poverty and indebtedness increased among the peasants

– Lack of subsistence agriculture led to famines throughout Java in the mid 18th century

Economies of Cash Crop Agriculture: The Pull of the Market

• British powers encouraged widespread cotton cultivation in India and Egypt, and rice production in Burma.

• The push for cash crops led to less food farming and caused famines

• In Vietnam the destruction of rain forest to create plantations was environmentally devastating

• Colonized places developed unhealthy, economically dependent relationships with their colonizers

Economies of Wage Labor: Working for Europeans

• Colonial people sought employment in European plantations and mines

• Overcrowding in colonial cities led to poverty, disease and death

• The British sent Indian workers to their colonies all over the world

• A 1913 law in South Africa put 88% of the land under European control; black South Africans flocked to European owned farms to avoid deportation to “homelands”

Women in the Colonial Economy: Africa a Case Study

• Prior to colonization women throughout Africa were involved in farming and had some economic autonomy

• As colonial economies grew, men moved to cities and plantations to earn wages increasing the number of hours women had to spend farming from around 46 hours a week to over 70!

• Women also attempted to bring food to their husbands in the cities to help supplement their low wages

• Society became more matrilocal as women resided with their families instead of the families of their absent husbands

Assessing Colonial Developments

• Colonization spurred modern industrial growth around the world

• Further integrated Africa and Asia into the global economy

• Led to the adoption of Western styled governments following independence

• The desire to rid themselves of foreign rule led to massive nationalist movements throughout the 20th century

Questions

1. Describe the relationship between imperialism and coerced labor

2. How did cash-crop economies transform the lives of colonial people?

3. Why did some colonial people seek out wage labor?

4. How did wage labor impact colonial peoples?5. How were the lives of African women changed

as a result of imperialism?