IMPERIALISM

Vocabulary ID’s

Berlin Conference

Boer War

Boxer Rebellion

Imperialism

Mahan

Meiji’s Reforms

Opium War

Zulus

Panama Canal

Perry

Rape of Nanjing

Roosevelt Corollary

Russo-Japanese War

Spanish-American War

Unequal treaties

Western Advantages

Imperialism

Do Now: Describe Imperialism and identify at least one example?

Imperialism 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 Centuries

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

Imperialism

Why Imperialize???

Survival - Many Europeans came to believe that imperial

expansion and colonial domination were crucial for the

survival of their states and societies

Western Advantage - Superior transportation (steamships

and canals), military (rifles, cannons, military superiority),

and communications (undersea telegraph) technologies

gave the West a huge advantage…Keep in mind, the IR was

underway in GB

The Nemesis destroying Chinese war junks during the 

Second Battle of Chuenpee, 7 January 1841

The Opium War: China

In the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, Europeans wanted

to trade with the Chinese much more than the Chinese

wanted to trade with the Europeans…Chinese believed they

already had everything they needed…a feeling of superiority

Since the Chinese had little demand for European products,

the European merchants had to trade with silver bullion

The Opium War: China

Illustration from an early 19th century book showing an

opium addict

Just Say No!!!

As an alternative to trading

silver, Europeans gradually

began to trade in opium

instead

The trade was illegal and

created both an economic

and a social problem in

China…Opium coming and

silver going out!

The Opium War: China

The British shell Guangzhou

In 1839, the Chinese

took serious measures

to halt the opium trade.

The Canton Trade Laws

The British protested

and launched the

Opium War (1839-

1842)

The Opium War: ChinaThe Canton System of Trade Regulating foreign trade with China

In existence for nearly 150 years from the late 17th

century until war with England brought it abruptly to a halt in

1842.

Restrictive by design, keeping foreigners confined to a

small commercial district in Canton known as the Factories

Prohibiting direct contact between foreigners and the

Chinese

Why Canton??? Chinese officials were wary of European

traders and sought to limit their activities.

The Opium War: China

The war illustrated the military

differential between China and

Europe

The British used steam-powered

gunboats to attack the Grand

Canal, and China sued for peace

China suffered other military

setbacks with Britain and France

(1856-1858), France (1884-1885),

and Japan (1894-1895)

Cartoon showing China being divided by the

United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, France,

and Japan

Unequal Treaties: China

“To the victor goes the spoils”

As a result of these defeats, China was subjected to what

were collectively known as the “unequal treaties”

China was forced to

Cede Hong Kong to Britain

Open ports to commerce and residence

Permit the establishment of Christian missions

Legalize the opium trade

Not levy tariffs on imports

Unequal Treaties By 1900, ninety Chinese

ports were under the

effective control of foreign

powers, foreign merchants

controlled much of the

Chinese economy, Christian

missionaries were converting

Chinese throughout the

country, and foreign

gunboats patrolled Chinese

waters

The Treaty of Nanjing (1842) ceded Hong

Kong to the British in perpetuity

Imperialism Against Japan: Foreign Pressure

The Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan was able to

control foreign interaction until the early 19th

Century

However, beginning in 1844, British, French, and

U.S. ships visited Japan to establish relations

The U.S. in particular wanted ports where its Pacific

whaling and merchant fleets could stop for fuel and

provisions

Imperialism Against Japan: Foreign Pressure

The artificial island Dejima in Nagasaki

Bay where the Dutch were

allowed to trade

Japan refused all requests for

expanded relations and stuck

to their policy of limiting

European and American

visitors to a small number of

Dutch at Nagasaki

In the late 1840s the Japanese

began making military

preparations in case of attack

Imperialism Against Japan: Commodore Perry

Commodore Matthew Perry

Oh Really!!!

In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry

led a U.S. naval squadron into Tokyo

Bay and demanded that the shogun

open Japan to diplomatic and

commercial relations and sign a

treaty of friendship

The shogun had no good alternative

and acquiesced to Perry’s demands

Imperialism Against Japan: The Opening of Japan

Representatives of Britain, the Netherlands, and

Russia soon won similar rights

Like the Chinese, the Japanese were subjected to a

series of unequal treaties which opened Japanese

ports to foreign commerce, deprived the

government of control over tariffs, and granted

foreigners extraterritorial rights

Japan’s Response: End of Tokugawa Rule

The re-birth of Japan - the sudden

intrusion of foreign powers in Japan

resulted in the collapse of the Tokugawa

and the restoration of imperial rule

The dissident slogan was “Revere the

emperor, expel the barbarians.”

On Jan 3, 1868, the boy emperor

Mutsuhito took power: He later became

known as Meiji (“Enlightened Rule”)

Japan’s Response: Meiji Reforms

Japan Comes Alive

The Meiji government strived to gain parity with foreign powers

behind the motto “rich country, strong army”

It looked to the industrial lands of the United States and Europe

to obtain knowledge and expertise to strengthen Japan and win

revisions of the unequal treaties

The Meiji sent many students and officials abroad to learn

everything from technology to construction and hired foreign

experts to facilitate economic development and indigenous

expertise

Japan’s Response: Meiji Reforms

The Meiji transformed Japan by:

abolishing the feudal order and therefore centralizing

political power,

revamping the tax system to put the regime on a firm

financial footing

creating a constitution which gave the emperor effective

power and the parliament the ability to advise but not

control him

creating a modern transportation, communications, and

educational infrastructure

Japan’s Response: Sino-Japanese War

From 1894-1895 Japan defeated China in a war over Korea

which showed how modern and powerful Japan had become

and how weakened China had become

The Japanese navy quickly gained control of the Yellow Sea

and then the Japanese army pushed Chinese forces off the

Korean Peninsula

In the peace treaty, China recognized Korean independence

which made Korea a virtual dependency of Japan

The Japanese victory alarmed European powers, especially

Russia, who shared interests with Japan in Korea and Manchuria

Japan’s Response: Parity with the West

In 1899 Japan was able to end

extraterritoriality – exempt from

local law

In 1902 Japan negotiated an

alliance with Britain as an equal

power

By the early 20th Century, Japan

had joined the ranks of the world’s

major industrial powers

Toyoda Type-G Automatic

Loom invented in 1924

China’s Response: Boxer Rebellion

Eventually an anti-foreign society called the

Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists

(called the “Boxers” by the foreign press)

emerged

to protest the increasing Western presence in

China

In 1899 the Boxers organized to rid

China of “foreign devils”

They went on a rampage killing foreigners,

Chinese Christians, and Chinese who had

ties to foreigners

China’s Response: Boxer Rebellion

Calvin P. Titus won the Medal of Honor leading the

American attack over the Chinese City Wall

In 1900, the Chinese

attacked the foreign

embassies in Beijing

A heavily armed force of

British, French, Russian,

US, German, and

Japanese troops crushed

the rebellion

The Rise of Japanese Imperialism: Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)

When Russia refused to withdraw its troops from Manchuria after

the Boxer Rebellion, Japan attacked and defeated the Russian Far

Eastern Fleet anchored at Port Arthur

It was the first time in modern history an Asian military force had

soundly whipped the army and navy of a major non-Asian imperial

power

With the victory, Japan gained recognition as a major imperial

power

The Rise of Japanese Imperialism: World War I

On August 23, 1914, Japan entered World War I on

the side of the Allies

It captured several German-occupied locations in

China and the Pacific

Building on this momentum, Japan presented the

Chinese government with a secret list of Twenty-One

Demands which would have reduced China to a

protectorate of Japan

The Rise of Japanese Imperialism: World War I

The Chinese leaked the note to the British who spoke up

for the Chinese and prevented complete capitulation, but

still China acquiesced to many of the demands

The Twenty-One Demands reflected Japan’s determination

to dominate east Asia and served as a basis for future

Japanese pressure on China…Pan-Asianism

The Rise of Japanese Imperialism: Manchuria

The increasing Japanese power and

its continued hostility toward China

came to a head in the 1930s when

for the most part civilians lost

control of the government and the

military in Japan…The Mukden

Incident

In the 1937 Japan invaded

Manchuria and waged a brutal war

against civilians and a repressive

occupation

The Rise of Japanese Imperialism: Manchuria The Japanese brutality was

epitomized by the “Rape of Nanjing”

Over a two month period, Japanese

soldiers inflamed by war passion and

a sense of racial superiority raped

7,000 women, murdered hundreds of

thousands of unarmed soldiers and

civilians, and burned 1/3 of the

homes in Nanjing

Chinese man being beheaded

A Chinese baby cries amid the rubble of the Japanese bombing of Shanghai

The Rape of Nanjing: The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII

The Rise of Japanese Imperialism: World War II

Before Pearl Harbor – 1937, USS

Panay

Japan continued to see the U.S.

and others as a threat to its

influence in Asia and in 1940 the

Japanese began developing plans

to destroy the US Navy in Hawaii

On Dec 7, 1941, the Japanese

attacked Pearl Harbor

In May 1940, the main part of the

US fleet was transferred to

Pearl Harbor from the west coast

Imperialism in Africa: Sudan

Muhammad Ahmad Abdullah

declared himself the Mahdi

(rightly guided one) and

unified Sudanese tribes under

the banner of Islam to attack

Ottoman, Egyptian, and British

invaders

Abdullah was both a religious and a

Sudanese nationalist leader

Imperialism in Africa: Sudan

After a protracted siege, Abdullah took the Sudanese

capital of Khartoum and beheaded the British General

George Gordon

Gordon became a martyr for the British imperial

cause and the British government vowed to avenge

his death

In 1898 General Kitchener invaded the Sudan and

eradicated the Mahdist movement

The vast Sudanese territories were incorporated into

the British Empire

Imperialism in Africa: Sudan

Painting of Gordon facing his death

Imperialism in Africa: Zulus

In South Africa, the Zulu King Shaka subdued other

tribes in the early 19th Century and built a kingdom as

large as all of western Europe

Shaka had the military power to deal with Western

envoys as equals and was interested in establishing

mutually beneficial ties with the West

Imperialism in Africa: Zulus

Shaka was not a benevolent

ruler and his reign was called

Mfecane or “the time of

troubles”

Assassinated by rivals there

was no peaceable system of

succession

The Zulu kingdom was torn

apart by internal disputes

which weakened its ability to

resist Dutch and British

expansion into South Africa

British soldiers show a Maxim gun to an

elderly Zulu chief in 1901

Imperialism in Africa: South Africa

The Dutch East India Company had established a

supply station at Cape Town in 1652 and settlers began

expanding outward to take up ranching and farming

These 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

Imperialism in Africa: South Africa

British rule disrupted Boer society because it brought in

English law and language

Britain abolished slavery in 1833, Boer financial viability

and lifestyles were further threatened

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)

Imperialism in Africa: South Africa

Boer guerrillas during the Second

Boer War

The lenient British attitude toward

this changed when diamonds were

discovered on Boer-populated

territories in 1867 and gold in 1886

Two “Boer Wars” were fought from

1880-1881 and 1899-1902 with the

British winning and putting an end

to the Boer independent republics

By 1910, Britain had consolidated

the provinces into the Union of

South Africa

Imperialism in Africa: Berlin Conference

Tensions 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

Africa

The conference produced an agreement that any

European state could establish African colonies after

notifying the others of its intentions and occupying

previously unclaimed territory

Imperialism in Latin America: U.S.

In 1823 President James Monroe issued the Monroe

Doctrine that warned European states against imperialist

designs in the western hemisphere

Any European attempt to reassert control over former

colonies or to establish new ones would be considered as

a threat against the U.S. and an act of provocation

The Monroe Doctrine served as a justification for U.S.

intervention in hemispheric affairs

US: Spanish-American War

The U.S. had large business interests

in Puerto Rico and Cuba, the

last remnants of Spain’s American

empire

In 1898 the U.S. battleship Maine exploded

and sank in Havana harbor

U.S. leaders suspected sabotage and

declared war on Spain

US: Spanish-American War

Commodore Dewey destroyed the

Spanish fleet in a single day at the Battle of Manila.

The U.S. easily defeated Spain and

took possession of Puerto Rico and

Cuba

In the Pacific, the U.S. took

possession of the Philippines and

Guam

After the Spanish-American War

the U.S. emerged as a major

imperial and colonial power

US: Naval Growth

Protected by two oceans, the U.S. at the turn of the 20th

Century needed only a small army

However, to protect its expanding overseas interests it built

the world’s third largest navy

Men like Alfred Thayer Mahan argued that the navy

represented the key to American power and championed

imperialism

US: Imperialism in the Western Hemisphere

Dating back to the Monroe Doctrine, the US had a keen

interest in dominating the Western Hemisphere

Monroe Doctrine had three policy goals:

Prevent European domination over the Caribbean

Obtain land for a canal across Central America

Dominate trade with Latin America and Canada

U.S. success in obtaining these goals was based on no

nation in the Americas being strong enough to oppose the US

and European nations being preoccupied with their own

imperialistic ventures in Africa and Asia

US: Imperialism in Panama

In 1903 the U.S. supported a

rebellion against Colombia and

helped rebels establish a

breakaway state of Panama

In exchange for the support, the

U.S. won the right to build a

canal across Panama and

control the adjacent territory

known as the Panama Canal

Zone

U.S.: Imperialism in Panama

Gatun locks under construction in 1910

Between 1904 and

1914, the U.S. built

the Panama Canal

which links the

Atlantic and Pacific

Oceans without having

to transit Cape Horn

US: Imperialism Elsewhere in Latin America

In addition to military ventures, the U.S. practiced “Dollar

Diplomacy” in Latin America whereby Latin American

governments were pressured to support US business interests

By 1913 the U.S. had displaced Great Britain as the leading

exporter to Latin America

US: Imperialism Elsewhere in Latin America

To protect their investments, U.S. businessmen

encouraged compliant, pro-American governments in Latin

America

When order was threatened, the U.S. did not hesitate to

intervene

Between 1903 and 1934 the U.S. sent armed forces one

or more times to six nations in the Caribbean, occupying

three of them for more than a decade

Roosevelt Corollary

In 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....”

Roosevelt Corollary

Cartoon portraying Roosevelt as an

international policeman wielding his “big stick”