1. Responses to Modernity: Case Study Africa
New Imperialism
Responses to Modernity:
Case Study Africa

2. “Old Imperialism”-vs “New Imperialism”
Occurred between 16th and 18th centuries
Set up trading companies along establish trading routes in the world
To intercept goods, and gain tax money and monopoly over goods
Acquisition of territory not the norm (except for Spain in Americas and Portugal in Brazil)
Economic penetration of non-European regions in the 19th century
“NEW”
Began in 1870s colonized Asia and Africa by using military force to take control of local governments
Exploiting local economies for raw materials required by Europe’s growing industry (industrial rev)
Imposing Western values to benefit the “backwards” colonies & to make the acquisition of resources more efficient
What choices does the non-west have in response to this aggressiveness?

3. Responses to Modernity
Tribute Compromise:
Submit to Western demands and pressures, outwardly, and cultivate cultural institutions internally
Compete with the West
Adopt Western methods to complete militarily, economically compete with Western Pressures
Resist/Assert “indigenous difference”
Shun Western ideas and institutions. Revive traditional, indigenous ideas and institutions to thwart Western influence
Often leads to a myopic /emasculated/terse interpretation of historical past
Isolationism
Assimilate
Adopt Western norms: cosmologically, politically, etc

4. Responses so Far Ottoman Empire
Forced to meet—and compete—with Modernity face to face when Industrial Revolution and start of Charter Companies began to compromise Ottoman income and influence in world trade
Bullion no longer flowed through Istanbul….
Ottoman traders no longer controlled ancient trade routes
Attempt to turn the empire into a modern industrial nation
Policies awkwardly executed,
Hence Eurocentric term:
“Sick Man of Europe”
Policies?
State centralization
Industrialization
Rule of law; uniform civil code (like Napoleonic Code)
Centralized army to replace Janissary
Beat them at their own game….
India:
Did not figure out quickly the British and French technique
To exploit their ‘segmented state’, and use of divide and conquer method of acquiring trading rights
Did not develop a unified response to British exploitation of Mughal-vs-Hindu relations
Zamindari system, and exploitation of taxes
Many elite took the route of assimilation; trained as British civil servant to run the empire
Opposition grows only around 1860s, after the “Sepoy Mutiny”
Indian National Congress
Use western model of nationalism and state formation, to demand expulsion of Britain
Beat them at their own game…

5. Responses so Far East Asia Remember….
Dutch Charter Company (Dutch East India Co.) makes inroads
Ruthlessly killed natives for commercial expediency
Introduced merchants to Opium into East Asia (below cost) --including China– to create a system of dependency
Missionaries throughout
By 18th c, half of South East Asia converted to either Christianity or Islam
China and Japan, responded initially through policy of Seclusion
Western powers bully their way into China through Opium Wars
Taiping (Boxer) Rebellion (1850), of traditionalists-vs-Manchu leaders and Christian missionaries
Rebellion put down with British help
By 1853, only Japan had the military might to withstand Western domination

6. Major Causes for the Imperialist Impulse
Search for new markets and raw materials
Missionary work: far more successful in Africa than in Asia and Islamic world.
Dr. David Livingston: first white man to do humanitarian and religious work in south and central Africa
H. M. Stanley found Livingston (whom westerners thought to be dead) and his newspaper reports created European interest in Africa; Stanley sought aid of king of Belgium to dominate the Congo region.

7. Africa
1880, Europeans controlled 10% of Africa; by 1914 controlled all except Liberia & Ethiopia
Belgian Congo
At behest of Leopold II, H. M. Stanley established trading stations, signed “treaties” with African chiefs, and claimed land for Belgium.
Leopold’s incursion into Congo basin raised the question of the political fate of black Africa (south of the Sahara); also Britain's conquest of Egypt

8. Africa: Berlin Congress 1884-85
Established the "rules" for conquest of Africa
Sponsored by Bismarck & Jules Ferry ; sought to prevent conflict over imperialism
Congress coincided with Germany's rise as an imperial power
Agreed to stop slavery and slave trade in Africa
Germany took control of Cameroon, Togo, southwest Africa, & East Africa
France took control Tunisia, Algeria, French West Africa (including Morocco, Sahara, Sudan, Congo basin)
Italy: took control of Libya
Each power divided Africa into ‘arbitrary’ political units, to serve interests of Administration
How would this lead to the problems in Darfur and Rwanda?
Justifications? Social Darwinism? Scientific Racism

9. Africa: Berlin Congress 1884-85
Britain: perhaps the most enlightened of the imperialist powers (though still oppressive)
Took control of Egypt in 1883 (model for "New Imperialism")
Pushed southward and took control of Sudan
Battle of Omdurman (1898): General Horatio H. Kitchener defeated Sudanese tribesman and killed 11,000 (use of machine gun) while only 28 Britons died
Fashoda Incident (1898): France & Britain nearly went to war over Sudan; France backed down in the face of the Dreyfus Affair