1. IMPERIALISM - Effects
AP World History

2. Imperialism- Economic Effects
Ways of Working
Colonial rule changed how subject population worked
Old ways of working began to fade away
Subsistence farming diminished in place of wage work, or cash crops
Artisans suffered at the hands of cheaper, machine produced goods from Europe
Asian and African merchants squeezed out by European commercial firms

3. Economics of Coercion
New ways of working came from demands of colonial powers
Compulsory (Statute) and unpaid labor on public projects (railroads, gov’t. buildings, etc)
Cultivation system (Indonesia) – peasants required to use 20% or more of land for cash crops for tax obligations

4. Coffee plantation, Java

5. Economics of Coercion Belgian Congo (Leopold II of Belgium)
Most infamous case of colonial forced labor cruelty
Private co. forced villagers to collect rubber and ivory, punished those unable to meet quotas with death, dismembered.
Natives unable to grow own crops and starved.

8. Cash Crop Agriculture
Asian and Africans had already been part of international trade in cash crops
Colonial rule occasionally benefitted local farmers
British encouragement of rice production in Burma
Standards of living increased
Some Africans took initiative to develop export agriculture (cocoa from cacao trees)
When cash crops were compatible with food production, farmer’s income improved.

9. Wage Labor Another new form of working
Subject peoples needed money from loss of land
Were forced on order of colonial authorities
Subject peoples sought employment in European enterprises (plantations, mines)

10. Wage Labor – Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia – huge plantations
(sugar, tea, rubber, tobacco, sisal)
Impoverished workers came long distances
British facilitated migration of millions of Indians to work sites elsewhere in Empire
Mines (Malay) - tin
Horrible living conditions, extremely dangerous

11. Wage Labor - Africa
Africa – plantations, people migrated to for wage labor more due to loss of land
In settler colonies, colonial gov’ts obtained large tracts of lands that was previously home to African societies
Some Africans stayed on land as squatters, but most displaced to “native reserves”
Mines (South Africa) gold and diamonds

14. Economic Foreign Investment
Infrastructure projects to benefit European investment
Railroads, Canals, telegraphs
Largely funded by Europeans, but built by subject peoples