1. Colonial Encounters

2. 2nd Wave of European Conquests
Focused on Asia and Africa
Several new players (Germany, Italy, Belgium, US, Japan)
Was not demographically catastrophic like the first phase
In general, Europeans preferred informal control (Latin America, China, Ottoman)
2nd Wave of European Conquests

4. Based on Military Force or Threat
Original Euro military advantage lay in organization, drill, and command structure
19th C. enormous firepower advantage (repeating rifles and machine guns
Numerous wars of conquest: Westerners almost always won
Based on Military Force or Threat

5. India & Indonesia: grew from interaction with Euro trading firms
Most of Africa and SE Asia and Pacific Isl.: deliberate conquest
Australia/New Zealand: more like colonization of N. America
Taiwan/Korea: Japanese takeover was Euro-style
US and Russia continued to expand
Liberia: settled by freed US slaves
Ethiopia/Siam: avoided colonization skillfully
Variety

6. Under European Rule
European takeover was often traumatic for the colonized peoples; the loss of life and property could be devastating

7. Some groups and individuals cooperated willingly with their new masters
Employment in the armed forces
Elite often kept much of their status and privileges
Governments and missionaries promoted European education
Growth of a small class with Western education
Governments relied on them increasingly over time
Cooperation

8. Indian Rebellion (1857-1858), based on a series of grievances
Began as a mutiny among Indian troops
Rebel leaders advocated revival of the Mughal Empire
Widened India’s racial divide; the British were less tolerant of natives
Let the British assume direct control over India
Rebellion

9. Colonial Empires w/a difference
Difference between rulers and ruled? RACE
Education for subjects was limited and emphasized practical matters, suitable for “primitive minds”
Even the best-educated natives rarely made it into the upper ranks of the civil service
Racism was especially pronounced in areas with a large number of European settlers (South Africa)
Colonial Empires w/a difference

10. Colonizers were fascinated with counting and classifying their new subjects
In India, appropriated an idealized caste system
In Africa, identified or invented distinct “tribes”
Racial Divide

11. Contradictions Colonies were essentially dictatorships
Colonies were the antithesis of “national independence”
Racial classifications were against Christian and Enlightenment ideas of human equality
Many colonizers were against spreading of “modernization” to the colonies
In time, the visible contradictions in Euro behavior helped undermine the foundations of colonial rule
Contradictions

12. Comparing Colonial Economies
Labor Systems
Comparing Colonial Economies

13. World economy increasingly demanded Asian and African raw materials
Subsistence farming diminished
Need to sell goods for money to pay taxes
Desire to buy new products
Artisans largely displaced by manufactured goods
Asian and African merchants were squeezed out by Europeans
Deep Impact on Work

14. Economies of Coercion- Forced Labor
Many colonial states demanded unpaid labor on public projects
Worst abuses in Congo Free State
Personally governed by Leopold II of Belgium
Reign of terror killed millions with labor demands
Forced labor caused widespread starvation
Belgium finally stepped in and took control of the Congo (1908) to stop abuses
Economies of Coercion- Forced Labor

15. Cultivation System- Netherlands East Indies
Peasants had to devoted at least 20% of their land to cash crops to pay as taxes
The proceeds were sold for high profits, financed the Dutch economy
Enriched traditional authorities who enforced the system
Cultivation System- Netherlands East Indies

16. Resistance Many areas resisted the forced cultivation of cash crops
German East Africa: major rebellion in 1905 against forced cotton cultivation
Mozambique: peasant sabotage and smuggling kept the Portuguese from achieving their goals there
Resistance

17. Many people were happy to increase production for world markets
Considerable profit to small farmers in areas like the Irrawaddy Delta
In the southern Gold Coast (Ghana), African farmers took the initiative to develop export agriculture
Leading supplier of cocoa by 1911
Created by a hybrid peasant-capitalist society
Labor shortages led to exploitation of former slaves, men marrying women for their labor power, influx of migrants
Many colonies specialized in 1 or 2 crops- creating dependence
Cash Crop Economics

18. Economics of Wage Labor
Wage labor in Euro enterprises was common
Hundreds of thousands of workers came to work on SE Asian plantations
Millions of Indians migrated to work elsewhere in the British Empire
Economics of Wage Labor

19. Especially in Africa, people moved to Euro farms/plantations because they had lost their own land
Euro communities obtained vast amounts of land
S Africa 1913: 88% of land belonged to whites
Much of highland Kenya was taken over by 4,000 white farmers
Many former famers were sent to “native reserves”
Wage Labor in Africa

20. Malaysian tin mines attracted millions of Chinese workers
South African diamond mines created a huge pattern of worker migration
Wage Labor in Mines

21. Colonial Cities Seen as centers of opportunity
Segregated, unsanitary, overcrowded
Created a place for a native, Western-educated middle class
Created an enormous class of urban poor that could barely live and couldn’t raise families
Colonial Cities

22. Women in the Colonial Economy
An African Case Study

23. Pre-colonial Africa: women usually active farmers, had some economic autonomy
Colonial economy: women’s lives diverged even more from men
Men tended to dominate the lucrative export crops
Women were left with almost all of the subsistence work
Large numbers of men migrated to work elsewhere
Women left at home to cope, including supplying food to men in the cities
Changes for Women

24. Opportunities for Women
Small trade and marketing
Sometimes women’s crops came to have greater cash value
Some women escaped the patriarchy of husbands or fathers
Led to greater fear of witchcraft and efforts to restrict female travel and sexuality
Opportunities for Women

25. Assessing Colonial Development
Different measures

26. Overall Economic Impact of Colonial Rule
Defenders: it jump-started modern growth
Critics: long record of exploitation and limited, uneven growth
Colonial rule did help integrate Asian and African economies into a global exchange network
Overall Economic Impact of Colonial Rule

27. Modernizing Elements Administrative and bureaucratic structures
Communication and transportation infrastructure
Schools
Health care
Breakthroughs to modern industrial societies
Modernizing Elements

28. Believing and Belonging
Identity and Cultural Change in the Colonial Era

29. Education Getting a Western education created a new identity for many
The almost magical power of literacy
Escape from obligations like forced labor
Access to better jobs
Social motility and elite status
Education

30. Embracing Euro Culture
Many who embraced Euro culture created a cultural divide between them and the fast majority of the population
Many of the Western-educated elite saw colonial rule as the path to a better future, at least at first
In India, they organized reform societies to renew Indian culture
Hopes for a renewal through colonial rule were disappointed
Embracing Euro Culture

31. widespread conversion to Christianity in New Zealand, the Pacific islands, and non-Muslim Africa
around 10,000 missionaries had gone to Africa by 1910
by the 1960s, some 50 million Africans were Christian
Religion

32. Christianity Attractive
military defeat shook belief in the old gods
Christianity was associated with modern education
Christianity gave opportunities to the young, the poor, and many women
Christianity spread mostly through native Africans
Christianity Attractive

33. Christianity Africanized
continuing use of charms, medicine men
some simply demonized their old gods
wide array of “independent churches” was established
Christianity Africanized

34. Christianity- not in India
but it led intellectuals and reformers to define Hinduism
Hindu leaders looked to offer spiritual support to the spiritually sick Western world
new definition of Hinduism helped a clearer sense of Muslims as a distinct community to emerge
Christianity- not in India

35. notions of race and ethnicity were central to new ways of belonging
by 1900, some African thinkers began to define an “African identity”
united for the first time by the experience of colonial oppression
some argued that African culture and history had the characteristics valued by Europeans (complex political systems, etc.)
some praised the differences between Africa and Europe
“Race” and “Tribe”

36. in the twentieth century, such ideas reached a broader public
hundreds of thousands of Africans took part in World War I
some Africans traveled widely
for most Africans, the most important new sense of belonging was the idea of “tribe” or ethnic identity
ethnic groups were defined much more clearly, thanks to Europeans
Africans found ethnic identity useful
“Race” and “Tribe”

37. How could Europeans, many of them from the middle or upper classes and nearly all of them professing Christianity, have perpetrated horrors like King Leopold’s genocidal control of the Congo?
Which was worse- the first or second wave of European colonialism?
Questions

38. Why were Asian and African societies incorporated into European colonial empires later than those of the Americas? How would you compare their colonial experiences?
In what ways did colonial rule rest upon violence and coercion, and in what ways did it elicit voluntary cooperation or generate benefits for some people?
Questions

39. In what respects were colonized people more than victims of colonial conquest and rule? To what extent could they act in their own interests within the colonial situation?
Was colonial rule a transforming, even a revolutionary, experience, or did it serve to freeze or preserve existing social and economic patterns? What evidence can you find to support both sides of this argument?
Questions