2.  What is Empire?  How is the modern concept of Empire different than those in the ancient and medieval worlds?  What is/was the purpose of Empire

3.  The British Empire lasted from 1500 ca. until after World War II  At its height the British Empire controlled ¼ of the Earth’s land  It was the empire that “the sun never set on”  Besides being the empire that controlled the most land, it also contained the most and diverse subject peoples

5.  Despite being a relatively well populated country – at least by European standards – a large and formidable navy, not an army, was what propelled the British to rule the world  After the British fleet defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets in the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) there was no power that could challenge Britannia’s supremacy of the seas  Much of the early exploration and conquest was also promoted and funded by private companies such as the East India Company

6.  In order to pursue its imperial aims, the British government and the various companies produced propaganda of different types to elicit public support  The propaganda extolled the glories of English culture and the British empire which appealed to the public’s sense of patriotism  Simple, symbolic, but effective

8.  Perhaps the most economically valuable and culturally rich British colony was India  In the 16 th Century the East India Company established a beach head in India in port cities  Some of the commodities to flow from India to Great Britain were: silk, coffee, tea  Opium grown in India was also an important export to China in the early 1800s

10.  By the middle 1800s the East India Company took advantage of the feuding Indian princes and conquered most of India  Superior arms and a small but well equipped core of British soldiers helped control the Raj or British rule

11.  In addition to the British soldiers, the East India Company augmented its forces with Indian soldiers known as sepoys  In 1856 sepoys in Bengal (eastern India) rebelled because they were issued rifle cartridges greased in animal fat  The rebellion spread and British were massacred at Kanpur and Lucknow

13.  After the rebellion was squashed in 1858, control of India was transferred to the British crown  Although the British would rule India until 1947, it was the beginning of the end of imperial rule

14.  In 1806 the first British established its first South African colony in what is today Cape Town – known then as the Cape Colony  Many whites already lived there as the Dutch were the first Europeans there in 1652  The most powerful Bantu speaking people were the Zulus who arrived there in 15 th century  In the 1830s the Afrikaners/Boers began their Great Trek inland and became known as Voortrekkers

16.  By the late 1800s the Afrikaners had established the independent states of Transvaal and the Orange Free State  In 1877 the British annexed Transvaal and Griqualand West after diamonds were discovered near Kimberly  British authority was effectively challenged by the Zulus who defeated the British at Isandhlwana (1879) but were ultimately defeated at Ulundi  The Afrikaners took this as a sign to rebel in 1880

19.  Despite being vastly outnumbered the Afrikaners/Boers were successful for a number of reasons › The bolt action Mauser rifle › Guerrilla tactics › A zealous belief in their cause

20.  The Afrikaners were successful in the first war against the British  In 1881 the British government reluctantly gave independence to Transvaal which was led by Stephanus Kruger  The British did not give up though for numerous reasons which included: the unwillingness of the Afrikaners to give rights to others and probably more importantly control of the Rand gold field  After a English backed coup of the Transvaal failed in 1886 another war was an almost certainty

21.  The Afrikaners were initially quite successful in the Second Boer War as they fought well and used guerilla tactics  The British then introduced the modern concentration camp  They imprisoned thousands of Afrikaner women and children

22.  A number of factors contributed to the end of the British Empire  Other countries pursued their own imperial aims that cut into Britain’s domination of the world  Global economics changed  Independence movements in both the “white dominions” and developing countries  Although Great Britain still maintains some colonies the true “Empire” ended after World War II