1. The New Imperialism

2. What is Imperialism?
The domination by one country of the political, economic or cultural life of another

3. Economic Motives of Imperialism?
Due to the Industrial Revolution:
Need for natural resources/raw materials
Need for markets for products
Opportunities for capital investment

4. Political-Military Motives
Economic interests eventually precipitated political-military action to protect them.
For example, Britain establishes protectorate in Egypt to protect trade route to India.
Dutch-Capetown

6. Nationalism
Nationalism sparks interest in establishing an empire for prestige & influence.
Imperialism fostered competition and rivalries.
Appease domestic desire for expansion

7. Humanitarian-religious goals
“White Man’s Burden” syndrome. Idea that Europeans had a duty to spread Western culture.
Missionaries were zealous although often prejudice about those they sought to convert

8. Poetry & Literature Aroused National Pride & Sense of Adventure
“Take up the White Man’s Burden---
Send forth the best ye breed---
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered fold and wild---
Your new-caught sullen peoples
Half-devil and half-child
Rudyard Kipling

9. The White Man’s Burden

10. Social Darwinism
Many justified imperialism by applying Darwin’s ideas about natural selection & survival of the fittest to human societies
Idea that Europeans were superior race and imperial conquest & even destruction of weaker races was nature’s way of improving the human species

11. Widespread Support?
Imperialism found support among all classes of people from bankers to workers
WHY? Because all of them benefitted from imp
Soldiers, settlers, merchants, missionaries and explorers were all involved.

12. Critics Argued imperialism was tool of the rich
It was exploitive & immoral
Hypocritical for Western democratic nations.

13. Belgium Leads the Way
Began when King Leopold II of Belgium hired Stanley to explore Congo Basin and arrange trade treaties.
Publicly Leopold justified the mission claiming that Stanley would be “carry the light” to those “plunged in barbarism”
This set off a scramble by other nations

14. Leopold’s Brutality in the Congo

15. Berlin Conference 1884
International Conference to establish rules for colonizing Africa & avoid bloodshed among Europeans.
Agreed that no country could claim any part of Africa unless it had set up a gov office there.
This alone, prompted govs to send officials to exert power over local rulers
No Africans were invited

16. The rush to colonize was on….
Europeans drew arbitrary borders with little to no understanding of the peoples they were subjugating or dividing.
After 20 years of carving up Europe only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent.

17. Partition of Africa
Africa was known as “dark continent” because so little was known about it
Difficult to penetrate due to malaria and sleeping sickness from the tsetsi fly
Medical breakthroughs & steamships, however, allowed Europeans to explore
Europeans were able to exploit rivalries among different African tribes

18. How did West succeed?
Strong economies, stable governments and powerful armies & navies, public opinion approval
Medical breakthroughs - quinine
Superior technology
Maxim machine gun, repeating rifles, steam driven warships were very convincing.

19. 4 Types of Imperial Control
Colony – outright complete control - France
Protectorate – Territory has its own government but it’s under the control of an outside power - Britain
Sphere of Influence – outside power claims exclusive trading & investment privileges
Economic Imperialism – when private business interests control a less developed country.

20. Protectorates
Protectorates left local rulers in place even though they were expected to follow the advice of the European power.
Advantage of this type of control was that it cost less and did not require huge military or naval commitment.
Future leaders sent to mother country for education. Came back & became nationalists

21. Spheres of Influence
Area which one power claimed exclusive investment or trading privileges
This happened particularly in China among European powers.
Which area has the US claimed as its exclusive sphere of influence?
Latin America

23. Liberia and Sierra Leone
From the early 1800s US and Europe outlawed the slave trade
Britain & US promoted idea of returning freed slaves to Africa
Britain set up Sierra Leone 1787
US set up Liberia 1847
Arabs and Africans continued to sell slaves to Asia & the Middle East

24. Missionaries Missionaries followed explorers Were paternalistic
Urged Africans to reject their own traditions in favor of Western ideas
Dr. Livingstone – explorer/missionary who had more sympathy & less bias
Missionaries wanted Africans to end slave trade

25. The Boer War
Britain took over the Cape Colony (South Africa) from the Dutch in 1815
The Boers (Dutch farmers) resented British rule and moved North and founded new republics
In the late 1800s the discovery of gold and diamonds in the Boer republics led to war from
The British won.

26. South Africa
In 1910 Britain united the Cape Colony and the Boer republics into the Union of South Africa.
The constitution set up a gov run by whites and created a system of complete segregation (apartheid) that would remain in force until 1993.

27. Africans Fight Back
Ethiopia was only country to successfully resist colonization
Menelik II had modernized his country with European assistance.
When Italy attacked he was ready.
Ethiopia and Liberia were only two countries to preserve their independence

29. Nationalism
By 1900s however, African leaders became nationalist movements to pursue their self-determination and independence

30. The End