Imperialism 1

1. Between 1880 and 1914, Western society expanded to its highest point through political empires. Similar to older colonialism, Europeans rushed to plant their flag over the world in an escalating arms race. The main targets of imperialism were Africa and Asia.

2. Before 1880, European nations controlled only 10% of Africa and increasing slowly. The French had conquered Algeria in the 1830s, with the British taken controlling of South Africa and the Dutch settlements during the wars of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Dutch settlers made the Great Trek in 1835 into the interior. After 1853, the Afrikaners proclaimed their political independence and defended it against the British. By 1880, Europeans controlled most of South Africa. There were European trading posts and forts from the Age of Discovery and the slave trade on the coast of West Africa, with the Portuguese controlling Angola and Mozambique. However, between 1880 and 1900, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy scrambled for African possessions, with all but Ethiopia and Liberia remaining independent. Up to 1914, European powers tightened their control and established colonial governments. The British, led by Cecil Rhodes, established in the early 1890s protectorates over Bechua-naland and Rhodesia. Due to the wealth of the Transvaal in South Africa, the British fought and defeated the Afrikaners in the Boer War, uniting the lands into the Union of South Afri-ca. The British occupation of Egypt was a precedent for formal political control. Leopold II of Belgium, in 1876, formed a financial syndicate under his control to send Henry M. Stanley to the Congo to establish trading stations, sign treaties with African chiefs, and claim the area Belgian. This incited the French to sent Pierre de Brazza to sign a treaty of protection with the chief of the Teke tribe to establish a French protectorate of the north bank of the Congo. Europeans claimed Africa for gold and territory.

3. To lay down rules for African imperialism, Jules Ferry of France and Otto von Bismarck of Germany arranged a meeting in Berlin in 1884 and 1885. The conference established the idea of effective occupation in order to be recognized by other states. This allowed Euro-peans to occupy all parts of Africa but prevent a single power from controlling of it. The conference recognized Belgium’s control over a neutral Congo free state and declared the entire Congo basin a free-trade zone. Germany was late to get in the colony game because it had only achieved unification a decade before and Bismarck viewed them as trivial. How-ever, due to increased political agitation for expansion, Germany established protectorates over Togo, Cameroons, Southwest Africa, and East Africa. Germany, France, and Britain competed for Lake Chad.

4. After Cecil Rhodes became the prime minister of the Cape Colony in 1890, he worked to dominate the Afrikaner republics. He used his agents to force and cajole African kings to ac-cept British protection and then violently put down rebellions. In 1896, he called for an un-successful invasion of the Transvaal, leading him to resign. Rhodes did not care at all for the rights of blacks. He looked forward to reconciling the Afrikaners, causing him to break with the colony’s tradition and support Afrikaner demands to reduce greatly the number of black voters and limit black freedoms. This eventually would cause the apartheid in South Africa. Rhodes used both groups to the British advantage, as he cared only for his own country. However, he had more respect for the Afrikaners because they were of European descent and had no respect for the Africans because they were black. Rhodes’s career became a symbol of imperialism. He ruthlessly achieved what’s best for his country by manipulating groups and attacking weaker peoples. He was a racist and had little care for the native peoples.

5. The British hoped to expand the possessions, and by using their base of Egypt, tried to con-quer Egypt but were repulsed by determined Muslims at Khartoum in 1885. A decade later, General Horatio H. Kitchener and his troops moved cautiously and successfully up the Nile River, building a railroad to supply arms and reinforcements. In 1898, the British met Mus-lim tribesmen at Omdurman, where they slaughtered them with their machine guns. Eleven thousand Muslim tribesmen were dead, with only twenty-eight Britons killed. The British would go on to face a small French force, but the French backed down due to the Dreyfus affair and were unwilling to fight.

6. Europeans gained control over Asian settlements by forming a base a gradually spreading, as did the Dutch in Indonesia. The Dutch did have to share some of the East Indies with Brit-ain and Germany. The French under Ferry took Indochina. India, Japan, and China were also subject to an imperialist impact. Colonization of Asian lands was different that African colo-nization by that not most of the countries were taken over. One Asian country, Japan, took over other Asian land. The United States became involved in Asia. Russia had expanded since the later Middle Ages, but in the imperial period, it conquered Muslim areas to the south in the Caucasus and in central Asia and on Chinese provinces during the 1890s. The United States obtained the Philippines after they defeated Spain in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. Philippine patriots demanded independence, but the Americans suppressed them after a long war.

7. Economic motives played an important role in imperialism, especially in the British Empire. By the late 1870s, France, Germany, and the United States were industrializing rapidly due to tariff barriers. Great Britain’s industrial lead was narrowing, causing it to value old pos-sessions. When continental powers began to seize territory in the 1880s, the British followed immediately, fearing that France and Germany would seal off their empires with high tariffs and restrictions and that future economic opportunities would be lost forever. De-spite being useless for economic gain before 1914, colonies were valued because they were considered crucial to national security, military power, and international prestige. This was evident in the British occupation of Egypt, the conquest for Sudan, and the U.S. control over the Panama Canal Zone in 1903. The colonies were also used for navies to refill their coal. Nationalism was more intense after Bismarck unified Germany, and Social Darwinism was used to justify imperialism. Europeans saw themselves as the dominant race and wanted to impress their culture on other, less-fortunate people. With superior firearms, such as the machine gun, conquering was easy. Steamships and international telegraphs were used to concentrate European firepower in a given area. Conservative political leaders manipulated colonial uses in order to divert domestic problems and lighten spirits. Imperial propaganda was used to make imperialism seem beneficial to the citizens. Special-interest groups, like shipping companies, wanted high subsidies to do business. Missionaries and humanitarians wanted to spread religion and stop the slave trade. Explorers and adventurers wanted knowledge and excitement. Military officials wanted advancement and high-paying posi-tions. Europeans believed that they should civilize nonwhite peoples so that they could re-ceive the benefits of modern economies, cities, advanced medicine, and higher standards of living so that they could someday have self-government and democracy. French and Ameri-can people also supported this theory, as well as the idea that imperial government pro-tected natives from tribal warfare and cruder forms of exploitation. Peace and stability in Africa allowed for the spread of the true religion, Christianity. Mission schools were often the first time Africans saw whites. Christianity was not well received in India, China, and the Islamic world. Some people, like English economist J.A. Hobson, argued that imperialism was caused by the economic needs of unregulated capitalism and that imperial possessions did not pay off economically for the country but rather benefitted special-interest groups. The quest for empire diverted public attention away from domestic reform and the need to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. Hobson condemns white imperiously ruling nonwhites. Europeans were considered selfish. Other critics said that Europeans had a double standard and failed to live up to their own ideals. At home, Europeans had won or were winning representative government, individual liberties, and an equality of opportuni-ty. However, in the empires, people were forced to work and they were discriminated against.


1. The Origin of Species is considered a landmark in science because it contains the original ideas of natural selection as well as evidence for evolution and a proposed idea that all life descended from a common ancestor.

2. The Origin of Species influenced science and philosophical study by affecting biology, litera-ture, law, psychology, sociology, theology, and other parts of intellectual pursuit.

3. Darwin observed that certain plants and animals very far away had similar characteristics, leaving him to believe that species gradually adapt to their environment. Variations within a species are indistinguishable at first, but gradually develop into differences that help or hurt the organism. This forms new and distinct species. If plants or animals are to live amongst others, then have to have certain characteristics that make them better than the rest of the population. The stronger ones reproduce more and spread their traits.

4. The fitness of a species depends on many different processes, such as sexual selection. When there are too many males for female birds, those birds that are the strongest, most energetic, or have the most beautiful song or plumage attract a mate and thus reproduce.

5. Instincts are inherited within each species, but they are susceptible to change as conditions that give certain animals better qualities now have different instincts.

6. Darwin’s final point is that all species descended from a common ancestor. This idea con-flicted with religious beliefs that a Creator established all life in the beginning of time.


1. The three components that are important to individual liberty are freedom of thought and expression, freedom to plan one’s own life pursuits, and freedom to unite in groups for any purpose not involving harm to others.

2. Social tolerance and free press are indispensable to a free society because one learns through the mistakes and the then discussion and experience. Wisdom can only be gained through exposure to opinions.

3. Human progress depends on freedom of one’s own exposure to a variety of ideas and situa-tions.

4. Two constraints in society justified in establishing upon the individual are the prohibition against injuring the interest of rights of another and the stipulation that each person must bear his share of the labors and sacrifices necessary to defend the society and its members from injury.

5. The strongest argument against social interference in the lives of the individual are that the majority’s position may be wrong.

6. Society should sacrifice individual freedom to government constraints like preventing and punishing crime but not so that it oppressed liberty.