HST 122 -- New Imperialism

I. Imperialism
  A. Definition
  B. Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) and the British Empire  [MAP]
  C. Early Imperialism
        1. Why Europe?
		a. luck and geography
		b. the Middle East
		c. China
	2. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel
		- big, domesticatible animals
	3. the Americas, India, Southeast Asia  [MAP]
  D. New Imperialism
        1. began in the late 19th century
	2. period of intense occupation and conquest
		perpetrated by European industrial powers
	3. steam-powered ships, machine guns
	4. by WWI, most of Africa and Asia had been carved up
II. Causes of the New Imperialism
  A. economics
        1. greed and the search for greater profits
	2. industrial competition
	3. the search for raw materials and new markets
  B. geopolitics
        1. military outposts
	2. fueling stations
  C. nationalism
        1. means of enhancing national prestige
	2. colonies brought wealth and power
	3. intense nationalist competition  [German cartoon]
III. Rationale
  A. Social Darwinism
        1. no need for a moral justification
	2. it was their right as the most powerful society in the world
  B. "White Man's Burden" (from a poem by Rudyard Kipling)
        1. the Europeans believed they were helping inferior, less civilized people
	2. they were giving them "better stuff"
		a. better government - democracy 
		b. better religion - Christianity
		c. better economic system - capitalism
		d. medicine, technology, western education, etc.
	3. Christian duty
		a. to help those less fortunate
		b. to spread the "correct" religion to the heathen masses
IV. The Scramble for Africa
  A. before the 19th century
        1. ports
	2. slaves
  B. during the 19th century
	1. European interest in Africa was slowly growing
	2. trade (textiles for palm oil, peanuts, timber, etc.)
	3. desire for a more permanent presence  [MAP]
		a. British in Ghana and Sierra Leone
		b. French in Senegal
		c. the Suez Canal
  C. Missionary Explorers
        1. three main goals
		a. discover what the African interior was like
		b. find raw materials and sources of wealth
		c. spread Christianity (set up churches, convert Africans) 
	2. they sent reports back to Europe
		a. depicted Africans as uncivilized and barbaric
		b. wanted to show how hard their work was so that churches
			and missionary societies would send them more money
 D. David Livingstone (1813-73)
        1. searched for the headwaters of the Nile River
	2. became a phenomenon with Europeans eagerly awaiting news of his exploits
	3. then he disappeared for 6 years; made people even more interested
	4. other explorers were sent to look for him
	5. Stanley found him in western Tanzania in 1871(German East Africa)  [MAP]
	6. Livingstone was extremely ill, but he refused to return home
	7. kept searching for the source of the Nile
	8. died of dysentery and malaria in 1873
  E. Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) and Verney Lovett Cameron (1844-94)
        1. both searched for Livingstone
	2. Cameron
		a. hired by the Royal Geographical Society in London
		b. in 1875, became first European to cross Africa from east to west
		c. his report to the Royal Geographic Society was hugely influential
			1. Africa was a land of "unspeakable richness"
			2. and it was "admirably adapted for European occupation"
		d. Cameron's description made Europeans want to acquire
			as much of Africa as they could
	3. Stanley
		a. prolific writer: books and newspaper articles
		b. prolific speaker: gave lectures all over the world
		c. jingoistic and sensationalist; glorified violence against Africans
		d. example: In Darkest Africa (1890)
  F. Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909)
        1. Belgium was a small kingdom; hard to compete with larger
		industrial powers, such as Britain, France and Germany  [MAP]
	2. thus, he set his sights on Africa
	3. set up a company disguised as a scientific and philanthropic society
	4. the International African Society was set up to explore the Congo
		and bring civilization to its peoples  [MAP]
	5. Leopold hired Stanley to lead an expedition for the Society
	6. but he ordered Stanley to set up a colony in the Congo
		that Leopold himself would run
	7. as soon as Leopold laid claim to the Congo, the Scramble for Africa was on
		a. the British took over Egypt, Sudan, part of Somalia  [MAP]
		b. the French pushed from Senegal into western Africa
		c. the Germans took over Cameroon, and large stretches of both coasts
		d. the Italians took over Eritrea and part of Somalia
		e. the Portuguese solidified control in Angola
	8. the Berlin Conference (1884-5)
		a. the scramble had increased tension and pushed Europe close to war
		b. the conference averted war
		c. it dictated free trade and ship movement along the Niger and Congo rivers
		d. Leopold was allowed to keep the Congo if he kept the region
			open to European trade and investment
	9. Congo Free State formalized in 1885
		a. disastrous for the people of the Congo
		b. Leopold reduced the people to serfs
			1. they owed labor service to the king
			2. collecting ivory and harvesting rubber from vines
		c. he enacted quotas
			- failure to meet them meant death
		d. he created a private army to enforce quotas
			1. called the Force Publique
			2. they used torture, rape, burning of villages
			3. mutilation (cutting off hands)
		e. millions of people killed by Leopold's regime