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Victoria, Queen of England
Victoria was born in 1819, the only child of the British royal family. Victoria became Queen of England when she was 18 years old.
Victoria had grown up protected from the harsh reality of the Industrial Revolution and the effect it was having on people across England. In fact, she was horrified by her first sights of Industrial England, which she saw on a trip across the country as a teenager. She described what she saw as, “black, engines flaming, coals, in abundance; everywhere, smoking and burning coal heaps, intermingled with wretched huts and carts and little ragged children." Early in her rule, she was dependent on the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, who tried to protect Victoria from the harsh realities of British life and even advised her not to read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens because it dealt with "paupers, criminals and other unpleasant subjects".
In 1839, Victoria met Prince Albert, her cousin from Germany, and immediately fell in love with him. They were married the next year and had nine children together. Albert was very interested in the technology of the Industrial Revolution and convinced Victoria to support British industry. He convinced her to take her first trip by train in 1841 and afterwards she said she was “quite charmed” by the experience. Under his direction, Victoria
supported the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. The Great Exhibition was a showcase of industry and art from around the world that demonstrated British power. The Great Exhibition was housed in a greenhouse like building called the Crystal Palace that covered several acres of land. In addition, Albert thought that Victoria should be aware of the hard lifestyle of the Industrial Revolution and should do something about child labor and poverty. Prince Albert’s died in 1861 and his death had a deep impact on Victoria. She remained in mourning for the rest of her life.
Under Queen Victoria’s rule, the British Empire expanded to become the largest empire in the world by adding territory in Asia and Africa. By the end of her rule, Britain controlled an empire that contained 20% of the world’s surface and 25% of its population. Victoria strongly supported British imperialism and believed that British rule actually helped people around the world. The British usually got control of lands through war, such as the Opium Wars in China or the war against the Zulu in southern Africa. They used military power to put down rebellions, such as the Sepoy Mutiny in India. Victoria supported these wars, writing, "If we are to maintain our position as a first-rate Power, we must… be Prepared for attacks and wars, somewhere or other, CONTINUALLY.”
While Victoria never traveled to her overseas empire, she was interested in her colonies and how the people under her rule lived. She was especially interested in India, which she described as the “Jewel of the Crown”, meaning it was the most important of her colonies. She even had the British government give her the new title of “Empress of India” to show her connection to the country. She did symbolic gestures to connect her to India, such as having an Indian secretary who taught her Hindi, having Indian food included at royal dinners and wearing Indian jewelry.
Queen Victoria was the longest-serving monarch in British history. During her reign Britain went through the Industrial Revolution and built a world-wide empire – it was said that, “the sun never set on the British Empire”. The period that she ruled Britain is remembered as a “golden age” that is called the “Victorian Era”.
Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II was born in 1835 to the royal family of Belgium. When he was born, Belgium was a new country, because it only became independent from the Netherlands in 1831. The country of Belgium was a small country that had close connections to France and England. Leopold was a well-loved king who expanded voting rights, made laws protecting workers in their jobs, and gave workers the right to form labor unions. He was called the “builder king” because of the large number of building projects he carried out to improve Brussels, the capital city of Belgium.
As the king of Belgium, Leopold dreamed of building a large overseas empire because he believed that having overseas colonies were the key to a country's greatness. He expressed this when he said, "The country must be strong, prosperous [wealthy], therefore have colonies of her own, beautiful and calm." During the 1860’s, he tried several times to get Spain to give him the Philippines, a country in Asia. When this did not work, he decided to try to conquer Africa.
In 1876, Leopold formed a company that was disguised as an scientific organization called the International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of the Congo. This organization hired the explorer Henry Stanley to explore and establish a colony in area of the Congo River in central Africa. In 1885, Leopold established the Congo Free State, which covered a territory 80 times the size of Belgium. Importantly, the Congo Free State was not a colony of Belgium. It was actually Leopold’s personal property, which he controlled through his own private army.
Leopold made a huge fortune through his ownership of the Congo through ivory, from elephants, and rubber, from rubber trees. The Europeans who worked for Leopold in the Congo made the local Congolese
people slaves and forced them to hunt elephants and collect rubber. The local Congolese population was beaten, mutilated (such as having their hands cut off) or killed for refusing to work or for not working hard enough. It is estimated that around half the population of the Congo, or 10 million people, were killed or died as the result of how the Congo Free State was ruled. Some Europeans were so horrified by the brutality in the Congo Free State that they organized the first international human rights movement to stop the Leopold’s rule of the Congo. In 1908, the government of Belgium forced Leopold to give the Congo Free State to Belgium and the territory became a Belgian colony.
David Livingstone
David Livingstone was born in Scotland in 1813 to a poor but religious family. As a child, he worked in a textile factory. He put himself through medical school and planned to work as a Christian missionary in China. However, because of the Opium Wars in China, Livingstone decided to work as a missionary in Africa instead. In 1851, Livingstone arrived in South Africa.
As a missionary, Livingstone's traveled from village to village going into parts of southern Africa that had never been explored by other Europeans. Livingstone wrote back to England describing in full detail the areas he explored. Livingstone learned about the slave trade in Africa and he made it his life’s work to end the slave trade or the “open sore of the world” as he called it. Livingstone believed that his explorations would open up Africa to trade with the rest of the world and improve the lives of Africans. Livingstone thought that this would end slavery because Africans would have better ways to make money than by trading slaves. His efforts to end slavery made him an enemy of many of the Europeans living in Africa who made money off of slavery.
In his travels, Livingstone explored deep into central Africa following the Zambezi Rivers all the way to Victoria Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world. When Livingstone returned to England in 1856, he was praised as a national hero and he toured Europe giving lectures about his explorations. However, some of his later expeditions went badly. His trip back up the Zambezi River in 1858 was troubled by diseases that killed several members of the expedition, including his wife Mary. His expedition for find the source of the Nile River also ran into trouble when his crew deserted him and spread the rumor that Livingston had been killed by the Ngoni tribes.
However, Livingstone was still alive and continued to explore central Africa. By this point in his life all of his travels across Africa had weakened his health – he had been mauled by a lion and suffered from both malaria and cholera. By 1871, he couldn't leave his bed and low on both medical and food supplies. People around the world wondered what happened to Livingstone, because he stopped writing to people in Europe. An American newspaper hired Henry Stanley, an explorer and journalist, to find Livingstone in Africa. Working his way across Africa, Stanley finally final found Livingstone at his camp, greeting him with the famous line: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Stanley tried to convince the sick Dr. Livingstone to return with him to England, but Livingstone refused, and Stanley was force to leave him behind.
Livingstone recovered from his illness using supplies that Stanley brought him, and he resumed his explorations. In 1873, Livingstone died in Africa. His African crew removed Livingstone's heart and buried it in Africa, and then carried his body by hand over 1000 miles back to the coast where his body was shipped to England for burial.
Henry Stanley
Henry Stanley was born in 1841 in England to an unmarried poor couple and was cared for by his grandfather and other relatives. He spent his childhood in a workhouse [factory], where he learned to read and write, but where he was also beaten if he misbehaved. In 1857, he traveled to America where he worked a series of different jobs. When the American Civil War began, he joined the Confederate army. After he was captured by Union army soldiers, he switched sides and joined the Union army, but he did not fight in any battles. While in the Union army, he began his career as a journalist by writing about battles that he witnessed. After the war, he traveled to the American West and reported on the wars against the Native American tribes. He disapproved of the United States' policy toward the Native Americans.
American newspapers began sending Stanley to report on events around the world. In 1871, he traveled to Africa to lead the expedition to find David Livingstone. Stanley traveled for 236 days across Africa, fighting African tribes and illness, before finding a very sick Livingstone on the shore of Lake Tanganyika in east Africa. Stanley’s report on finding Livingstone alive in Africa took eight months to reach America because it had to be carried to the coast of Africa messenger and then brought by boat to India from where it was telegraphed to London and then on to New York. Stanley helped to nurse Livingstone back to health, and the pair spent four months together, bonding almost as father and son.
While both Livingstone and Stanley were world famous explorers, their motivations for being in Africa were very different. Livingstone was fascinated by Africa. He learned African languages and customs. His goal was to convert Africans to Christianity and to use modern medicine and science to improve the lives of Africans. Stanley was not driven to explore
by an interest in Africa and said, “I detest the land most heartily”. Instead, it was the wealth and fame of exploration that drove him. But it was Livingstone and Stanley's work mapping out thousands of miles of unexplored Africa and writing about African culture that gave Europeans the interest and knowledge to conquer the continent. In fact, Stanley worked directly for King Leopold II of Belgium to explore and gain control of the Congo Free State.
After finding Livingstone, Stanley returned to Europe as a hero. After Livingstone died in 1873, newspapers paid Stanley to return to Africa to command of an “army of peace and light.” They wanted him to map the rest of the continent and to report on the actions of slave traders. Stanley led a grand expedition to explore Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika. During the next two and a half years, the expedition struggled in temperatures reaching as high as 138 degrees and fought more than thirty skirmishes and battles against hostile tribes. In total, he journeyed more than seven thousand miles.
Between 1879 and 1884, Stanley’s reputation as an explorer was hurt because he helped King Leopold II of Belgium establish and “claim” the Congo Free State. Belgium’s rule of the Congo was characterized by incredible brutality and taking advantage of the native population in order to collect ivory and rubber – it is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of over 10 million African Congolese. When he died, Stanley wanted to be buried in the same church as Livingstone. However, the minister of the church refused this because he thought that this was unsuitable for a man who had “blood on his hands.”
Cecil Rhodes
Cecil Rhodes was born in England to a religious family. As a teenager he became sick with a lung illness and left school to live with his brother in South Africa, where his family thought the environment would be better for his condition. He arrived in the British colony South Africa in 1870 with a large amount of money lent to him by a relative. Rhodes invested the money in land that he could use to mine diamonds and, working with a group of business partners, he established a mining company.
In 1872, at age 19, Rhodes had a slight heart attack. As part of his treatment to recover from the heart attack, Rhodes and his brother went on an expedition into the lands north of the British colony in South Africa that were controlled by native African tribes, like the Zulu and the Matabele. Rhodes used the trip to study the opportunities to mine gold in these areas. It was during this journey that Rhodes fell in love with the countryside of southern Africa and began to think of how to get control of these lands.
In 1873, Rhodes left South Africa and returned to England to attend Oxford University. While he did not study long enough to earn a degree, he experience there helped form his idea that the British were superior to other people and that the British Empire was beneficial to the world. After his death, Rhodes' fortune was used to establish the Rhodes Scholarship to pay for people around the world to attend Oxford University.
When Rhodes returned to South Africa, the diamond mining industry was doing badly because of technical problems and flooding. When other miners gave up on the mining, Rhodes bought their land and worked on solving the problem of how to get the diamonds out of the ground. This persistence paid off and diamond mining made Rhodes very wealthy. In 1880, Rhodes and his business partners put their land holdings together to form the De Beers Diamond Mining Company.
Also in 1880, Rhodes became a member of the Parliament of the British colony of South Africa. In 1890, Rhodes became Prime Minister, or leader of the Parliament. Rhodes used this power to pass laws that would benefit miners (and himself!) such as taking away the lands of the African tribes and using them for mining. In 1893, Rhodes used a conflict over cattle between the Matabele and Mashona tribes as an excuse to attack the Matabele tribe and take its land. Rhodes had already negotiated a treaty with Lobengula, the chief of the Matabele, to have mining rights to the Matabele's land. Now, with the support of Queen Victoria, Rhodes broke that treaty and sent a small army with machine guns to take the Matabele land.
Rhodes’ army quickly defeated the much larger Matabele army because they had better weapons. The lands of the Matabele were divided among the soldiers in Rhodes' army and became part of the British Empire. Rhodes died unable to achieve his dream of extending the British Empire all the way, from north to south, across Africa.
Charles Gordon
Charles Gordon was born to a military family in England. His father was a Major General and Gordon studied military engineering at the Royal Military Academy. When he graduated, he was made a lieutenant in the British army and was sent to fight against Russia in the Crimean War. After the war ended, Gordon worked as part of an international group marking the new border for Russia.
After he was promoted to captain in 1859, he volunteered fight China in the Opium War. After the British won the war and gained more land in China, he decided to stay in China as part of the British army. When the Taiping Rebellion broke out in China, Gordon led the British forces to support the Chinese government in defending the city of Shanghai from the rebel forces. Then in 1862, the Chinese government put Gordon in command of the Chinese army, called the “Ever Victorious Army.” Because of his success in leading the army, the Emperor gave Gordon the title “titu” or “commander”. In 1863, Gordon returned to England and was made a knight by Queen Victoria.
After having various jobs in the British Army in England, Gordon was offered the chance to serve in the Egyptian army. As an officer in the Egyptian army, he worked to stop the slave trade in East Africa and was eventually made the governor, or leader, of the territory of Sudan, which is south of Egypt. He later resigned as governor and then spent several years serving in military posts in India, Africa and South Africa and toured the Middle East.
In 1883, Gordon was preparing to go work in the Congo Free State, when the British government ordered him to return to Sudan to put down a rebellion led by Mohammed Ahmed. Ahmed claimed to be the Mahdi (the savior of Islam) and his soldiers were quickly taking over Sudan. Gordon was given the task of saving the Egyptian army, which was on the edge of being overrun by the Ahmed's army.
With the situation breaking down, the Egyptian army was ordered to withdraw from Sudan. Realizing that his forces were too small to defeat Ahmed's army, Gordon ignored orders to retreat and instead built defenses the city of Khartoum in Sudan and asked the British for reinforcements. Then, Ahmed's army began to attack Khartoum. A year after Gordon's first request for help, the British army advanced into Sudan with the goal of rescuing the Gordon’s forces. As the British army got close to Khartoum, Ahmed's army launched a massive assault on the city and overpowered Gordon’s starving soldiers. Gordon was killed in the fighting and his body was never found. The British army reached the city two days after it fell to Ahmed's army. At this point, the British army retreated to Egypt. In 1898, the British invaded Sudan again and, with the help of machine guns, they destroyed Ahmed's army in the Battle of Omdurman.
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