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The last quarter of the 19th Century witnessed an unprecedented globalization of European influence that historians have labeled the “New Imperialism.” By 1900 European nations would dominate the economic and political life of Africa and much of Asia. Joining the Europeans as industrial imperialists would be the United States and Japan.
The older Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch empires in Asia and Africa had largely been maritime and mercantile. What European presence existed in these regions was limited to trading stations, small merchant settlements, and an occasional fortification to protect Europeans from resentful natives or other Europeans. Contact with the native peoples was through dealing on a simple “cash and carry” basis with local merchants. Only in the Western Hemisphere (the Americas) did Europeans come as colonists to settle.
The “new imperialism” was a result of industrialization. For whatever motives they came, the Europeans took over the productive life of the regions they dominated. Large numbers of the native populations became wage earners working in the mines and on the plantations or building the railroads and port facilities operated by European-owned businesses. New imperialism, Palmer and Colton write, “introduced the class problems of industrial Europe in a form accentuated by racial difference” as native Persians, Africans, Indonesians, and Chinese became an overseas proletariat dependent for their economic survival on market forces dominated by white Western businessmen.
New imperialism also saw the expansion of European political and territorial control in the regions of economic interest. Political control took different forms depending on the situation. These forms - colonies, protectorates, condominiums, concessions, and spheres of influence – are explained below in “political manifestations of imperialism.”
The imperialist industrialized societies (especially Britain, France, Germany, and the United States) were great powers created by or based on nationalistic and democratic movements. In them there was a popular consensus supporting expansionist interests. They also seemed unlimited in their wealth. Their governments could tax, borrow, and spend at levels unparalleled in history. As industrial powers they could produce the means to impose their influence and domination: iron and steel warships, heavy artillery, accurate rifles, and other demonstrations of superior technology. At the same time, the older Asian powers – China, the Ottoman Empire, for example - were in decline and lacked the popular support of their subjects.
European intervention was easy. A mere show of force was all that was necessary to impose imperialist will. The 19th century saw numerous “little wars” (sometimes unnoticed at home) wherein relative handfuls of well-armed European troops subdued native armies. Among the more notable was the Opium War, 1839 - 1841, whereby Britain, angered that China had dared to interdict the British opium trade, easily defeated China. In victory, Britain compelled the Qing (Manchu) dynasty to open China to British (and later other European) trade – in opium or anything else. This marked the beginning of the foreign presence in and domination of China. By 1900 Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan had acquired numerous treaty ports and spheres of influence, where, through the principle of extraterritoriality, foreign nationals were exempt from Chinese law and Chinese were subject to foreign law.
Motivations for the “new imperialism”
Economic self-sufficiency
In what could be called “neomercantilism” (or economic nationalism), industrial nations saw increasing need to control their sources of raw materials. Such resources as tea, coffee, cocoa, rubber, petroleum, cotton, jute, copper, and tin were in high demand.
Need for new markets
New methods of mass production made it necessary that goods be produced in large quantities to make production profitable. As markets, the industrialized nations were allegedly saturated. Advocates of imperial expansion argued that new markets in the non-industrial areas of the world were necessary. Not only were new markets desirable but they would be of greater value if under a state’s control. Whereas the neo-mercantilist logic of this argument seemingly made sense, the realities of international trade showed otherwise. Colonies proved to be only a small portion of imperialist markets. For example, 25 % of Britain’s overseas trade was with its colonies and half of that was with the self-governing dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and after 1910, South Africa); most of the remaining imperial trade was with India. Britain sold twice as much in the US as it did in India.
Outlet for the investment of surplus capital
By far the most powerful motivation for imperialism was the investment of surplus capital. The expansion of industrial wealth was such that European businesses sought investment opportunities overseas. Such investment ventures included banking (credit), railroads, manufacturing, plantation development of “cash crops,” overseas and river shipping, communications, and port services (warehouses, docks). Whereas most foreign investment was in other economically sovereign countries (e.g., British investment in the US; French investment in Russia), investment ventures in less-developed regions were also seen as profitable. In the latter regions, however, the lack of strong governments and regional instability led to demands by business for political protection of properties, debts, and personnel. The imperialist governments put pressure on native governments to provide protection, and when that failed often intervened directly by sending troops and administrative personnel to “assist” or “protect” the local governments. Such was the means whereby Britain achieved its political control over the Indian states in the 18th and 19th centuries. Economic imperialism often led to political imperialism wherein the local region would be placed under the hegemony or direct political control of the imperial power.
However, with the exception of the British, most European investment was in areas other than their own colonies. By 1914 Britain had some $20 billion in foreign investments – a quarter of the total British wealth. Half of that ($10 billion) was invested in the British empire. By 1914 less than 10 % of French investment was in the French empire, and only 4 % of German investment was in the German colonies. Nonetheless, European foreign investment in the overall colonial world did make up significant portions of national wealth. A fifth of Germany’s foreign investment was in Asia, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. A fifth of France’s foreign investment was in Egypt, South Africa, and Asia. The fact that so much French and German wealth was invested in these regions explains why both countries would exert political influence in Africa, China, and the Ottoman Empire.
Outlet for surplus populations
Industrialism led to population growth and the 19th century saw staggering figures of emigration from European countries abroad. Nationalist voices within the imperial powers attempted to couple emigration with empire building. Yet colonies proved unattractive to emigrants. Most went to the United States. Between 1885 and 1935 only 500,000 Europeans immigrated to colonies – less than the number who immigrated to the US in any one year during the same period.
Strategic Considerations
The expansion of European investment necessitated its protection. The movement of goods between Europe and its colonies required strong navies to protect trade routes and merchant fleets. As modern merchant marines and navies moved by steam power, it was necessary to have naval port facilities and coaling stations (for refitting and refueling ships) along the sea routes and in the colonies.
Likewise, protection of colonial investments required a military presence within the colonial territory. Very often this was done by creating colonial military units of the European army. Native troops would be recruited, trained, and led by officers from the imperialist country. World War One saw African troops from Senegal in the French army and Gurkha troops from India in the British army.
When imperialist interests were threatened, regular military forces would be sent to the region to restore order. The most dramatic example of this was in China in 1900. When the Boxer Rebellion threatened the security of foreign diplomats and their dependents in Beijing, an international army made up of troops from Germany, Russia, Britain, France, Italy, Austria, the United States, and Japan invaded China, took Beijing, and suppressed the Boxers.
Competitive Rivalry: Prestige
Imperialism appealed to a country’s national prestige. The British boasted of a global empire upon which “the sun never set.” The British empire was the envy of other imperial powers. France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United States (which acquired overseas possessions by defeating Spain in 1898), and Japan all wanted, as the German Kaiser William II so bluntly put it, their “place in the sun.” The appeal of imperial prestige added another dimension to already existing competitive interests. European nations could now find themselves in potentially dangerous conflict arising from minor matters far from home. In 1898 when French and British expeditionary forces met in the malarial swamps along the Nile at Fashoda (in Sudan), the popular press in both countries called for war lest their country’s national honor be lost by having to withdraw. Fortunately, both London and Paris worked a peaceful settlement of the “Fashoda Affair,” but not without creating resentment between the two powers.
Missionary Motives / Exploration
The opening of Africa and Asia inspired a wave of Christian missionary interest and activity in these regions. Missionaries not only took the word of God to the “uncivilized” regions, but also a dedication to education, sanitation, and health and medical services. When missionary interests were threatened by local conditions, European governments would often intervene to protect or support their countrymen.
Likewise, the 19th Century saw a great popular interest in scientific investigation. European geographic societies sponsored expeditions of exploration and discovery to Africa and Asia. With new regions being accessible to Europeans, white men, often perceived by local natives as eccentric or completely insane, traveled into the interiors on botanical, zoological, and mineral searches. A famous example would be the British missionary Dr. David Livingston’s venture into the East African interior in search of the source of the Nile in the 1860s. As such expeditions created great public attention at home, popular opinion could be aroused demanding government intervention should an explorer disappear or be taken captive.
The Civilizing Mission
Closely related to the missionary motive, was the idea that Western peoples had the duty to transmit the benefits of Western civilization to non-Western peoples. “Take up the White Man’s burden,” wrote the British author Rudyard Kipling. The French spoke of their imperialism as “La Mission Civilisatrice.” This idea was inspired by Social Darwinism, the somewhat distorted view of Darwin’s theory simplified as “survival of the fittest.” The Social Darwinist view was that some races or people were by nature more fit for survival than others and therefore destined to rule over others. It was the duty of the “civilized” West to bring the benefits of modern culture to the “uncivilized” peoples of the world
What forms did imperialism take?
The most common form throughout the world was economic imperialism. The expanding globalization of industrialized nations’ economic interests saw active political support for foreign investment. British banks, for example, provided credit for railroad building in the US. French mining companies built and operated collieries in Russia.
The foreign policies of the imperialist nations were shaped in part by their economic interests. When such interests were threatened – say, a foreign government might default on loans from European banks, the powers would intervene perhaps by sending warships to close down ports until the debts were paid. Or, by requiring the local government to allow operation of its customs collections by administrators from the creditor nation, as was the case for several Latin American countries who defaulted on loans from European nations. In any case, the offending foreign government found itself subservient to the offended greater power.
The political manifestations of imperialism
Colonies – A colony is an area and its native peoples over which a foreign nation exercises total control. A colony is the outright possession of the imperial power. “Colonies” is the generic term used for all types of imperial control – protectorates, condominiums, concessions.
Protectorates – A protectorate is a state or region in which a native ruler exercises government under the protection of an imperial power. Egypt, for example, was a protectorate of Britain from 1885 to 1922. Under a protectorate the local ruler has little or no real sovereignty, being dependent upon the imperial power, which would guarantee protection against internal rebellion or foreign attack. In protectorates a European “resident” or “commissioner” advised (directed) the native ruler on both domestic and foreign policy-making. If policy were not to the satisfaction of the imperial power, the imperial power would intervene and the native ruler would be replaced with one more compliant to imperial interests.
Condominiums – A condominium is a state or region ruled by two nations as partners. An example of a condominium was the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, a large African state administered by both Britain and Egypt (already a protectorate of Britain) from 1889 to 1956.
Concessions – Concessions are grants of economic rights and privileges by one country to another. Such grants are usually made under conditions of weakness in the face of demands made by a more powerful state. Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan all held concessions in China, wherein those countries exercised economic control over a region or city and in which their citizens held extraterritoriality, meaning they were not subject to Chinese law and Chinese in those concessions were subject to European law. This condition existed in China from the 1840s until the Communists came to power in 1949.
Spheres of Influence – A sphere of influence is a region where one nation has special, sometimes exclusive, economic and political influence and privileges recognized by other nations. Regional concessions are often identified as spheres of influence. In China Russia held a sphere of influence over Manchuria between 1899 and 1905; Japan held the Manchurian sphere of influence from 1905 to 1945. Britain (south) and Russia (north) exercised joint spheres of influence over Persia (Iran). Often, sphere of influence is used to identify areas of regional hegemony. The United States was said to have held a sphere of influence in the Central American and Caribbean region in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Imperialism in Africa
The Imperialist Partition of Africa: How it Began
The imperial partition of Africa began in 1878 with the formation by Henry M. Stanley and King Leopold II of Belgium of the International Congo Association, a business venture intended to exploit the potential natural wealth of the Congo River Basin. Stanley was a British-born American journalist and explorer with an enterprising quest for adventure. In the 1870s he had gained international fame for having “found” the missing missionary and explorer Dr. David Livingston. In 1882 Stanley actively explored the Congo and made “treaties” with over 500 native chiefs granting the Association rights in their regions. Following Stanley’s lead, German, French, Portuguese, and British interests likewise made similar ventures into the African interior, seeking similar agreements with local tribal rulers.
In 1885 Bismarck called an international conference in Berlin to provide some sort of order to the European interest in Africa. The Berlin Conference attempted to reorganize the territories of the Congo Association as an international state under international operation and restrictions, and create international guidelines for European colonial development in Africa.
The result was the creation of the Congo Free State, a huge regional state for which the King of Belgium would provide government but which would not be a Belgian possession. The Congo River would be open to international trade; the country would be open to all foreign business development; and slavery would be abolished. The theory of the Congo Free State was never realized in actuality. Leopold ruled the region as his own personal possession and in trying to make it profitable imposed a regime of brutal exploitation both of the region’s peoples and resources. Leopold enriched himself, but failed to make the Congo profitable. Putting the region up as collateral on his debts, Leopold borrowed heavily from the Belgian government in an effort to make the Congo self-supporting. On his death in 1908, the Congo passed to Belgium, which would hold it until granting independence in 1960.
The Berlin Conference also set the precedent and criteria for future European colonization in Africa. European states with holdings on the coasts had first right to the interior. But, the occupation had to be real, with the presence of administrators or troops. Each power was to serve notice to the others as to what territories it considered its own. Consequently, there occurred a “wild scramble” for territories as the European powers carved up the continent into colonial empires. The boundaries of the European claims were drawn in ignorance of native cultures and historic territorial occupation of lands. In these territories, traditional African life was profoundly disrupted as native peoples were compelled to adapt to European conceptions of labor and production.
By 1900 only two African regions were recognized as “independent” countries, not directly dominated by Europe – Ethiopia, which actually defeated an Italian attempt to invade and conquer in 1896, and Liberia, a state established by freed slaves from the United States in 1823.
Africa as Region of Imperial Rivalry and International Tension
The major powers with African interests each had their own imperial vision. The British sought to establish a north-south imperial presence in East Africa from “Cape to Cairo.” The French sought to establish a west-east imperial presence across Africa from “Dakar to Djibouti.” The Germans sought to link their claim in West Africa to that in East Africa. That these imperialist ambitions would conflict was inevitable.
The Fashoda Crisis of 1898 almost led to war between Britain and France. A British force (led by General Kitchener) moving up the Nile to claim lands in east central Africa met a French force (led by Captain Marchand) moving eastward from Lake Chad to claim the same lands. They met at Fashoda, a malarial swampland along the Nile in what is today Sudan. Both Kitchener and Marchand resolved to stay in place and fight if necessary, but referred the matter to London and Paris. While both British and French soldiers broke the long monotony of their wait by playing soccer, in their homelands the popular press demanded that national honor be upheld. The British government was determined to stay and threatened to fight. France, concerned about the growing threat of Germany, decided not to force the issue. Marchand was ordered to withdraw. The upper Nile would be British. British and French relations remained strained for many years.
In South Africa in the 1830s, the consolidation of British rule in the Cape Colony compelled the Afrikaners, the Dutch settlers, to migrate northward into the interior where they founded two small independent republics, the Transvaal (Johannesburg) and Orange Free State. There the Afrikaners lived relatively untouched by the British until the discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886). Attracted by easy wealth, British fortune seekers flooded into the Afrikaner states and relations between the British and the “Boers” (Dutch for farmer), as the British referred to them, again became strained. Under the encouragement of Cape Colony governor Cecil Rhodes, a great enthusiast of the “Cape to Cairo” idea, a group of Cape Colonists led by a Dr. Leander Jameson invaded Transvaal in 1895 in an attempt to topple its government. The “Jameson Raid” was defeated, but British policy was loudly criticized throughout Europe as bullying a smaller inoffensive republic. Kaiser William II, in a celebrated telegram, congratulated Transvaal president Paul Kruger on his victory “without having to call for the support of friendly powers” (namely, Germany).
In 1899 Britain went to war against the Afrikaner states. The Boer War would last until 1902. So resistant were the Boers that it took some 300,000 British troops to secure victory. The war was made all the more disturbing by the British policy of interning civilian populations in concentration camps. Some 20,000 Afrikaner women and children died in the camps. Having subdued the Boers, the British then allowed the Afrikaner states to retain their governments. Later, in 1910, Britain united Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free State, and Transvaal as the Union of South Africa allowing it self- governing dominion status within the British Empire.
The Socialist Criticism of Imperialism
There was a reaction, albeit intellectual and not substantive, to the expansion of investment and its relationship to imperialism. Two socialist voices, those of the English political scientist John A. Hobson and the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, attributed the driving force behind imperialism to be the profit motive.
Hobson was not a Marxist, but argued in Imperialism (1902) that it was surplus capital that caused imperialism. Why? Because of the nature of the capitalist system. The wealth produced by business and industry was being “expropriated” as profit by the bourgeois owners of the means of production. If more of that wealth were paid to workers as wages (as was rightfully deserved), or, if the wealthy were taxed more heavily and the money were used for social welfare, there would be less surplus capital to be disposed of. If this were done, the working class would have more money to spend as consumers, and business would not have to seek new foreign markets.
Vladimir Lenin, later to lead the Bolshevik Revolution that would establish Russia as a communist state, wrote his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of World Capitalism (1916) on the background of World War One. Drawing heavily from Hobson, he saw the war as caused by imperialist competition between capitalist states motivated by greed. Imperialism existed because bourgeois governments were beholden to bankers and financiers who constantly needed new outlets where their capital would earn a greater profit. This incessant expansion of capital brought with it colonial rivalries. Bourgeois states would be replaced by great international trusts as states formed economic alliances to protect themselves from their competitors. The ever-intensifying competition for markets would lead, Lenin wrote, to the inevitable collapse of capitalism as capitalist states went to war with each other. Considering what was going on in Europe at the time he was writing, he was sure capitalism would soon collapse. The seeds of proletarian revolution were being sown, he believed, on the background of the war as millions of workers and peasants – including peoples from the colonial empires – were being conscripted into massive armies in order to preserve the capitalist system. The capitalist economies were collapsing under the burden of the war. The cannon fodder of the bourgeois imperialists, the armed proletariat, would certainly rise to overthrow their masters.
Imperialism 1914: Who Held What
The new imperialist powers were Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United States, and Japan.
The older colonizing states - Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, and Denmark - held imperial territories as well.
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The imperialist powers were Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United States, and Japan
Britain self-governing dominions Canada, Australia, New Zealand, (South Africa after 1910)
Africa South Africa (Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State, Transvaal)
Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Bechuanaland
Uganda, Kenya, British Somalia
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Egypt
Nigeria, Gold Coast (Ghana), Sierra Leone, Gambia
Asia Aden (Arabian Peninsula), southern Persia, India (including what is today Pakistan and Bangladesh), Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, North Borneo, New Guinea,
China: Hong Kong and numerous other “treaty ports” and a sphere of influence along the Yangtze River
Pacific Fiji Islands, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands
Americas British Honduras, British Guyana, Jamaica, Bahamas, Bermuda, Falklands
British West Indies, British Virgin Islands
France Africa Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia
Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Dahomey
French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, French Congo
French Somaliland, Madagascar
Asia French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia)
China: sphere of influence in southern China
Pacific Society Islands (Tahiti), New Caledonia
Americas French Guyana, French West Indies
Germany Africa Kameroun, Togo, German Southwest Africa (Namibia)
German East Africa (Tanganyika, Rwanda, Burundi)
Asia China: sphere of influence over the Shandong Peninsula
Pacific Mariana, Caroline, Marshall Island groups
German Samoa, Bismarck Archipelago; New Guinea
Italy Africa Libya, Eritrea, Italian Somaliland
Russia East Asia China: sphere of influence over Manchuria, 1899 – 1905
Port Arthur (Dalian) – treaty port on the Liaodong Peninsula
Russia Central Asia northern Persia, Caucasus region, Kazakhstan, Uzbekstan, Turkmen, Tadzikhstan, Kirgyzstan
United States Asia Philippines
Pacific Guam, Hawaiian Islands, Midway Island, Wake Island
Americas Alaska, Puerto Rico, Panama Canal Zone
Japan Asia China: sphere of influence over Manchuria, 1905 – 1945, and
Liaodong Peninsula, 1905 – 1945
Korea, south Sakhalin Island
Taiwan (Formosa)
The lesser imperialist states: Their possessions, 1914
Belgium Africa The Belgian Congo
Netherlands Asia Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)
Americas Dutch Guyana (Suriname), Dutch West Indies
Spain Africa Spanish Morocco, Rio Muni
Portugal Africa Portuguese Guinea, Angola, Mozambique
Asia Goa and Diu (India)
Macao (China)
Denmark Atlantic Greenland, Iceland
Americas Virgin Islands
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