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6.1 A. CDI
Photo depicting early christian missionaries and native Africans, 1898
Historical Development
Historical Development
A range of cultural, religious, and racial ideologies were used to justify imperialism, including Social Darwinism, nationalism, the concept of the civilizing mission, and the desire to religiously convert indigenous populations.
KEY WORDS:
Social Darwinism
Imperialism
Charles Darwin
Phrenologist
David Livingstone
Nationalism
Imperialism: The 2nd Wave of European Conquest
Imperialism: The 2nd Wave of European Conquest
In the 1800s, the 2nd wave of European expansion occurred. This wave of European conquest took place in Africa, Asia, & the South Pacific. While Europe had interacted with these regions from 1500-1600s, European's really only established trading post empires & coastal settlements; direct colonial control only happened in a few places, like the Philippines or Goa along the western Indian coast, while the U.S. continued their westward expansion into native nations’ territories, and, finally, in late 1800s, Japan began an empire of its own.
Major Changes: Europeans Increase Their Domination
Specific Motives for Imperialism:
Specific Motives for Imperialism:
Pseudo-Scientific Racism & Social Darwinism
Pseudo-Scientific Racism & Social Darwinism
Scientific racism was the attempt to use science to justify racist ideas that white Europeans were genetically superior to people of color & Asian races.
A late-19th-century illustration by H. Strickland Constable shows an alleged similarity between "Irish" and "African" features in contrast to the higher "Anglo-Teutonic"
Social Darwinism: the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. Now largely discredited, social Darwinism was advocated by Herbert Spencer and others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism, and racism and to discourage intervention and reform.
Poem: The White Man’s Burden
Rudyard Kipling, 1899
Poem: The White Man’s Burden
Rudyard Kipling, 1899
Europeans often held racist ideas of their own superiority to those in foreign lands. Because those in Asia, Africa, and parts of the Americas lived different, non-industrial lives, Europeans felt that it was their duty to “civilize” them into western culture & society. This belief was strengthened with literary works such as “The White Man’s Burden” written in 1899 by British novelist & poet Rudyard Kipling.
Published in the February, 1899 the poem was in McClure’s Magazine. The racialized notion of the “White Man’s burden” became a euphemism for imperialism, and many anti-imperialists couched their opposition in reaction to the phrase.
Stanza Example #1
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 folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.
Stanza Example #3
Take up the White Man's burden--And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better,The hate of those ye guard--The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-- "Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?"
Stanza Example #2
…Take up the White Man's burden-- The savage wars of peace-- Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to naught
Stanza Example #4
…Take up the White Man's burden-- Have done with childish days-- The lightly proffered laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers!
The phrase “White Man’s Burden” caught on with many imperialists to justify the policy as noble. Many politicians used the phrase and its views as the basis for their imperialist and racist policies.
Nationalistic Economics
Identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.
Nationalistic Economics
Identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.
The Japanese-Russo War (1904-05), in which Japan dominated Russia, dictated the fate of China.
Japan Imperializes China
Japan in Asia
Japan in Asia
The Chinese Empire of the Qing was weak by 1900 and Japan & Russia wanted to imperialize the once great power.
Russia wanted Chinese warm-water ports, while Japan wanted Chinese land.
By 1905, Japan using superior maritime technology crushed Russia and began a long & brutal period of imperializing China & Korea.
The U.S.A engaged, and won, many wars in the Americas to gain a banana monopoly.
The United Fruit Co.'s most popular product.
America in
Latin America
America in
Latin America
The United Fruit Co. was the world's largest. It controlled vast territories and transportation networks in Central America. Although the Co. built transportation and communication systems in Central America , their labor practices were bordering on slavery. The American military protected it.
People to Know
People to Know
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