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The Building of Global Empires: Africa. 1750 - 1914. Imperialism Defined. Any form of control exercised by one group of people over another beyond one group’s own borders. Political, economic, and cultural imperialism. Imperialism in Africa.
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The Building of Global Empires:Africa 1750 - 1914
Imperialism Defined • Any form of control exercised by one group of people over another beyond one group’s own borders. • Political, economic, and cultural imperialism
Imperialism in Africa • In 1875 European people had a limited presence in Africa. • There were several small coastal colonies and fortified trading posts: • Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique • French settler colony in northern Algeria. • British and Dutch migrants in south Africa
Algeria • The French invaded Algiers in 1830 after they insulted the French King. • The original invasion of Algeria was revenge but soon turned to prestige. • The conquest of Algeria by the French was long and violent. • Over 1/3 of the Algerian population disappeared.
Imperialism in Africa • The slave trade was abolished in 1833 in the British Empire. • At the end of the slave trade, commerce developed around the exchange of African gold, ivory, and palm oil for European textiles, guns, and manufactured goods. • This was especially prosperous for west African lands.
From Cape to Cairo: Cape Town • In 1652 Cape Town established by the Dutch East India Company • Former company employees and settlers from Europe moved into lands beyond control to establish farms and ranches. (Boers – Dutch word for farmers) • Later they became known as Afrikaners (Dutch word for African); they believed God had predestined them to claim the Cape. • During the 18th century, Dutch, Germans, and French Huguenots immigrated to the Cape. • Hostility developed between natives and Europeans. • By the 18th century, warfare, enslavement, and smallpox epidemics had led to the extinction of the native people (Khoikhoi).
South Africa • The establishment of British rule in 1806 disrupted Afrikaner society and its use of the institution of slavery. • The Afrikaners took the “Great Trek,” migrating west. • This led to conflicts between the indigenous people and the Afrikaners. • When diamonds and gold were discovered in Afrikaner lands, the South Afrikan War erupted between the Afrikaners and the British (The Boer War or South Afrikan War). • 100,000 black Africans ended up in internment camps.
Cape to Cairo: Southern Africa • Dr. David Livingstone, Scottish minister, explored central and southern Africa for mission posts. • He was the first European to see Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls), to which he gave the English name in honor of his monarch, Queen Victoria. • Adventurer and American journalist Henry Morton Stanley undertook an expedition to find Livingstone. • Their meeting in Africa gave rise to the expression, “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”
Explorations of the Rivers of Africa. • Adventurers exploring southern and Central Africa gathered reliable information about the great rivers: Nile, Niger, Congo, and Zambesi. • These rivers provided access to the interior of Africa.
From Cape to Cairo: Central Africa • King Leopold II of Belgium employed Henry Morton Stanley to help develop commercial ventures and establish a colony called the Congo Free State (modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) in the basin of the Congo River. • In fact, the Congo was not a free state at all.
From Cape to Cairo Congo • Leopold II made the Congo his private estate, eighty times larger than Belgium. • He was interested in rubber from jungles and minerals, especially copper. • Laborers were forced to work as slaves at gunpoint. • Workers could be killed or have their hands cut off for failing to make quotas. • During Leopold’s rule, some ten million Congolese died. • In 1908, the Belgian parliament took control of the colony, but the cruelties remained in the Congo.
Cape to Cairo Northern Africa • Muhammad Ali was in debt to British as a result of its efforts to remove itself from Ottoman rule. • By 1870’s Egypt was forced to impose high taxes which provoked unrest and rebellion. • In 1882, a British army occupied Egypt to protect its financial interests and ensure the safety of the Suez Canal which was critical to British communications with India.
Scramble for Africa • Berlin Conference • 14 delegates from fourteen European states and the United States. • Not a single African was present. • An agreement that “any European state could establish African colonies after notifying the others of its intentions and occupying previously unclaimed territory.” • Conference provided European diplomats with the justification they needed to draw lines on maps and carve a continent into colonies.
Berlin Conference • During the 1890’s, European nations sent armies to impose colonial rule in Africa. • Armed with cannons and machine guns, they rarely failed to defeat African forces. • By the turn of the century, European colonies embraced all of Africa except for Ethiopia, where natives fought off Italian forces and Liberia, a small republic populated by free slaves that was a dependency of the U.S.
Imperialism in Africa • The American Civil War and European arms race in the 1860’s and 1870’s revolutionized guns. • In the 1880’s Hiram Maxim invented the machine gun, which was used in the defeat of Africans on African soil. • By 1900, most of Africa had been divided up among a handful of European powers, in particular Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium. • Europeans came in direct competition with each other, so they convened a conference in Berlin to establish rules for fixing borders among European colonies in Africa.
Motives for Imperialism • Economic • 15th-18th centuries: Mercantilism closed economic system; establish self-sufficiency • 19th century: Free Trade • Material advantages, extension of trade, increased wealth, rise of standard of living • National security • Civilizing mission: “White Man’s Burden” • Social Darwinism: “survival of the fittest” was used to justify imperialism • Rising tides of nationalism • Acquisition of territory was used as evidence of national strength and superiority