The Building of Global Empires: Africa

1. The Building of Global Empires:Africa 1750 - 1914

2. 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

3. 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

4. Algeria • The French invaded Algiers in 1830 after they insulted the French King. • The original invasion of Algeria was motivated by 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.

5. 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.

6. British ImperialismFrom Cape to Cairo

7. From Cape to Cairo: Cape Town • In 1652 Cape Town established by the Dutch East India Company. • Former company employees and settlers moved into other areas to farm and ranch (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).

8. 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.

10. Your Turn • What questions or comments would you like to make at this time?

11. 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.

14. Livingstone and Stanley

15. 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.

16. From Cape to Cairo: Central Africa • King Leopold II of Belgium employed Henry Morton Stanley to help develop commercial ventures and establish the Congo Free State the basin of the Congo River. • In fact, the Congo was not a free state at all.

17. 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.

18. Cape to Cairo Northern Africa • Egypt 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.

19. Suez Canal

20. Your Turn • What questions or comments would you like to make at this time?

21. Scramble for Africa • Berlin Conference (1884-1885) • 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.

22. Berlin Conference • During the 1890’s, European nations sent armies to impose colonial rule in Africa. • Armed with cannons and machine guns • 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. • Ethiopia is the only African country that was never colonized.

23. 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.

25. Imperialism in Africa Steamships provided access to Africa’s interior, but malaria still killed most of the explorers. The causes of malaria were discovered in 1897. The bark of the cinchona tree native to South America contained quinine, a substance that prevented malaria. British military planted cinchona seeds in India and by the 1870’s had greatly increased supply of quinine to their troops.

26. Systems of Colonial Rule Concessionary Rule: European governments granted private companies large territories and empowered them to undertake economic activities such as mining, plantation agriculture, or railroad construction. Concessionary companies could impose taxes and recruit labor. Problems: Profits were modest for governments and the European public was outraged by abusive labor practices.

27. Systems of Colonial Rule Direct Rule: Colonies had administrative districts headed by European personnel who collected taxes, oversaw labor and military recruitment, and maintained order. Removed strong kings and other leaders Established boundaries to divide and weaken powerful indigenous groups. Problems: Shortage of European personnel. Long distances and slow transport limited communication. Inability to speak language

28. Systems of Colonial Rule Indirect Rule (Lugard’s The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1922) Exercise control over subjects through indigenous institutions Use tribal authorities and laws. Weaknesses: Only worked in strong and organized trial communities. Europeans did not fully understand the complexities of African societies.

29. Your Turn Of the colonies in Africa that we have discussed, can you identify the specific system of colonial rule that was implemented?

30. British Empire in India • English East India Company had a monopoly on English trade with India. • Mughal emperors gave EIC permission to built posts on coastlines. • 17th Century merchants traded for Indian pepper and Cotton, Chinese silk and porcelain, and spices from S.E. Asia. • During 18th century, tea and coffee became prominent items.

32. British Empire in India • After death of the Mughal emperor in 1707, the EIC took advantage of weakness to conquer India. • From their forts at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, the merchants extended their rights inland. • They enforced with British army and sepoys. • A revolt by sepoys led to establishment of direct British imperial rule.

33. Direct Rule Begins in India • Under the EIC and direct colonial administration, British rule transformed India. • Forests were cleared, landholdings were restructured, • Cultivation of tea, coffee, and opium were increased. • Railroads and telegraph networks linked India with global economy. • New canals, harbors, and irrigations systems were constructed. • English-style schools were instituted, Indian customs were suppressed, sati was banned.

34. Rudyard Kipling’s White Man’s Burden • “Take up the White Man’s burden— Ye dare not stoop to less— Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness, By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your Gods and you.” Kipling’s poem justified imperialism and came to be an emblem for Eurocentrism.

35. Imperialism in Central and SE Asia • French Indochina • Largest southeast Asian colony (1859 to 1893) • Included modern states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos • Introduced European style schools, established close connections with native elites, encouraged conversion to Christianity. • Roman Catholic Church became prominent.

36. Imperialism in Asia • Page: 942

37. Your Turn • What questions or comments would you like to make at this time? • How does the article we read on the Opium trade and India’s decline as a manufacturing power relate to this subject?

38. Legacies of Imperialism • Global trade in the products of colonial societies surged during 19th and 20th centuries. • Between 1800 and 1914, fifty million Europeans migrated overseas. • Thirty-two million went to the U.S., some as free agents but most as indentured servants. • Migrants from Asia, Africa, and the Pacific usually traveled as indentured servants.

40. Legacies of Imperialism • Policies adopted by imperial powers and colonial officials forced people of different societies to deal with one another. • The policies of the colonial powers forced their subject lands to provide raw materials for processing in the industrial societies. • Social and cultural differences were the foundation of scientific racism. • Scientific racists drew from the writings of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of the Species and his theory of survival of the fittest. • Rising tides of nationalism • Acquisition of territory was used as evidence of national strength and superiority

41. 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

42. Imperialism in Africa • “The European scramble for Africa may have been initiated in the 1870’s by French insecurities arising from their defeat by the Germans in 1871, by the bizarre and secretive scheming of Belgium’s King Leopold II, and by British determination to protect their colonial interests in India, but all of those motivations would have been irrelevant had it not been discovered that quinine prevented malaria, or for the new development of steamboats that could open the rivers, or for new technology in guns that killed more efficiently. The new technologies mattered.” • Robert Marks, The Origins of the Modern World