The Height of Imperialism Part 2

The Height of Imperialism

Empire Building in Africa

West Africa and North America
• Before 1890, Europeans controlled little of the African continent directly.

• They were content to let African rulers and merchants represent European interests.

• Between 1880 and 1900, however, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain,

and Portugal, spurred by intense rivalries among themselves, placed virtually all of Africa
under European rule.

• West Africa

• Europeans had a keen interest in Africa’s raw materials, especially those of

West Africa-peanuts, timber, hides, and palm oil.

• Earlier in the nineteenth century, Europeans had profited from the slave trade in this

part of Africa.
• By the late 1800s, however, trade in enslaved people had virtually ended.

•As the slave trade growing European interest in other forms of trade increased.
• The growing European presence in West Africa led to increasing tensions with African

governments in the area.

• For a long time, most African states were able to maintain their independence.

• However, in 1874 Great Britainannexed (incorporated a country within a state) the

west coastal states as the first British colony of Gold Coast.
• At about the same time, Britain established a protectorate in Nigeria.

•By 1900, France had added the huge area of French West Africa to its colonial empire.
• This left France in control of the largest part of West Africa.

• In addition, Germany controlled Togo, Cameroon, German Southwest Africa, and German East

Africa.

Multiple Choice

What is it called to incorporate a country within a state?

• Remove

• Obliterate

• Annex

• Gerrymander

West Africa and North America

• North Africa

• Egypt had been part of the Ottoman Empire, but as Ottoman rule declined, the

Egyptians sought their independence.

• In 1805, an officer of the Ottoman army named Muhammad Ali seized power and

established a separate Egyptian state.

• During the next 30 years, Muhammad Ali introduced a series of reforms to bring

Egypt into the modern world.

• He modernized the army, set up a public school system, and helped create small

industries that refined sugar, produced textiles and munitions, and built ships.

• The growing economic importance of the Nile Valley in Egypt, along with the

development of steamships, gave Europeans the desire to build a canal east of
Cairo to connect the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

• In 1854, a French entrepreneur, Ferdinand de Lesseps, signed a contract to begin

building the Suez Canal.
• The canal was completed in 1869.

• In 1875, Britain bought Egypt’s share in the Suez Canal was opened.

1. When an Egyptian army revolt against foreign influence broke out in 1881, Britain

suppressed the revolt.
• Egypt became a British protectorate in 1914.

Multiple Choice

Who introduced a series of reforms to bring Egypt into the modern world?

• Muhammad Ali

• Temur Link

• Holden Caulfield

• Landon Bridges

West Africa and North America

• North Africa Cont.

• The British believed that they should also control the Sudan, south of Egypt, to

protect their interests in Egypt and the Suez Canal.

• In 1881, Muslim cleric Muhammad Ahmad, known as the Mahdi (in Arabic, “the

rightly guided one”), launched a revolt that brought much of the Sudan under his
control.

• Britain sent a military force under General Charles Gordon to restore Egyptian

authority over the Sudan.

• However, Muhammad Ahmad’s troops wiped out Gordon’s army at Khartoum in

1885.
• General Gordon himself died in the battle.

•Not until 1898, were British troops able to seize the Sudan.

• Italy joined the competition for colonies in North Africa by attempting to take

over Ethiopia.

• In 1896, however, the Italian invading forces were defeated.

• Italy now was the only European state defeated by an African state.

•This humiliating loss led Italy to try again in 1911.
• Italy invaded and seized Turkish Tripoli, which it renamed Libya.

Multiple Choice

What did Muhammad Ahmad launch that brought much of the Sudan under his control?

• Gathering

• Revolt

• Protest

• Meeting

Central and East Africa
• Central Africa

• Central Africanterritories were soon added to the list of European colonies.

• Explorers aroused popular interest in the dense tropical jungles of Central Africa.

• David Livingstone was one such explorer.

• He arrived in Africa in 1841, as a 27-year-old medical missionary.

• During the 30 years he spent in Africa, Livingstone trekked through uncharted regions.

•He sometimes traveled by canoe, but mostly Livingstone walked and spent much of his time exploring
the interior of the continent.

• During his travels through Africa, Livingstone made detailed notes of his

discoveries.

• He sent this information back to London whenever he could.

• The maps of Africa were often redrawn based on Livingstone’s reports.

•A major goal of Livingstone’s explorations was to find a navigableriver that would open Central
Africa to European commerce and to Christianity.

• When Livingstone disappeared for awhile, an American newspaper, the New

York Herald, hired a young journalist, Henry Stanley, to find the explorer.

• Stanley did find him, on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika.

• Overwhelmed by finding Livingstone alive if not well, Stanley greeted the explorer with

these now-famouswords, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

Multiple Choice

What is the name of the African explorer that was thought to be lost?

• David Livingstone

• Marie Curie

• James Malone

• Presley Warner

Central and East Africa

• Central Africa Cont.

• After Livingstone’s death in 1873, Stanley remained in Africa to carry on the

great explorer’s work.

• Unlike Livingstone, however, Henry Stanley had a strong dislike of Africa.

• He once said, “I detest the land most heartily.”

• In the 1870s, Stanley explored the CongoRiver in Central Africa and sailed

down it to the Atlantic Ocean.

• Soon, he was encouraging the British to send settlers to the Congo River basin.

• When Britain refused, Stanley turned to King Leopold II of Belgium.

• King Leopold II was the real driving force behind the colonization of Central

Africa.

• He rushed enthusiastically into the pursuit of an empire in Africa.

• “To open to civilization,” he said, “the only part of our globe where it has not yet

penetrated, to pierce the darkness which envelops whole populations, is a crusade, if I may
say so, a crusade worthy or this century of progress.”
•Profit, however, was equally important to Leopold ended up with the territories around the Congo
River.
• France occupied the areas farther north.

Multiple Choice

Who was the driving force behind the colonization of Central Africa?

• Prince Presley III

• King Charles V

• Queen Tangela X

• King Leopold II

Central and East Africa

• East Africa

• By 1855, Britain and Germany had become the chief rivals in East Africa.

• Germany came late to the ranks of the imperialist powers.

• At first, the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck had downplayed the importance of

colonies.
•As more and more Germans called for a German empire, however, Bismarck became a covert to
colonialism.
• As he expressed it, “All this colonial business is a sham, but we need it for the elections.”

• In addition to its West African holdings, Germany tried to develop colonies in

East Africa.

• Most East Africa had not yet been claimed by any other power.

• However, the British were also interested in the area because control of East Africa would

connect the British Empire in Africa from South Africa to Egypt.
•Portugal and Belgium also claimed parts of East Africa.

• To settle conflicting claims, the Berlin Conference met in 1884 and 1885.

• The conference officially recognized both British and German claims for territory in

East Africa.
• Portugal received a clear claim on Mozambique.

•No African delegates, however, were present at this conference.

Multiple Select

Which TWO countries' claims were recognized at the Berlin Conference?

• Spanish

• British

• German

• French

South Africa

• Nowhere in Africa did the European presence grow more rapidly than in the

south.

• By 1865, the total white population of South Africa had risen to nearly 200,000

people.

• The Boers, or Afrikaners-as the descendants of the original Dutch settlers were

called-had occupied Cape Town and surrounding areas in South Africa since the
seventeenth century.

• During the Napoleonic Wars, however, the British seized these lands from the Dutch.

• Afterward, the British encouraged settlers to come to what they called Cape Colony.

• The Boer Republics

• In the 1830s, disgusted with British rule, the Boers moved from the coastal

lands and headed northward on the Great Trek.

• Altogether one out of every five Dutch speaking South Africans joined the trek.

• Their parties eventually settled in the region between the Orange and VaalRivers and in the

region north of Vaal River.
•In these areas, the Boers formed two independent republics-the Orange Free State and the Transvaal
(later called the South African Republic)

Poll

What is the name of the descendants of the original Dutch settlers?

• Quakers

• Persians

• Afri

South Africa

• The Boer Republics Cont.

• The Boers believed that white superiority was ordained by God.

• They denied non-Europeans any place in their society, other than as laborers or

servants.
• As they settled the lands, the Boers put many of the indigenous peoples, those native to a

region, in these areas on reservations.

• The Boers had frequently battled the indigenous Zulu people.

• In the early nineteenth century, the Zulu, under a talented ruler named Shaka, had

carved out their own empire.
• Even after Shaka’s death, the Zulu remained powerful.

•In the late 1800s, the Zulu were defeated when the British military joined the conflict.

• Cecil Rhodes

• In the 1880s,British policy in South Africa was influenced by Cecil Rhodes.

• Rhodes had founded diamond and goldcompanies that had made him a fortune.

• Rhodes was a great champion of British expansion.

•He said once, “I think what [God} would like me to do is to paint as much of Africa British red as
possible.”
• One of Rhodes’s goals was to create a series of British colonies“from the Cape to Cairo”-all linked

by a railroad.

Poll

Who believed that white superiority was ordained by God?

• Boers

• Quakers

• Afrikaners

• Elites

South Africa

• Cecil Rhodes Cont.

• When gold and diamonds were discovered in the Transvaal, British settlers

swarmed in looking to make their fortunes.

• The Boer residents resented the settlers and they were sometimes mistreated.

• Rhodes then secretly backed a raid that was meant to spark an uprising among

British settlers against the Transvaal government.

• The raid failed, and the British government forced Rhodes to resign as head of the

Cape Colony.
• This action was too late, however, to prevent a war between the British and the Boers.

• The Boer War.

• This war, called the Boer War, dragged on from 1899 to 1902.

• Fierce guerrilla resistance by the Boers angered the British.

• They responded by burning crops and herding about 120,000 Boer women and children into

detention camps, where lack of food caused some 20,000 deaths.
•Eventually, the vastly larger British army won.
• A peace treaty was signed in 1902.

• In 1910, the British created an independent Union of South Africa, which

combined the old Cape Colony and the Boerrepublics.

• The new state would be a self-governingnation within the British Empire.

• To appease the Boers, the British agreed that only whites, with a few propertied Africans,

would vote.

Effects of Imperialism
• By 1914, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Portugal

had divided up Africa.

• Only Liberia, which had been created as a homeland for the formerly enslaved

persons of the United States, and Ethiopia remained free states.
• Native peoples who dared to resist were devastated by the Europeans’ superior military

force.

• Colonial Rule in Africa

• As was true in Southeast Asia, most European governments ruled their new

territories in Africa with the least effort and expense possible.

• Indirect rule meant relying on existing political elites and institutions.

• The British especially followed this approach.

•At first, in some areas, the British simply asked a local ruler to accept British authority and to fly the
British flag over official buildings.

• The concept of indirect rule was introduced in the Islamic state of Sokoto, in

northern Nigeria, beginning in 1903.

• This system of indirect rule in Sokoto had one good feature: it did not disrupt local

customs and institutions.
• However, it did have some unfortunate consequences.

Multiple Select

What TWO things were discovered that led to the Boer War?

• Oil

• Coal

• Gold

• Diamonds

Multiple Select

Which TWO countries remained free after Europe divided up the rest of the continent?

• Liberia

• Egypt

• Congo

• Ethiopia

Effects of Imperialism

• Colonial Rule in Africa Cont.

• The system of indirect rule was basically a fraud because British administrators

made all major decisions.

• The native authorities served chiefly to enforce those decisions.

• Another problem was that the policy of indirect rule kept the old African elite in

power.

• Such a policy provided few opportunities for ambitious and talented young Africans

from outside the old elite.
• In this way British indirect rule sowed the seeds for class and tribal tensions, which erupted

after independence came in the twentieth century.

• Most other European nations governed their African possessions through a

form of direct rule.

• This was true in the French colonies.

• At the top was a French official, usually known as a governor-general.

•He was appointed from Paris and governed with the aid of a bureaucracy in the capital city of the
colony.

• The French ideal was to assimilate African subjects into French culture rather

than preserve native traditions.

• Africans were eligible to run for office and even serve in the French National

Assembly in Paris.
• A few were also appointed o high-powered positions in the colonial administration.

Open Ended

Do you think it is right for any culture to be forced to assimilate into another culture?

Effects of Imperialism

• Rise of African Nationalism

• As in Southeast Asia, a new class of leaders emerged in Africa by the beginning

of the twentieth century.

• Educated in colonial schools or in Western nations, they were the first generation of

Africans to know a great deal about the West.

• The members of this new class admired Western culture and sometimes

disliked the ways of their own countries.

• They were eager to introduce Western ideas and institutions into their own

societies.
• Still, many of these new leaders came to resent the foreigners and their arrogant contempt

for African peoples.
•These intellectuals recognized the gap between theory and practice in colonial policy.
• Westerners had exalted democracy, equality, and political freedom but did not apply these values

in the colonies.

• There were few democratic institutions.

• Native peoples could have only low-paying jobs in the colonial bureaucracy.

• To many Africans, colonization had meant the loss of their farmlands or employment on

plantations or in factories run by foreigners.

Multiple Select

To many Africans, colonization meant the loss of what TWO things?

• Religion

• Farmlands

• Education

• Employment

Effects of Imperialism

• Rise of African Nationalism Cont.

• Some lost even more, as Lobengula, a southern African king, told Britain’s Queen

Victoria in this letter:

• “Some time ago a party of men came to my country, the principal one appearing to be a man

called Rudd. They asked me for a place to dig for gold, and said they would give me certain
things for the right to do so. I told them to bring what they could give and I would show them
what I would give. A document was written and presented to me for signature. I asked what it
contained, and was told that in it were my words and the words of those men. I put my hand to
it. About three months afterwards I heard from other sources that I had given by the document
the right to all the mineral in my country.”

• Middle-class Africans did not suffer as much as the poor African peasant

plantation workers.

• However, members of the middle class also had complaints.

• They usually qualified only for menial job in the government or business.

•Even then, their salaries were lower than those of Europeans in similar jobs.

• Europeans expressed their superiority over Africans in other ways.

• Segregated clubs, schools, and churches were set up as more European officials

brought their wives and began to raise families.
• Europeans were also condescending in their relationships with Africans.

•FOR INSTANCE, Europeans had a habit of addressing Africans by their first names or calling an adult
male “boy”.

Multiple Select

What THREE things were set up as more European officials brought their wives and began to raise families?

• Segregated Clubs

• Segregated Schools

• Segregated Churches

• Segregated Hospitals

Effects of Imperialism

• Rise of African Nationalism Cont.

• Such conditions led many members of the new urban educated class to feel

great confusion toward their colonial rulers and the civilization the colonists
represented.

• The educated Africans were willing to admit the superiority of many aspects of

Western culture.
• However, these intellectuals fiercely hated colonial rule and were determined to assert their

own nationality and cultural destiny.
•Out of this mixture of hopes and resentments emerged the first stirrings of modern nationalism in
Africa.

• During the first quarter of the twentieth century, resentment turned to action.

• Across Africa, native peoples began to organized political parties and movements

seeking the end of foreign rule.
• They wanted to be independent and self-governed.

Multiple Select

What TWO things did Native African people want to be?

• Independent

• Self-Governed

• Rich

• Landowners