European Explorations in mid-19c:�“The Scramble for Africa”

Rewriting African History

• Ancient Africa
• Implications for justification of imperialist rule
• European exploration of rivers (Nile, Niger, Congo, Zambesi)
• Information on interior of Africa
• King Leopold II of Belgium starts Congo Free State, commercial ventures
• Takes control of colony in 1908, renamed Belgian Congo

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King Leopold II of Belgium

King Leopold II:�(r. 1865 – 1909)

The Congo Free State �or�The Belgian Congo

Congolese men hold severed hands during the Belgian occupation

Punishing “Lazy” Workers

5-8 Million Victims! (50% of Popul.)

It is blood-curdling to see them (the soldiers) returning with the hands of the slain, and to find the hands of young children amongst the bigger ones evidencing their bravery...The rubber from this district has cost hundreds of lives, and the scenes I have witnessed, while unable to help the oppressed, have been almost enough to make me wish I were dead... This rubber traffic is steeped in blood, and if the natives were to rise and sweep every white person on the Upper Congo into eternity, there would still be left a fearful balance to their credit. -- Belgian Official

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Belgium’s Stranglehold on the Congo

Leopold’s Conscience??

Diamond Mines

Raw Diamonds

Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902)

“The Colossus of Rhodes”

South African (Boer) War 1899-1902

• Dutch East India establishes Cape Town (1652)
• Farmers (Boers) follow to settle territory, later called Afrikaners
• Competition and conflict with indigenous Khoikhoi and Xhosa peoples
• British takeover in 1806, slavery a major issue of conflict
• Afrikaners migrate eastward: the Great Trek, overpower Ndebele and Zulu resistance with superior firepower
• Establish independent Republics

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Dutch Landing in 1652

South African (Boer) War 1899-1902

• British tolerate this until gold is discovered
• White-white conflict, black soldiers and laborers
• Afrikaners concede in 1902, 1910 integrated into Union of South Africa

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The Boers spoke Afrikaans.

The Great Trek, 1836-38

Afrikaners

Zulu Warriors, late 19th century, postcard

Only known drawing, from the time period, of Shaka standing with the long throwing assegai and the heavy shield in 1824 - four years before his death

Shaka Zulu (1785 – 1828)

The Struggle for South Africa

The Boer War: 1899 - 1900

The Boers

The British

Lizzie van Zyl in a British concentration camp

A Future British Prime Minister

British Boer War Correspondent, �Winston Churchill

The Berlin West Africa Conference (1884-1885)

• Fourteen European states, United States
• No African states present
• Rules of colonization: any European state can take “unoccupied” territory after informing other European powers
• European firepower dominates Africa
• Exceptions: Ethiopia fights off Italy (1896); Liberia a dependency of the US

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Berlin Conference of 1884-1885

Another point of view? →

Systems of Colonial Rule

• Concessionary companies
• Private companies get large tracts of land to exploit natural resources
• Companies get freedom to tax, recruit labor: horrible abuses
• Profit margin minimal
• Direct Rule: France
• “civilizing mission”
• Chronic shortage of European personnel; language and cultural barriers
• French West Africa: 3600 Europeans rule 9 million

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Indirect Rule

• Frederick D. Lugard (Britain, 1858-1945)
• The Dual Magnate in British Tropical Africa (1922)
• Use of indigenous institutions
• Difficulty in establishing tribal categories, imposed arbitrary boundaries

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Imperialism in Oceania, ca. 1914

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European Imperialism in Australia and New Zealand

• English use Australia as a penal colony from 1788
• Voluntary migrants follow; gold discovered 1851
• Smallpox, measles devastate natives
• Territory called “terra nullus”: land of no one
• New Zealand: natives forced to sign Treaty of Waitangi (1840), placing New Zealand under British “protection”

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European and Native Population in Australia and New Zealand

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European Imperialism in the Pacific Islands

• Commercial outposts
• Whalers seeking port
• Merchants seeking sandalwood, sea slugs for sale in China
• Missionaries seeking souls
• British, French, German, American powers carve up Pacific islands
• Tonga remains independent, but relies on Britain

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US Imperialism

• President James Monroe warns Europeans not to engage in imperialism in western hemisphere (1823)
• The Monroe Doctrine: all Americas a U.S. Protectorate
• 1867 purchased Alaska from Russia
• 1875 established protectorate over Hawai’i
• Locals overthrow queen in 1893, persuade US to acquire islands in 1898

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US Marine force at the time of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, January 1893.

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Spanish-Cuban-American War �(1898-1899)

• US declares war in Spain after battleship Maine sunk in Havana harbor, 1898
• Takes possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines
• US intervenes in other Caribbean, Central American lands, occupies Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti
• Filipinos revolt against Spanish rule, later against US rule

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The sunken USS Maine

Uncle Sam: “The Colossus�of the Pacific” (A Parody)

The Panama Canal

• President Theodore Roosevelt (in office 1901-1909) supports insurrection against Colombia (1903)
• Rebels win, establish state of Panama
• U.S. gains territory to build canal, Panama Canal Zone
• Roosevelt Corollary of Monroe Doctrine
• U.S. right to intervene in domestic affairs of other nations if U.S. investments threatened

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Early Japanese Expansion

• Resentment over Unequal Treaties of 1860s
• 1870s colonized northern region: Hokkaido, Kurile islands, southern Okinawa and Ryukyu islands as well
• 1876 Japanese purchase warships from Britain, dominate Korea
• Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) over Korea results in Japanese victory
• Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) also ends in Japanese victory

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The Russo-Japanese War:�1904-1905

The Battle of Tsushima:�The results startled the world!

Painting of Admiral Togo on the bridge of the Japanese battleship Mikasa, before the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.

Battlefields of the Russo-Japanese War

Manchuria

Japanese soldiers' corpses in a trench, with Russian soldiers looking on.

President Teddy Roosevelt �Mediates the Peace

The Treaty of Portsmouth, NH ended the Russo-Japanese War.

Japan Annexes Korea

Japan Is a Player in China

Economic Legacies of Imperialism

• Colonized states encouraged to exploit natural resources rather than build manufacturing centers
• Encouraged dependency on imperial power for manufactured goods made from native raw product
• Indian cotton
• Introduction of new crops
• Tea in Ceylon

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Imperialism and migration during the nineteenth and early twentieth century

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Labor Migrations

• Europeans move to temperate lands
• Work as free cultivators, industrial laborers
• 32 million to the US 1800-1914
• Africans, Asians, and Pacific islanders move to tropical/subtropical lands
• Indentured laborers, manual laborers
• 2.5 million between 1820 and 1914

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Colonial Conflict

• Thousands of insurrections against colonial rule
• Tanganyika Maji Maji Rebellion against Germans (1905-1906)
• Rebels sprinkle selves with magic water (maji maji) as protection against modern weapons; 75000 killed
• “Scientific” Racism developed
• Count Joseph Arthurd de Gobineau (1816-1882)
• Combines with theories of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) to form pernicious doctrine of Social Darwinism

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Nationalism and Anti-colonial Movements

• Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1883), Bengali called “father of modern India”
• Reformers call for self-government, adoption of selected British practices (e.g. ban on sati)
• Influence of Enlightenment thought, often obtained in European universities
• Indian National Congress formed 1885
• 1906 joins with All-India Muslim League

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Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia

(August 17, 1844 – December 12, 1913)