Notebook Page 41

Resistance to Imperialism
Period 3: 1750 CE – 1900 CE
 Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901)
By the 1890s, the Chinese people and government had been humiliated
by the Opium Wars, and the intrusion of Westerners, Russia, and Japan

To rid China of these intruders, and ends the ‘Spheres of Influence’ in China,
a group of martial artists known as the ‘Boxers’ to the West rose up in rebellion

While the rebellion initially began without the sanctioning of Empress Cixi and
the Qing Government, Qing military forces soon joined the rebels in an attempt to
free themselves from imperialism and protect their integrity with the Han Chinese

The Boxers violently overran many unsuspecting Western offices and

businesses, and killed many European citizens, officials, and ambassadors

While temporarily successful, a joint coalition force of Western forces

invaded and suppressed rebel and Qing forces in 1901 and occupying Beijing

While ultimately a failure, the Boxer Rebellion, along with the Sepoy Mutiny in India in 1857,
were the largest and greatest challenges to Western imperialism in Asia during the 19th century
 Settler Colonies
While most instances of imperialism took place without large settlements
by Europeans, three primary exceptions took place within the British Empire

More similar to the Early Modern settlements in the Americas,

Europeans actively migrated to and settled in certain colonies

In colonies such as South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand,

British and Dutch settlers formed large European populations

Additionally, settlers dealt with similar resistance from locals,

as did the American settlers in the 16th and 17th century

While disease enabled the easier conquest of Australia, locals in South

Africa and New Zealand posed a more organized front regarding resistance

Despite violent interactions, the intention for most of the settler colonies was to
assimilate locals into what Europeans at the time saw as their ‘superior’ culture
 Peripheral Societies
Despite imperialism by West, Russia, and Japan consuming most of the 19th-century world,
some states maintained independent states in or near the edges of imperial empires

For example, the Cherokee Nation existed within the boundaries of the United States as an autonomous
state until the Cherokee were forcibly removed and marched to a US Indian reservation in Oklahoma

The march itself was known as the Trail of Tears due to the
sadness, despair, and death that plagued Cherokee on the trip

The same fate befell the independent Kingdom of Hawaii as it was

annexed following an American coup against Queen Liliuokalani in 1893

The Zulu Kingdom (detailed in the following slide) expanded

in South Africa until his absorption by the British Empire in 1879

Lastly, independent kingdoms in Siam (modern-day Thailand) and

Ethiopia maintained their autonomy throughout the 19th century
Cherokee and Allies
 Zulu Kingdom (1816-1879)
In the 1820s, the Zulu king Shaka Zulu united (by peace and force)
many of the South African tribes until his death via assassination in 1828

Around the same time, the British were engaged in the Boer Wars,
as they forcibly took the colony of South Africa from the Dutch

Once completed, both the British and Zulu territories

expanded and collided in 1879 during the Anglo-Zulu War

While the British would invade and incorporate the Zulu Kingdom,
the Zulu Kingdom inflicted the worst local defeat to the British Empire

Severely underestimating the size and organization of the Zulu

Kingdom, the British walked into a massacre at the Battle of Iswalanda
when 1800 British soldiers were overwhelmed by 20,000 Zulu warriors

While the British regrouped and later conquered the Zulu Kingdom,
the battle itself put an embarrassing mark on British reputation
Zulu, Xhosa, and British
(19th Century)