The domination by

one country of the

political,
economic or
cultural life of
another
 Dueto the Industrial Revolution:
 Need for natural resources/raw materials
 Need for markets for products
 Opportunities for capital investment
 Economic interests
eventually
precipitated political-
military action to
protect them.

 For example, Britain

establishes
protectorate in Egypt
to protect trade route
to India.

 Dutch-Capetown
 Nationalism sparks
interest in establishing
an empire for prestige
& influence.

 Imperialism fostered
competition and
rivalries.

 Appease domestic
desire for expansion
 “White Man’s
Burden” syndrome.
Idea that Europeans
had a duty to spread
Western culture.

 Missionaries were
zealous although
often prejudice
about those they
sought to convert
 “Take up the White Man’s Burden---
 Send forth the best ye breed---
 Go bind your sons to exile
 To serve your captives’ need;
 To wait in heavy harness
 On fluttered fold and wild---
 Your new-caught sullen peoples
 Half-devil and half-child
 Rudyard Kipling
 Many justified
imperialism by applying
Darwin’s ideas about
natural selection &
survival of the fittest to
human societies

 Idea that Europeans were

superior race and imperial
conquest & even
destruction of weaker
races was nature’s way of
improving the human
species
 Imperialism found support among all classes of
people from bankers to workers
 WHY? Because all of them benefitted from imp

 Soldiers, settlers, merchants, missionaries and

explorers were all involved.
 Argued imperialism
was tool of the rich

 It was exploitive &

immoral

 Hypocritical for
Western democratic
nations.
 Began when King
Leopold II of Belgium
hired Stanley to explore
Congo Basin and
arrange trade treaties.
 Publicly Leopold
justified the mission
claiming that Stanley
would be “carry the
light” to those “plunged
in barbarism”
 This set off a scramble
by other nations
 International Conference to establish rules for
colonizing Africa & avoid bloodshed among
Europeans.

 Agreed that no country could claim any part of

Africa unless it had set up a gov office there.

 This alone, prompted govs to send officials to exert

power over local rulers

 No Africans were invited

 Europeans drew
arbitrary borders with
little to no
understanding of the
peoples they were
subjugating or
dividing.
 After 20 years of
carving up Europe
only Ethiopia and
Liberia remained
independent.
 Africa was known as
“dark continent”
because so little was
known about it
 Difficult to penetrate
due to malaria and
sleeping sickness from
the tsetsi fly
 Medical breakthroughs
& steamships, however,
allowed Europeans to
explore
 Europeans were able to
exploit rivalries among
different African tribes
 Strong economies,
stable governments and
powerful armies &
navies, public opinion
approval
 Medical breakthroughs
- quinine
 Superior technology
 Maxim machine gun,
repeating rifles, steam
driven warships were
very convincing.
 Colony – outright complete control - France

 Protectorate – Territory has its own government

but it’s under the control of an outside power -
Britain

 Sphere of Influence – outside power claims

exclusive trading & investment privileges

 Economic Imperialism – when private business

interests control a less developed country.
 Protectorates left local rulers in place even
though they were expected to follow the advice
of the European power.

 Advantage of this type of control was that it

cost less and did not require huge military or
naval commitment.

 Future leaders sent to mother country for

education. Came back & became nationalists
 Area which one power claimed exclusive
investment or trading privileges

 This happened particularly in China among

European powers.

 Which area has the US claimed as its exclusive

sphere of influence?

 Latin America
 From the early 1800s US
and Europe outlawed
the slave trade
 Britain & US promoted
idea of returning freed
slaves to Africa
 Britain set up Sierra
Leone 1787
 US set up Liberia 1847
Arabs and Africans
continued to sell slaves
to Asia & the Middle
East
 Missionaries followed
explorers
 Were paternalistic
 Urged Africans to
reject their own
traditions in favor of
Western ideas
 Dr. Livingstone –
explorer/missionary
who had more
sympathy & less bias
 Missionaries wanted
Africans to end slave
trade
 Britain took over the Cape
Colony (South Africa)
from the Dutch in 1815
 The Boers (Dutch farmers)
resented British rule and
moved North and
founded new republics
 In the late 1800s the
discovery of gold and
diamonds in the Boer
republics led to war from
1899-1902.
 The British won.
 In 1910 Britain united
the Cape Colony and
the Boer republics into
the Union of South
Africa.
 The constitution set up
a gov run by whites and
created a system of
complete segregation
(apartheid) that would
remain in force until
1993.
 Colony:
 A country or territory
governed internally
by a foreign power
Protectorate
A country or territory
with its own internal
gov but under the
control of an outside
power
 Sphere of Influence:
 An area I nwhich an
outside power claims
exclusive investment or
trading privileges
 Economic Imperialism
 An independent but
less developed country
controlled by private
business interests
rather than other govs
 Colony:  Direct Control

 Protectorate  Indirect Control

 Sphere of Influence  Indirect Control

 Economic Imperialism  Indirect Control

DIRECT CONTROL INDIRECT CONTROL
 Foreign officials  Local officials govern
brought in to rule
 Limited self-rule
 No self-rule
 Goal: Develop future
 Goal: Assimilation leaders

 Gov institutions are

 Gov institutions are
based on the based on European
European models model but may have
local rules
 Paternalism
 Ethiopia was only
country to successfully
resist colonization
 Menelik II had
modernized his country
with European
assistance.
 When Italy attacked he
was ready.
 Ethiopia and Liberia
were only two
countries to preserve
their independence
 By 1900s
however, African
leaders became
nationalist
movements to
pursue their self-
determination
and
independence