Imperialism

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Imperialism

• Lesson 18

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ID SIG

• Berlin Conference, Boer War, Boxer Rebellion,
  imperialism, Mahan, Meijis Reforms, Opium War,
  Panama Canal, Perry, Rape of Nanjing, Roosevelt
  Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Russo-Japanese
  War, Spanish-American War, Unequal treaties,
  Western advantages, Zulus

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Agenda

• Imperialism
• The Western Advantage
• Imperialism in Asia
• Opium War
• Opening of Japan
• Sino-Japanese War
• Boxer Rebellion
• Russo-Japanese War
• Manchuria
• Imperialism in Africa
• Zulus
• Boer War
• Imperialism in Latin America
• Spanish-American War
• Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

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Imperialism

• Imperialism is a term associated with the
  expansion of the European powers, and later the
  US and Japan, and their conquest and colonization
  of African and Asian societies, mainly from the
  16th through the 19th Centuries
• Was effected not just through the force of arms,
  but also through trade, investment, and business
  activities that enabled the imperial powers to
  profit from subject societies and influence their
  affairs without going to the trouble of
  exercising direct political control

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Imperialism

• Many Europeans came to believe that imperial
  expansion and colonial domination were crucial
  for the survival of their states and societies
• Superior transportation (steamships and canals),
  military (breech-loading rifles), and
  communications (undersea telegraph) technologies
  gave the West a huge advantage

The USS Monocacy was used to protect US interests
along the Yangtze River in China
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Imperialism Against China The Opium War

• In the late 18th and early 19th Centuries,
  Europeans wanted to trade with the Chinese much
  more than the Chinese wanted to trade with the
  Europeans
• Since the Chinese had little demand for European
  products, the European merchants had to trade
  with silver bullion

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Imperialism Against China The Opium War

• As an alternative, Europeans gradually began to
  trade in opium instead
• The trade was illegal and created both an
  economic and a social problem in China

Illustration from an early 19th century book
showing an opium addict
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Imperialism Against China Opium War

• In 1839, the Chinese took serious measures to
  halt the opium trade
• The British protested and launched the Opium War
  (1839-1842)

The British shell Guangzhou
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Imperialism Against China Opium War

• The war showed the military differential between
  China and Europe
• The British used steam-powered gunboats to attack
  the Grand Canal, and China sued for peace
• China suffered other military setbacks with
  Britain and France (1856-1858), France
  (1884-1885), and Japan (1894-1895)

Cartoon showing China being divided by the United
Kingdom, Germany, Russia, France, and Japan
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Imperialism Against China Unequal Treaties

• As a result of these defeats, China was subjected
  to what were collectively known as the unequal
  treaties
• China was forced to
• Cede Hong Kong to Britain
• Open ports to commerce and residence
• Permit the establishment of Christian missions
• Legalize the opium trade
• Not levy tariffs on imports

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Imperialism Against China Unequal Treaties

• By 1900, ninety Chinese ports were under the
  effective control of foreign powers, foreign
  merchants controlled much of the Chinese economy,
  Christian missionaries were converting Chinese
  throughout the country, and foreign gunboats
  patrolled Chinese waters

The Treaty of Nanjing (1842) ceded Hong Kong to
the British in perpetuity
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Imperialism Against Japan Foreign Pressure

• The Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan was able to
  control foreign interaction until the early 19th
  Century
• However, beginning in 1844, British, French, and
  US ships visited Japan to establish relations
• The US in particular wanted ports where its
  Pacific whaling and merchant fleets could stop
  for fuel and provisions

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Imperialism Against Japan Foreign Pressure

• The Tokugawas refused all requests for expanded
  relations and stuck to their policy of limiting
  European and American visitors to a small number
  of Dutch at Nagasaki
• In the late 1840s the Japanese began making
  military preparations in case of attack

The artificial island Dejima in Nagasaki Bay
where the Dutch were allowed to trade
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Imperialism Against Japan Commodore Perry

• In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry led a US naval
  squadron into Tokyo Bay and demanded that the
  shogun open Japan to diplomatic and commercial
  relations and sign a treaty of friendship
• The shogun had no good alternative and acquiesced
  to Perrys demands

Commodore Matthew Perry
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Imperialism Against Japan The Opening of Japan

• Representatives of Britain, the Netherlands, and
  Russia soon won similar rights
• Like the Chinese, the Japanese were subjected to
  a series of unequal treaties which opened
  Japanese ports to foreign commerce, deprived the
  government of control over tariffs, and granted
  foreigners extraterritorial rights

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Japans Response End of Tokugawa Rule

• The sudden intrusion of foreign powers in Japan
  resulted in the collapse of the Tokugawa and the
  restoration of imperial rule
• The dissident slogan was Revere the emperor,
  expel the barbarians.
• On Jan 3, 1868, the boy emperor Mutsuhito took
  power
• He later became known as Meiji (Enlightened
  Rule)

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Japans Response Meiji Reforms

• The Meiji government strived to gain parity with
  foreign powers behind the motto rich country,
  strong army
• It looked to the industrial lands of the United
  States and Europe to obtain knowledge and
  expertise to strengthen Japan and win revisions
  of the unequal treaties
• The Meiji sent many students and officials abroad
  to learn everything from technology to
  construction and hired foreign experts to
  facilitate economic development and indigenous
  expertise

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Japans Response Meiji Reforms

• The Meiji transformed Japan by
• abolishing the feudal order and therefore
  centralizing political power,
• revamping the tax system to put the regime on a
  firm financial footing
• creating a constitution which gave the emperor
  effective power and the parliament the ability to
  advise but not control him
• creating a modern transportation, communications,
  and educational infrastructure

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Japans Response Sino-Japanese War

• From 1894-1895 Japan defeated China in a war over
  Korea which showed how modern and powerful Japan
  had become and how weakened China had become
• The Japanese navy quickly gained control of the
  Yellow Sea and then the Japanese army pushed
  Chinese forces off the Korean Peninsula
• In the peace treaty, China recognized Korean
  independence which made Korea a virtual
  dependency of Japan
• The Japanese victory alarmed European powers,
  especially Russia, who shared interests with
  Japan in Korea and Manchuria

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Japans Response Parity with the West

• In 1899 Japan was able to end extraterritoriality
• In 1902 Japan concluded an alliance with Britain
  as an equal power
• By the early 20th Century, Japan had joined the
  ranks of the worlds major industrial powers

Toyoda Type-G Automatic Loom invented in 1924
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Chinas Response Boxer Rebellion

• Eventually an anti-foreign society called the
  Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists (called
  the Boxers by the foreign press) emerged to
  protest the increasing Western presence in China
• In 1899 the Boxers organized to rid China of
  foreign devils
• They went on a rampage killing foreigners,
  Chinese Christians, and Chinese who had ties to
  foreigners

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Chinas Response Boxer Rebellion

• In 1900 they besieged the foreign embassies in
  Beijing
• A heavily armed force of British, French,
  Russian, US, German, and Japanese troops crushed
  the rebellion

Calvin P. Titus won the Medal of Honor leading
the American attack over the Chinese City Wall
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The Rise of Japanese Imperialism Russo-Japanese
War

• When Russia refused to withdraw its troops from
  Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion, Japan
  attacked and defeated the Russian Far Eastern
  Fleet anchored at Port Arthur
• It was the first time in modern history an Asian
  military force had soundly whipped the army and
  navy of a major non-Asian imperial power
• With the victory, Japan gained recognition as a
  major imperial power

President Theodore Roosevelt meets with Japanese
and Russian envoys to discuss peace at the end of
the Russo-Japanese War.
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The Rise of Japanese Imperialism World War I

• On August 23, 1914, Japan entered World War I on
  the side of the Allies
• It captured several German-occupied locations in
  China and the Pacific
• Building on this momentum, Japan presented the
  Chinese government with a secret list of
  Twenty-One Demands which would have reduced China
  to a protectorate of Japan

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The Rise of Japanese Imperialism World War I

• The Chinese leaked the note to the British who
  spoke up for the Chinese and prevented complete
  capitulation, but still China acquiesced to many
  of the demands
• The Twenty-One Demands reflected Japans
  determination to dominate east Asia and served as
  a basis for future Japanese pressure on China

Japanese Prime Minister Okuma Shigenobu presented
the demands to China
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The Rise of Japanese Imperialism Naval Power

• Britain and the US began to see Japan as a threat
  to their naval dominance
• In 1922 the Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty
  established a ratio of capital ships as
• Britain 5
• United States 5
• Japan 3
• France 1.67
• Italy 1.67
• In the 1930s, an increasingly militant Japan
  demanded parity with the U.S. and Britain.
• When the request was denied, Japan gave notice in
  1934 that it would withdraw from the treaty in
  two years and did so

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The Rise of Japanese Imperialism Manchuria

• The increasing Japanese power and its continued
  hostility toward China came to a head in the
  1930s when for the most part civilians lost
  control of the government and the military in
  Japan
• In the 1937 Japan invaded Manchuria and waged a
  brutal war against civilians and a repressive
  occupation

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The Rise of Japanese Imperialism Manchuria

• The Japanese brutality was epitomized by the
  Rape of Nanjing
• Over a two month period, Japanese soldiers
  inflamed by war passion and a sense of racial
  superiority raped 7,000 women, murdered hundreds
  of thousands of unarmed soldiers and civilians,
  and burned 1/3 of the homes in Nanjing

Chinese man being beheaded
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A Chinese baby cries amid the rubble of the
Japanese bombing of Shanghai
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The Rise of Japanese Imperialism World War II

• Japan continued to see the US and others as a
  threat to its influence in Asia and in 1940 the
  Japanese began developing plans to destroy the US
  Navy in Hawaii
• On Dec 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl
  Harbor
• Well discuss this in Lesson 27

In May 1940, the main part of the US fleet was
transferred to Pearl Harbor from the west coast
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Imperialism in Africa Sudan

• Muhammad Ahmad Abdullah declared himself the
  Mahdi (rightly guided one) and unified Sudanese
  tribes under the banner of Islam to attack
  Ottoman, Egyptian, and British invaders

Abdullah was both a religious and a Sudanese
nationalist leader
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Imperialism in Africa Sudan

• After a protracted siege, Abdullah took the
  Sudanese capital of Khartoum and beheaded the
  British General George Gordon
• Gordon became a martyr for the British imperial
  cause and the British government vowed to avenge
  his death
• In 1898 General Kitchener invaded the Sudan and
  eradicated the Mahdist movement
• The vast Sudanese territories were incorporated
  into the British Empire

Painting of Gordon facing his death
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Imperialism in Africa Zulus

• In South Africa, the Zulu King Shaka subdued
  other tribes in the early 19th Century and built
  a kingdom as large as all of western Europe
• Shaka had the military power to deal with Western
  envoys as equals and was interested in
  establishing mutually beneficial ties with the
  West

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Imperialism in Africa Zulus

• However, Shaka was not a benevolent ruler and his
  reign was called Mfecane or the time of
  troubles
• When he was assassinated by rivals there was no
  peaceable system of succession
• The Zulu kingdom was torn apart by internal
  disputes which weakened its ability to resist
  Dutch and British expansion into South Africa

British soldiers show a Maxim gun to an elderly
Zulu chief in 1901
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Imperialism in Africa South Africa

• The Dutch East India Company had established a
  supply station at Cape Town in 1652 and settlers
  began expanding outward to take up ranching and
  farming
• These settlers were called Boers (the Dutch
  word for farmer) or Afrikaners (the Dutch word
  for African)
• During the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), the
  British took over the Cape and established
  British rule in 1806

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Imperialism in Africa South Africa

• British rule disrupted Boer society because it
  brought in English law and language
• When Britain abolished slavery in 1833, Boer
  financial viability and lifestyles were further
  threatened
• Chafing under British rules the Boer began
  migrating eastward where they established several
  independent colonies such as the Orange Free
  State (1854) and the South African Republic or
  Transvaal territories (1860)

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Imperialism in Africa South Africa

• The lenient British attitude toward this changed
  when diamonds were discovered on Boer-populated
  territories in 1867 and gold in 1886
• Two Boer Wars were fought from 1880-1881 and
  1899-1902 with the British winning and putting an
  end to the Boer independent republics
• By 1910, Britain had consolidated the provinces
  into the Union of South Africa

Boer guerrillas during the Second Boer War
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Imperialism in Africa Berlin Conference

• Tensions among the European powers seeking
  African colonies led to the Berlin West Africa
  Conference (1884-1885), during which delegates
  from 14 European states and the US (no Africans
  were present) devised the rules for the
  colonization of Africa
• The conference produced an agreement that any
  European state could establish African colonies
  after notifying the others of its intentions and
  occupying previously unclaimed territory

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Imperialism in Latin America US

• In 1823 President James Monroe issued the Monroe
  Doctrine that warned European states against
  imperialist designs in the western hemisphere
• Any European attempt to reassert control over
  former colonies or to establish new ones would be
  considered as a threat against the US and an act
  of provocation
• The Monroe Doctrine served as a justification for
  US intervention in hemispheric affairs

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US Spanish-American War (1898-1899)

• The US had large business interests in Puerto
  Rico and Cuba, the last remnants of Spains
  American empire
• In 1898 the US battleship Maine exploded and sank
  in Havana harbor
• US leaders suspected sabotage and declared war on
  Spain

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US Spanish-American War

• The US easily defeated Spain and took possession
  of Puerto Rico and Cuba
• In the Pacific, the US took possession of the
  Philippines and Guam
• After the Spanish-American War the US emerged as
  a major imperial and colonial power

Commodore Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in a
single day at the Battle of Manila.
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US Naval Growth

• Protected by two oceans, the US at the turn of
  the 20th Century needed only a small army
• However, to protect its expanding overseas
  interests it built the worlds third largest navy
• Men like Alfred Thayer Mahan argued that the navy
  represented the key to American power and
  championed imperialism

As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, future US
President Theodore Roosevelt had been strongly
influenced by Mahans writings
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US Imperialism in the Western Hemisphere

• Dating back to the Monroe Doctrine, the US had a
  keen interest in dominating the Western
  Hemisphere
• It had three policy goals
• Prevent European domination over the Caribbean
• Obtain land for a canal across Central America
• Dominate trade with Latin America and Canada
• US success in obtaining these goals was based on
  no nation in the Americas being strong enough to
  oppose the US and European nations being
  preoccupied with their own imperialistic ventures
  in Africa and Asia

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US Imperialism in Panama

• In 1903 the US supported a rebellion against
  Colombia and helped rebels establish a breakaway
  state of Panama
• In exchange for the support, the US won the right
  to build a canal across Panama and control the
  adjacent territory known as the Panama Canal Zone

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US Imperialism in Panama

• Between 1904 and 1914, the US built the Panama
  Canal which links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
  without having to transit Cape Horn

Gatun locks under construction in 1910
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US Imperialism Elsewhere in Latin America

• In addition to military ventures, the US
  practiced Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America
  whereby Latin American governments were pressured
  to support US business interests
• By 1913 the US had displaced Great Britain as the
  leading exporter to Latin America

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US Imperialism Elsewhere in Latin America

• To protect their investments, US businessmen
  encouraged compliant, pro-American governments in
  Latin America
• When order was threatened, the US did not
  hesitate to intervene
• Between 1903 and 1934 the US sent armed forces
  one or more times to six nations in the
  Caribbean, occupying three of them for more than
  a decade

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Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

• In 1904 the government of the Dominican Republic
  went bankrupt
• President Theodore Roosevelt feared that Germany
  and other nations might intervene forcibly to
  collect their debts 
• Roosevelt asserted that in the Western
  Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to
  the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States,
  however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such
  wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an
  international police power....

Cartoon portraying Roosevelt as an international
policeman wielding his big stick
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Review

• Explain imperialism in terms of the DIME

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Next

• World War I