Chapter 22 The High Tide of Imperialism

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Chapter 22The High Tide of Imperialism
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Colonial Southeast Asia, c. 1850 1. The
Portuguese presence in Asia began in 1498 when
Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut in India. By
1511 they were in the major port of Malacca on
the Malay Peninsula. It became the center of the
Portuguese Southeast Asia trading network.
Housed here were two hundred soldiers and three
hundred civilians. 2. The Dutch spent years in
Asia in the service of the Portuguese but during
their war for independence in the early
seventeenth century began independent trading
with the Asians. By 1610 their mercantile war
culminated with the capture of Portuguese
Malacca. Nevertheless, the center of Dutch trade
was to be at Batavia on Java. Defending the
commercial center was a fort manned by 1200 Dutch
soldiers and Japanese mercenaries. Although Dutch
power in Asia declined in the late seventeenth
century, control of Java remained as plantations
produced coffee, sugar, indigo, and tea for
export. Between 1811 and 1816 Java was ruled by
the British who seized Dutch overseas possessions
as part of the European war against France (the
Dutch being a reluctant ally) 3. The European
presence dotted the east Indies islands. The
British held a small factory on the southern
coast of Sumatra and territory on the Malaya
peninsula. The Portuguese possessed half of
Timor. France, which had been active in
mainland Asian trade, was by this time limited to
missionary activity. 4. As industrialization in
Europe intensified, the need for access to raw
materials increased thereby necessitating more
extensive control over territories. It also
exacerbated rivalries. Perceiving Burma as a
threat to eastern India, between 1824 and 1826
the British drove the Burmese out of eastern
India and conquered the northern and western
Burmese territories. In 1852 Lower Burma was
seized and finally in 1885 Mandalay in central
Burma was subdued. The following year, Burma was
made a province of India. 5. Catholic
missionaries from France were active in Dai Vet
in the 1660s. The Confucian rulers, however,
looked with suspicion on the missionaries
especially during the civil wars of the
eighteenth century. In 1802 Nguyen Ank, with
French help, emerged victorious from a civil war
and proclaimed himself Emperor Cia Long of all
Dai Vet which he renamed Vietnam. In 1857,
France decided to force the Vietnamese to accept
French protection to prevent Britain from
monopolizing the trade of South China. The
following year parts of southern Vietnam came
under French attack (in part to avenge the murder
of some French missionaries) and in 1861 Saigon
(modern Ho Chi Minh City) was seized. By 1867,
the rest of southern Vietnam was under French
control. Northern Vietnam fell to French
authority in 1883 when the ruler gave France
control of Vietnam. Collaterally, as part of
the French Vietnam campaign, Cambodia was seized
in 1863 and made a protectorate. Laos fell to
French control in 1853. Thailand (Siam) avoided
succumbing to either the French or British when
in 1896 it was agreed that Thailand would remain
independent to act as a buffer between the two
powers. 6. Spain's entrance into Southeast Asia
came in 1521 with the arrival of the ill-fated
Magellan voyage (1519-1521) in the Philippines.
Except for Mindanao and the Sula Islands, which
retained their Muslim faith, Spanish missionaries
were successful in converting the native
population. Manila served as the colonial
capital and the commercial hub for goods going to
America and Spain. Chinese traders brought to
the port silks, tea, porcelain, and other Chinese
and Japanese goods. In 1898 United States naval
forces defeated a Spanish fleet in Manila Bay
during the Spanish-American War. The Philippine
Islands were transformed into an American colony
to keep it from falling into Japanese hands. It
also gave the Americans a stake in Asian
affairs. Questions 1. What drove British
activity in Southeast Asia? 2. How did British
activities fuel French expansion in Southeast
Asia? 3. How did possession of the lands of
Southeast Asia change hands? 4. What was the
importance of Southeast Asia for the Europeans?
Colonial Southeast Asia, c. 1850
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• The Spread of Colonial Rule
• John A. Hobson, Imperialism A Study, 1902
• Cecil Rhodes
• Colonial Takeover in Southeast Asia
• Malay Peninsula
• Singapore
• Burma
• Vietnam
• Philippines

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Africa before World War I 1. By 1880 there were
only pockets of European penetration into Africa,
amounting to perhaps only ten percent of the
continent. 2. Frances activities in Africa
began in 1830 when it moved on Algeria but it was
not until 1879 that French civilian rule was
establish and substantial numbers of colonists
were settled. In 1881-82 France and Britain
agreed France should establish control over
Tunisia in exchange for British control over
Egypt. In 1912 Morocco was ceded to France as a
protectorate by agreement between France and
Germany. 3. British and French penetration of
Egypt came as Ottoman governors Muhammad Ali and
his grandson Ismail sought to build a state along
western lines. Their modernization policies
attracted substantial European investment and by
1876 Egypt owed foreign bondholders 450 million.
When Egypt could no longer pay the debt, France
and Britain forced appointment of their own
commissioners to oversee Egyptian finances. A
nationalist reaction was capped by bloody
anti-European riots in 1882. Britain responded
militarily and not only crushed the uprising but
established direct British control that lasted
from 1883 until 1922. 4. In southern Africa, the
British seized the Dutch settlement of Capetown
in 1795 as part of their war against France who
occupied Holland. Britains fear was that France
would use this location to interdict British
Asian trade around the cape. The presence was
made permanent in 1806. The Dutch farmers,
Boers, resented the British and finally migrated
north on the Great Trek in 1835. Eventually the
Boers formed their own states but hostilities
still existed and the two sides fell into war in
1899. The Boer War lasted until 1902 and ended
with the defeat of the Boers. By 1910 the Boer
states were integrated into the Union of South
Africa. 5. The scramble for Africa in the late
nineteenth century was initiated by the
activities of Leopold II of Belgium (1865-1909)
whose agents were exploiting the region along the
Congo River. The Belgian activity alarmed the
French who had signed treaties of protection in
1880 with Africans north of the Congo. Bismarck
recognized the implications of the Belgian and
British activities in Africa and called an
international conference on Africa in 1884 to
establish the rules for the occupation of Africa.
Claims would now have to be based on "effective
occupation." 6. German involvement in Africa
began in 1884 when it created territorial
protectorates over Togo, Cameroons, Southwest
Africa, and German East Africa. 7. France
pressed south from Algeria, east from its forts
on the Senegal coast, and north from the Congo
River. Britain pushed south from Egypt into the
Sudan where they were temporarily halted at
Khartoum by fiercely independent Muslims in 1885.
The Muslim resistance was crushed in 1898 at
Omdurman. Britain continued to push down the
Nile to Fashoda which was held by the French.
Unwilling to fight, France withdrew leaving the
Sudan to Britain and settling for small
territories in West Africa. 8. Only Liberia,
protected by the United States as a former
depository for freed slaves, and Ethiopia, with
western arms and tactics, remained free from
European control. Questions 1. How did Britain
and Belgium set off the scramble for Africa? 2.
What advantages were to gained by carving out
European colonies in Africa?
Africa before World War I
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• Africa
• Slave trade
• Gold Coast and Sierra Leone
• Liberia
• Afro-Europeans
• Egypt
• Napoleon
• Muhammad Ali
• Suez Canal, 1854-1869
• Sudan
• Algiers

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• Arab Merchants and European Missionaries in East
  Africa
• Zanzibar
• Slavery
• David Livingstone
• South Africa
• Boers
• Scramble for Africa
• European rivalries
• Missionary factor
• Superiority in firearms
• Belgiums claim on the Congo
• Conference of Berlin, 1884
• South Africa

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• Colonial System
• Philosophy of colonialism
• Darwinism
• White Mans Burden
• Agent of Civilization
• Colonial responsibility
• Direct rule
• Indirect rule
• Education
• Democratic preparation

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The Struggle for South Africa 1. The Cape Colony
was established in 1652 as a supply post for the
Dutch East India Company trading between Asia and
Holland. Already present were the native Khoisan
and San (Bushmen) who were cattle herders and
hunters with little desire to work for the Boers
(Dutch farmers). In 1659 new settlers and the
Khoisan clashed over land rights and cattle raids
as adjacent lands were occupied by the Boers.
Further complicating matters was the arrival of
more settlers, including three hundred French
Huguenots. By 1700 the colony extended one
hundred miles from Cape Town and had a white
population of 1600. A century later the
boundaries had expanded to 300 miles north and
500 miles east. The population had grown to
20,000 whites. By this time most of the Khoisan
had been eliminated by war and smallpox. A few
survivors served as servants and laborers for the
whites as did a growing number of mixed bloods.
Black Africans from elsewhere in Africa and
Malayans made up a slave majority of the
population. 2. From the southeastern coast a
Bantu-speaking people called the Nguni began
expanding their territory. One of these groups
were the Zulu under the leadership of Dingeswayo
(1800-1818) who developed mass infantry tactics.
He was succeeded by equally capable Shaka
(1818-1828) who maintained a devastating internal
war known as the infecane that witnessed
destruction and depopulation of the southeast.
By 1824 he governed perhaps a quarter of a
million people. Virtual chaos characterized
north and south of Zululand. 3. In 1795 Britain
temporarily occupied the Cape Colony to prevent
it from falling into the hands of Napoleon's
navy. Following a brief interruption between
1803 and 1806, the occupation became permanent.
Resentful of British religious, political, and
racial attitudes, especially the abolition of
slavery in 1834, several thousands of Boers
migrated en masse between 1835 and 1841 across
the Orange River to the grassy plains called the
veld. The Great Trek resulted in wars against
the Zulu and Xosa people and ultimately the
formation of two autonomous and racist republics
after 1850, the Orange Free State and Transvaal.
Failure to occupy Natal resulted in British
annexation in 1845 when it was made a dependency
of the Cape Colony. Transkei became a refuge for
displaced people caught up in the African and
white wars. Between 1871 and 1894 colonial
controls were extended over the area by the Cape
Colony. The Zulus chafed at being encircled and
between 1877 and 1881 there were several
confrontations that eventually resulted in the
area's annexation to Natal in 1897. 4. Diamonds
were discovered on the borders of the Cape Colony
in 1868 and gold in Transvaal in 1885. Thousands
of Englishmen flooded the area and soon Britain
annexed the territory on the eastern and western
borders of Transvaal. As tensions rose between
the British and the Boers, war broke out in 1899
ending in 1902 with a Boer surrender. Question 1
. Why did the British and Boers struggle in
southern Africa?
The Struggle for South Africa
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• Colonial economic policy
• Global economic market
• Law of the marketplace
• Growth of an urban economy
• Social and cultural change
• Afrikaners in South Africa
• Elites copy European

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India Under British Rule, 1805-1931 1. By act of
Parliament in 1814 that renewed the British East
India Company for twenty years, India was opened
to commerce from all British subjects (China and
East Asia, however, remained a monopoly). By
1834 in the wake of sentiment for free trade, the
Company lost its trading privileges, except for
opium to China. Nevertheless, the Company
continued to serve as a governmental agency. 2.
Britain disastrously intervened into independent
Afghanistan in 1838-1839. Neutral Sind was used
as a military base during the war and soon the
ruling princes were deposed. In 1849, after two
wars against the powerful Sikhs, the Punjab was
annexed. A second Afghan war from 1878 to 1881
resulted in a portion of Afghanistan being
brought into India thereby creating the northern
border. In the east, annexation of Lower Burma
in 1852 gave Britain control of the Bay of
Bengal. 3. British India consisted of eleven
provinces, most of which were under governors
(Englishmen) appointed by the queen and
answerable to the viceroy. Ruling over the
internal affairs of the Indian states was the
local raj (prince). There was also present in
the states a resident British official appointed
by the viceroy to control the state's relations
with other states and countries. 4. On May 9,
1857, sepoy troops (Indian mercenaries originally
hired by the East India Company to protect
British interests) stationed near Delhi rebelled.
The rebellion quickly spread to Lucknow and
Cawnpore. The Great Mutiny was the culmination of
resentment over high handed acts of the
governor-general and rumors of Christian
missionaries coercing Hindus and Muslims to
convert to Christianity. Among the immediate
causes were concerns by troops that the paper
cartridges for the new Enfield rifles were
covered with animal fat and the necessity of
biting open the cartridge would cause Hindus and
Muslims ritual pollution. There was also concern
over letting Sikhs, Gurkhas, and lower castes
into the army. Within a few weeks the Ganges
plain was under rebel control. By 1858, the
revolt was put down as British forces were
supplemented by Sikhs from the Punjab and Gurkhas
from Bengal. That same year the British crown
took direct rule of India. 5. One effect of the
Revolt of 1857 was the creation of "cantonments"
segregating the white masters from
"untrustworthy" natives. 6. The Government of
India Act of 1919 sought reform but did little,
The franchise was restricted to property owners
who were no more than three percent of the
population. Moreover, the electorate was divided
by granting separate representation to
religious communities, landowners, and other
special interest groups. Indian anger was met by
harsh repression. To halt rioting in the Punjab,
troops were sent to Amritsar where troops opened
fire on an unarmed crowd on April 13, 1919.
Killed were 379 and 1137 were wounded (a total of
1650 rounds were fired). 7. In 1921 Mohandas
Gandhi was given sole executive authority by the
Indian National Congress. He immediately
launched a campaign of civil disobedience in
accordance with satyagraha. 8. In March 1930
Gandhi led 78 followers on a "Great Salt March"
to the seacoast 200 miles away to gather salt in
protest of the salt tax and its burden on the
poor. Indians responded to Gandhis defiance
with strikes. Gandhi and others were jailed but
the civil disobedience campaign continued.
Finally, the government capitulated. Gandhi and
his followers were released and the salt tax
reduced. Questions 1. How did Britain exercise
authority over India? 2. What were the sources of
conflict between Britain and the Indians?
India Under British Rule, 1805-1931
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• India Under the British Raj
• Governance
• Education
• End of sati
• Introduction of British textiles
• Zaminder system
• Colonial Regimes in Southeast Asia
• Indirect rule
• Burma
• Indochina
• Slow to create democratic institutions
• slow economic development

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• Colonialism in Africa
• Advantages of indirect rule
• East Africa
• White settlers
• Rise of nationalism
• Traditional Resistance
• Led by the existing ruling class
• Peasant revolts
• Religion
• Reforms