📍Topic 6.2 State Expansion

📖 AMSCO p.375 - p.387

Main Idea

Key Timeline

Image Courtesy of Siya

Things to Know

Imperialism in Africa

• Even after the importation of slaves from Africa was declared illegal in most of Europe, palm oil, African diamonds, and ivory were still in high demand, which brought Europeans back to Africa.
• Expanding Beyond Trading Posts:
  • In the early 1800s, Europeans mainly had trading posts in Africa with very little colonization.
  • In the latter half of the 1800s, Europeans began settling down in Africa with the help of better military technology and quinine (drug to fight malaria).
• British Control of Egypt:
  • To shorten the trip from Europe to Asia, the Suez Canal was built by over a million Egyptian corvée laborers overseen by a French company.
  • To continue the operation of the canal, Britain took over Egypt in 1882.
• British West Africa:
  • Britain spread English, Christianity, and Western education in its West African colonies.
  • Sierra Leone and Gambia were used as bases to stop the export of enslaved people from West Africa.
  • Britain initially used diplomacy with African rulers to expand their empire, but later on, these treaties were meaningless as the British used warfare and took over African land.
• The French in Africa:
  • The French turned Algeria into a settler colony and established trading posts in Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and Niger.

The European Scramble for Africa

• The “Scramble for Africa” among industrialized European nations led to war.
• Berlin Conference:
  • Otto von Bismarck hosted the Berlin Conference to keep peace within Europe by splitting Africa up in an orderly manner.
  • The European powers ended up splitting unified societies and merging different groups into one colony, which caused a lot of tension post-colonization.
• South Africa and the Boer Wars:
  • The British, after replacing the Dutch in controlling Cape Colony, got into many land wars with Dutch-speaking Afrikaners (descendants of Dutch settlers).
  • These wars are known as Boer Wars, and the British placed Afrikaners and Africans into wretched, segregated concentration camps where many had perished.
  • In the end, Afrikaner and African farmers were displaced onto poor, infertile land and unable to make a good living.
• Congo:
  • King Leopold II of Belgium personally owned Congo and exploited ivory and rubber harvesters to make profit.
  • Conditions were brutal; workers’ hands were severed to instill fear, and they were killed if they didn’t meet their quota.
  • After Belgium took control in 1908, conditions improved.
• Independent Countries:
  • Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Liberia were the only uncolonized countries in Africa, though Liberia was dependent on the United States.

Imperialism in South Asia

• Portugal, France, and England competed for control over India, but Portugal and France were never able to expand enough.
• England’s East India Company (EIC) slowly began taking over India until Britain fully took over the entire subcontinent.

Imperialism in East Asia

• China:
  • China was able to maintain its own government, but because of inner turmoil, European nations were able to establish spheres of influence within China which guaranteed them exclusive trading rights.
  • The Taiping Rebellion, the flooding of the Yellow River, and the Boxer Rebellion all weakened the Chinese government and its sovereignty.
• Japan:
  • Japan maintained limited contact with other countries, but after the Meiji Restoration, Japan rapidly industrialized and sought out new territory.
  • Through a Colonization Society, Japan created colonies in Mexico and Latin America, as well as East and Southeast Asia.

Imperialism in Southeast Asia

• The power of the trade between Europe and Southeast Asia shifted from Portugal and Spain to the Dutch and English.
• The Dutch in Southeast Asia:
  • The Dutch East India Company (VOC) took over the Spice Islands (modern-day Indonesia), but once they went bankrupt, the Dutch government took over the Dutch East Indies.
  • Although the spice trade carried a lot of profit for the Dutch, the Indonesian farmers faced so many hardships that government-enforced humanitarian reform was necessary (although it did not change the conditions).
• The French in Southeast Asia:
  • After losing the Sino-French war, China ceded northern Vietnam to France.
  • After pressuring Siam (Thailand) to cede Cambodia, Laos, and the rest of Vietnam, France formed their colony, Indochina, and created many rubber plantations to generate profit.
• The British in Southeast Asia:
  • The British East India Company, then eventually Britain, ended up controlling all of the Malay Peninsula, Burma, and northern Borneo and called it Malaya.
  • Malaya had a lot of mineral wealth and ended up being the greatest producer of rubber in the 19th century.
• Siam:
  • Siam (modern-day Thailand) was the only free state in Southeast Asia because of its diplomatic relations with France and Britain, modern industrialization path, and Western-style education for bureaucrats.

Australia and New Zealand

• Initially, Britain used Australia as a penal colony, but after they discovered Australia was well-suited for fine wool production, Britain took over the whole continent and sent settlers there.
• New Zealand was a part of New South Wales as a settler colony before the Treaty of Waitangi protected the Māori by making it a separate colony.
  • Despite the treaty, the British encroached on their land and used New Zealand as a base for grazing and dairy farming.

U.S. Imperialism in Latin America and the Pacific

• The Trail of Tears is an example of how the U.S., like Europe, continued to take land from indigenous people.
• The Monroe Doctrine implied that the U.S. wanted to become an imperial power, and they did after taking Mexican land post-Mexican-America War.
• Expansion on Land:
  • The idea of a Manifest Destiny is what spurred westward expansion in the U.S. and the purchase of Alaska from Russia.
• Expansion Overseas:
  • The Spanish-American War led to the U.S. gaining Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
  • The Roosevelt Corollary expanded U.S. influence overseas by sending troops to occupy Latin Americans lands that were facing “instability.”

Russian Expansion

• Catherine the Great and her grandson greatly expanded the Russian Empire, and the Russian-American Company established a port in Alaksa and explored the U.S. West.
• Although expanding into the North Pacific was abandoned after selling Alaska, Russia competed with Britain and France for Central Asia, which is known as the Great Game.

Terms to Remember