Colonial Encounters
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Colonial Encounters
{
1750-1914
nd
2
Focused on Asia and Africa
Several new players (Germany, Italy,
Belgium, US, Japan)
Was not demographically catastrophic
like the first phase
In general, Europeans preferred informal
control (Latin America, China, Ottoman)
Wave of European
Conquests
Original Euro military advantage
lay in organization, drill, and
command structure
19th C. enormous firepower
advantage (repeating rifles and
machine guns
Numerous wars of conquest:
Westerners almost always won
Based on Military Force or
Threat
India & Indonesia: grew from interaction with Euro
trading firms
Most of Africa and SE Asia and Pacific Isl.: deliberate
conquest
Australia/New Zealand: more like colonization of N.
America
Taiwan/Korea: Japanese takeover was Euro-style
US and Russia continued to expand
Liberia: settled by freed US slaves
Ethiopia/Siam: avoided colonization skillfully
Variety
Under European
Rule
{
European takeover was often traumatic for the
colonized peoples; the loss of life and property
could be devastating
Some groups and individuals cooperated
willingly with their new masters
Employment in the armed forces
Elite often kept much of their status and
privileges
Governments and missionaries promoted
European education
Growth of a small class with Western education
Governments relied on them increasingly over
time
Cooperation
Indian Rebellion (1857-1858), based on a series
of grievances
Began as a mutiny among Indian troops
Rebel leaders advocated revival of the Mughal
Empire
Widened India’s racial divide; the British were
less tolerant of natives
Let the British assume direct control over India
Rebellion
Difference between rulers and ruled? RACE
Education for subjects was limited and
emphasized practical matters, suitable for
“primitive minds”
Even the best-educated natives rarely made it
into the upper ranks of the civil service
Racism was especially pronounced in areas
with a large number of European settlers
(South Africa)
Colonial Empires w/a difference
Colonizers were fascinated with counting and
classifying their new subjects
In India, appropriated an idealized caste system
In Africa, identified or invented distinct “tribes”
Racial Divide
Colonies were essentially dictatorships
Colonies were the antithesis of “national
independence”
Racial classifications were against Christian
and Enlightenment ideas of human equality
Many colonizers were against spreading of
“modernization” to the colonies
In time, the visible contradictions in Euro
behavior helped undermine the foundations of
colonial rule
Contradictions
Labor Systems
{
Comparing Colonial Economies
World economy increasingly demanded Asian
and African raw materials
Subsistence farming diminished
Need to sell goods for money to pay taxes
Desire to buy new products
Artisans largely displaced by manufactured
goods
Asian and African merchants were squeezed
out by Europeans
Deep Impact on Work
Many colonial states demanded unpaid labor
on public projects
Worst abuses in Congo Free State
Personally governed by Leopold II of Belgium
Reign of terror killed millions with labor
demands
Forced labor caused widespread starvation
Belgium finally stepped in and took control of
the Congo (1908) to stop abuses
Economies of CoercionForced Labor
Peasants had to devoted at least 20% of their
land to cash crops to pay as taxes
The proceeds were sold for high profits,
financed the Dutch economy
Enriched traditional authorities who enforced
the system
Cultivation SystemNetherlands East Indies
Many areas resisted the forced cultivation of
cash crops
German East Africa: major rebellion in 1905
against forced cotton cultivation
Mozambique: peasant sabotage and smuggling
kept the Portuguese from achieving their goals
there
Resistance
Many people were happy to increase production for
world markets
Considerable profit to small farmers in areas like the
Irrawaddy Delta
In the southern Gold Coast (Ghana), African farmers
took the initiative to develop export agriculture
Leading supplier of cocoa by 1911
Created by a hybrid peasant-capitalist society
Labor shortages led to exploitation of former slaves,
men marrying women for their labor power, influx of
migrants
Many colonies specialized in 1 or 2 crops- creating
dependence
Cash Crop Economics
Wage labor in Euro enterprises was common
Hundreds of thousands of workers came to
work on SE Asian plantations
Millions of Indians migrated to work elsewhere
in the British Empire
Economics of Wage Labor
Especially in Africa, people moved to Euro
farms/plantations because they had lost their
own land
Euro communities obtained vast amounts of land
S Africa 1913: 88% of land belonged to whites
Much of highland Kenya was taken over by 4,000
white farmers
Many former famers were sent to “native
reserves”
Wage Labor in Africa
Malaysian tin mines attracted millions of
Chinese workers
South African diamond mines created a huge
pattern of worker migration
Wage Labor in Mines
Seen as centers of opportunity
Segregated, unsanitary, overcrowded
Created a place for a native, Western-educated
middle class
Created an enormous class of urban poor that
could barely live and couldn’t raise families
Colonial Cities
Women in the
Colonial Economy
{
An African Case Study
Pre-colonial Africa: women usually active
farmers, had some economic autonomy
Colonial economy: women’s lives diverged
even more from men
Men tended to dominate the lucrative export
crops
Women were left with almost all of the
subsistence work
Large numbers of men migrated to work
elsewhere
Women left at home to cope, including
supplying food to men in the cities
Changes for Women
Small trade and marketing
Sometimes women’s crops came to have greater
cash value
Some women escaped the patriarchy of
husbands or fathers
Led to greater fear of witchcraft and efforts to
restrict female travel and sexuality
Opportunities for Women
Assessing Colonial
Development
{
Different measures
Defenders: it jump-started modern growth
Critics: long record of exploitation and limited,
uneven growth
Colonial rule did help integrate Asian and
African economies into a global exchange
network
Overall Economic Impact
of Colonial Rule
Administrative and bureaucratic structures
Communication and transportation
infrastructure
Schools
Health care
Breakthroughs to modern industrial societies
Modernizing Elements
Believing and
Belonging
{
Identity and Cultural Change in the Colonial Era
Getting a Western education created a new
identity for many
The almost magical power of literacy
Escape from obligations like forced labor
Access to better jobs
Social motility and elite status
Education
Many who embraced Euro culture created a
cultural divide between them and the fast
majority of the population
Many of the Western-educated elite saw
colonial rule as the path to a better future, at
least at first
In India, they organized reform societies to
renew Indian culture
Hopes for a renewal through colonial rule were
disappointed
Embracing Euro Culture
widespread conversion to Christianity in New
Zealand, the Pacific islands, and non-Muslim
Africa
around 10,000 missionaries had gone to Africa by
1910
by the 1960s, some 50 million Africans were
Christian
Religion
military defeat shook belief in the old gods
Christianity was associated with modern
education
Christianity gave opportunities to the young,
the poor, and many women
Christianity spread mostly through native
Africans
Christianity Attractive
continuing use of charms, medicine men
some simply demonized their old gods
wide array of “independent churches” was
established
Christianity Africanized
but it led intellectuals and reformers to define
Hinduism
Hindu leaders looked to offer spiritual support
to the spiritually sick Western world
new definition of Hinduism helped a clearer
sense of Muslims as a distinct community to
emerge
Christianity- not in India
notions of race and ethnicity were central to
new ways of belonging
by 1900, some African thinkers began to define
an “African identity”
united for the first time by the experience of
colonial oppression
some argued that African culture and history
had the characteristics valued by Europeans
(complex political systems, etc.)
some praised the differences between Africa and
Europe
“Race” and “Tribe”
in the twentieth century, such ideas reached a
broader public
hundreds of thousands of Africans took part in
World War I
some Africans traveled widely
for most Africans, the most important new
sense of belonging was the idea of “tribe” or
ethnic identity
ethnic groups were defined much more clearly,
thanks to Europeans
Africans found ethnic identity useful
“Race” and “Tribe”
How could Europeans, many of them from the
middle or upper classes and nearly all of them
professing Christianity, have perpetrated
horrors like King Leopold’s genocidal control
of the Congo?
Which was worse- the first or second wave of
European colonialism?
Questions
Why were Asian and African societies
incorporated into European colonial empires
later than those of the Americas? How would
you compare their colonial experiences?
In what ways did colonial rule rest upon
violence and coercion, and in what ways did it
elicit voluntary cooperation or generate
benefits for some people?
Questions
In what respects were colonized people more
than victims of colonial conquest and rule? To
what extent could they act in their own
interests within the colonial situation?
Was colonial rule a transforming, even a
revolutionary, experience, or did it serve to
freeze or preserve existing social and economic
patterns? What evidence can you find to
support both sides of this argument?
Questions
