AP Euro Today: Imperialism
Introduction: Two views of
Imperialism
Outcome:
 Why did nations pursue this
policy? The American
example.
 HW: Finish the Gregory
history of Imperialism
What is Imperialism?
Simple: It’s the building of an
empire
 We’ll begin today, oddly, with
Monty Python.

We go to Palestine, then part of
the Roman Empire, at the time of
Jesus. Jewish revolutionaries are
plotting to kidnap Pontius Pilate’s
wife and hold her for ransom.
Your job: What point is being
made about imperialism?
“The Aqueduct”
The darker side of
Imperialism…
Why?...
…Did Western nations and Japan
embrace Imperialism? We’ll look
at the American example.
Look at the chart on the back of
the handout today.
Why build an empire? Reasons for Imperialism
1. Economic reasons
2. “Prestige”—national honor
4. The “Blessings of Civilization”
3. Military reasons
EMPIRE
It wasn’t as impressive as
Britain’s, but here’s the American
empire by about 1900
Reason #1: Economics

Raw
materials:
pineapple,
sugar cane,
jute
Markets for U.S.
manufactures
That’s why them most popular
drink today in the Philippines
is…
And that’s why Hawaiians
still love…
Reason #2:
Keeping up
with the
“Joneses”
Colonies
became a kind
of “status
symbol”

They
symbolized,
for imperialist
nations,
power and
national
honor.
These were the Joneses
everybody wanted to keep
up with

Even many in the United States
wanted to emulate the ‘Mother
Country.’
But some Americans pointed out
the irony of us becoming an
imperial power…
Reason #3: Military Power!


Capt Alfred Thayer
Mahan. The Influence
of Sea Power Upon
History.
Thesis: To be a great
power, you must have
a great navy!

To have a great
navy, you need
an EMPIRE so
you’ll have
colonies for
refueling and
repair of your
ships. Like, say,
Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii…
But wait! There’s more!

To protect your colonies with
their naval bases, you need…a
great navy!
Charter members of the Mahan
fan club
During his presidency (1901-1909)


Theodore Roosevelt
would send an
American squadron
of warships—the
“Great White
Fleet”—on a
goodwill tour
around the world.
Was it just good will
that TR was
communicating?
The Great White Fleet off Avila,
1908.
Kaiser Wilhelm’s endorsement of
Mahan’s ideas…

Would turn Germany and England—
once friends—into enemies, as a naval
“arms race” began in the years before
the First World War
America’s pursuit of Mahan’s
dream—an empire defended by a
great navy—would have tragic
consequences even farther in the
future.

.
Reason 4: “Blessings of
Civilization”


Missionaries:
Methodists,
Episcopalians,
Presbyterians,
Catholic teaching
orders and others
carried Christianity to
the empires being
built by both Europe
and America.
Americans caught the “blessingsof-civilization fever,” too

“It is our duty,”
President McKinley
intoned when the
U.S. took the
Philippines from
Spain, “to uplift and
Christianize the
Filipinos.”


No one had told
the President that
80% of the
Filipinos were
already Christians;
they were Roman
Catholics.
McKinley was not
the brightest bulb
on America’s
Christmas tree.
But missionaries brought more
practical “blessings:” many were
also doctors, teachers, even
engineers.
So I don’t mean to make fun of
missionaries…
And the Montys are right—
Imperialism does have a positive
side. India owes its rail system to
the British.
But, then, there’s the dark side: In
1858, the British also executed
Indian soldiers, called Sepoys,
with a method unique to British
India.
The American experience in our
most important colony, the
Philippines, demonstrates the
same problem the British had in
India: Colonial wars
American rule over the
Philippines…


Came after the
Filipinos had fought
alongside the
Americans to defeat
Spain in the SpanishAmerican War.
The Filipinos assumed
they would get their
independence.
They were mistaken.


The United States
decided to keep
the islands as a
“Protectorate.”
That’s a nice
replacement for
the c-o-l-o-n-y
word.
When some Filipinos objected:
The Philippine Insurrection
(1899-1902)
•
It would take the
U.S. Army three
years to win a war
against Filipino
revolutionaries,
who wanted
independence.
This war bitterly
divided Americans.

Imperialists, like
President
William
McKinley,
argued that the
Filipinos
“weren’t’ ready”
for
independence

Anti-Imperialists,
like author
Samuel Clemens,
argued that, given
our own history,
it was
hypocritical for
America to make
the Philippines a
colony.
The Philippine Insurrection
claimed the lives of at least a
quarter-million Filipinos

One U.S. general
ordered his men
to “kill
everyone over
ten” in one town
secured by his
troops after a
surprise attack
by Filipino
rebels.
The Filipinos were tough fighters.


Some of them
wouldn’t die when
they were supposed
to.
The Army had to
revive the .45
revolver from the
Indian wars because
only it had a bullet
big enough to knock
the Filipinos down.
American troops used “waterboarding” to interrogate
Filipino prisoners
But even American soldiers
questioned the war. A soldier
from Nebraska wrote:

"They will never surrender
until their whole race is
exterminated. They are
fighting for a good cause,
and the Americans should
be the last of all nations to
transgress upon such
rights. Their independence
is dearer to them than
life.”
The war so bitterly divided
Americans…

That, in one
incident, a group of
Harvard students—
not noted for their
physical
toughness—
dragged U.S.
soldiers off their
troop train and
beat them up.
The war ended in 1902…

Only after a
haggard, starving
resistance leader—
Emiliano
Aguinaldo—had
surrendered to
American troops.
The Philippines would be
granted independence…


But not until 1946, after
World War II, after four
years of Japanese
occupation, which, again,
saw terrible suffering on
the part of the Filipino
people.
(Right) Corazon Aquino, President of
the Philippines, 1986-92, and one of my
heroes.
So, Imperialism came at a
price—colonial wars.

Here, British
soldiers make
a last stand
against Zulu
warriors in
South Africa in
1879. The
British Army
became skilled
at getting
massacred.
The British got better at this
sort of thing…

Battle of
Omdurman,
1898, the
Sudan.
But imperialism caused
more than colonial wars…

This competition for
colonies and the
construction of navies
would generate
tensions that would
lead to World War I—
and to the deaths of
eight million young
men and 12 million
civilians.
And, among the war’s combatants
were colonial soldiers who would
fight—and die-- far away from
home.
In 1918, Americans who went
into combat in France…




…were driven to the front
by French Army truck
drivers.
The drivers were from the
French colony called
Indochina.
The grandsons of those
American soldiers would
go to war with the
grandsons of those truck
drivers.
They were from Vietnam.
A little review…



In what two ways do colonies
help an industrial power’s
economy?
What do I mean by “keeping up
with the Joneses?
Who was Alfred Thayer Mahan,
and what was his book about?
A little more review…



How would Mahan’s book be an
indirect cause of World War I?
What do I mean by the “Blessings of
Civilization,” and how were some of
these blessings quite practical?
Why did Imperialism lead to colonial
wars? What colonial war did the U.S.
fight?
The Queen says…



HW: Mr. Gregory’s
History of
Imperialism!
Pick up the Chapter
27 Readings/Review
packet.
Tomorrow: World
War I begins.