By: Carly Snyder
Catie Liu
Kelsey Barter
Nick Mitchell
Praneeth Gogineni
Ruben Ramirez
Ruben Ramirez and Praneeth Gogineni
Industrialization and the World
Economy
 Created a growing and dynamic economic system in Great
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Britain, Continental Europe, and in North America
System spread throughout the world in the 19th century
Some countries liked the system because of the products
and techniques that the West had to offer
If peaceful methods failed, they would bring in armies to
convince non-Western nations to adopt their economic
systems
In general, Westerners fashioned the global economy so
that they got the largest share of trade, technology and
migration
The Rise of Global Inequality
 The ultimate significance of the Industrial Revolution was that it
allowed industrialized regions to increase their wealth and power
enormously
 This caused a gap to form between industrialized regions, mainly
Europe and North America, and unindustrialized regions such as
Africa and Latin America
 This uneven structure was built into the world economy and
created a “lopsided world”
 Economists compared the average incomes in “developed” regions to
“undeveloped” and came up with this graph
 The average standard of living in 1750 was the same
and in 1970 the richest countries made about 25 times
more than the third world countries
 Industrialization was the cause of the giant gap
 The third world countries stagnated in 1913 and did
not pick back up until 1945
 The increase in economic success effected food,
clothing, health, education, life expectancy, and
material wellbeing
The World Market
 In 1913, 25 times as much commerce as in 1800.
 Value of World Trade – $ 38 Billion
 Britain used trade to tie together world economy.
 Since they had colonies in India, Canada, Australia, and
other small places.
 Ex: Cotton in 1820: Britain buying 50% and exporting
50%, in 1850 India buying 25% of cotton, with Europe
only @ 16%.
 After repeal of Corn Laws – Britain becomes best
single market.
Growth of Trade
 Helped by the growth of Railroads
 Earliest Railroad construction in Europe and in America
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North of the Rio Grande.
By 1920 more than 25% of RR were in Latin America, Asia,
Africa, and Australia.
Much of this railroad building, connected seaports with
inland cities and regions.
Power of steam revolutionized transportation.
Steel replaced Iron (which had previously replaced Wood)
in propellers.
These new revolutions in transportation helped discover
new land.
Trade
 Other continents also being to ship new materials such as:
jute, rubber, cotton, and coconut oil, along with the old
staples: spices, tea, sugar, coffee.
 Intercontinental trade facilitated by Suez and Panama
Canals. – Great Importance, lots of development.
 All this trade encouraged expanding investments.
 By WWI Europeans invested $40 Billion
 Most of capital exported did not go to European Colonies,
instead about 75% went to European Nations.
 Europeans allowed white males in colonies to buy cheap
foods and raw materials, and this was beneficial, except for
the Native Americans.
Kelsey Barter and Catie Liu
Pre-1880’s Situation
 Europe controlled approx. 10% of African continent
 French began conquering Algeria in 1830’s
 Substantial number of French, Italian, Spanish colonists
 European explorers reached source of Nile by 1862;
later, Niger
 Found riches within Africa
 Set up plantations, used local labor
 European ports dating back to Exploration existed on
the West African Coast; Portugal ineffectively
controlled Angola and Mozambique (SE coast)
British v. Dutch
 Britain took control of Dutch Settlements in South Africa
during Napoleonic Wars
 Upset Dutch farmers
 1835: Dutch made “Great Trek” into interior
 Fought Zulu and Xhosa people for land
 Afrikaners (also called Boers)
 Descendents of Dutch in Cape Colony, S. Africa
• 1853 – Afrikaners proclaimed political
independence, defended themselves against
British armies
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Hatred between Afrikaners and British
• 1880 – Afrikaners and British colonists gained
control of S. Africa from indigenous people
Conquer
of
Africa
 Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, and
Spain competed for control of Africa
 Almost completely partitioned by 1900
 Only independent nations were Ethiopia (NE) and Liberia (E
Coast)
 British in S. Africa led by Cecil Rhodes skipped over
Afrikaner states to control Bechuanaland and Rhodesia
 Now Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia
 British conquered Dutch in South African War (1899-
1902), bloody
 1910 - territories united as the Union of South Africa, which
was largely self-governing
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Allowed more numerous Afrikaners to gradually gain pol control
 Africa that Europeans conquered was technologically
behind, politically divided
 Divisions of language/culture, conquest
 African turmoil – slaving gangs sent out by African
rulers
 Some Africans resisted European conquest
 Europeans brutally crushed any resistance
 Most Africans gave in to Europeans easily
 1914 – Europeans ruled all of Africa except Liberia and
Ethiopia
Partition of Africa
 British occupation of Egypt in 1882
 Set new model of formal political occupation
 At first opposed formal partition
 Ended up with richest parts (S. Africa, Ghana,
Nigeria)
 Leopold II of Belgium – focus on Central Afr.
 Not powerful in Europe but personally claimed Congo
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Formed a financial syndicate to send Henry Stanley
(journalist) to the Congo Basin
 Established trading posts, signed “treaties” w/ natives
 Other nations soon followed suit
 France alarmed by Leopold II
 Led to 1880 French expedition under Pierre de Brazza,
established protectorate on N. Bank of Congo River
 Bismarck (Germany) claimed portions of East and
West Africa
 Created an overall gold rush mentality or “African
Fever” by 1882
Berlin Conference
 International conference called by Bismarck and Jules
Ferry of France to lay down rules of conquest of SubSaharan Africa in 1884 and 1885
 Claims to African territory rest on “effective
occupation” to be recognized
 Ensured nations would push relentlessly into the
African interior
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No one nation could claim the continent
 Recognized Leopold’s personal rule over Congo
 Also worked to stop African slave trade and slavery
Colonial Claims
 Berlin Conference = German emergence as imperial power
 Bismarck changed his position on colonies 1884, acquired
areas of Togo, Cameroons, SW and E Africa
 German cooperation with France against Britain
 French pressed S from Algeria, N from Congo and E from
forts on Senegal coast
 British expanded N from Cape Colony, W from Zanzibar
 Attempt to move S from Egypt stopped in Sudan by Muslims
in 1885
 1895-1898 - British forces under Horatio Kitchener moved
more tactfully up the Nile River, defeating Muslim arrows
with machine guns at Battle of Omdurman
 Eventual conquest of Sudan realized after French troops at
the top of the Nile withdrew due to Dreyfus Affair
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Ended serious diplomatic crisis that might have caused war (French
v. British rivalry)
Afr/Euro Economic Relations
 Expanding output of industrialized European nations
caused them to seek demand for surplus products
 Offered African merchants better credit terms
 Large quantities of goods traded between Europe and
Africa
 Ivory, oil, wood, rubber
 1890s – commercial change in Africa conducted by sea
through European nations
 European political pressure  increased cotton
exports in Egypt
 Europeans powers taxed Africans, ordered
communities into tribes
 Took land for plantations
 Used local labor
 Tribal states  division of labor (legal protection on
land/labor)
 Subsidence-based agriculture  specialization,
production of surplus
 White farmers in S. Africa exported provisions and
animal products but couldn’t compete w/ African
agriculture
 Diamond/gold mining  exported to Europe for
processing, sale
 Massive trade between Africa and Europe
 European competition
Conditions in Africa
 Leopold II was brutal ruler
 Christian missionaries brought improvements
 After WWII, US wanted end to European imperialism
 Socialist African rulers aided by USSR, wanted self-rule
 European colonists tried to use force to maintain power,
but eventually lost domestic support
 “Perhaps the Africans’ worst loss was not of land or
power but self-respect”
Nick Mitchell
A
“Civilizing
Mission”
 The idea of many Europeans that, it is their duty to
civilize non-European regions.
 An excuse for imperialists to continue expanding and
a way to quell critics.
 Many Europeans believed missions would eventually
bestow the modern economies, cities, advanced
medicine, and higher standard of living to “primitive”
areas of the world.
A “Civilizing Mission” cont.
 Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), masterfully rallied people
in Europe and America to fulfill the “white man's
burden.” The “burden” meaning it is the white mans’
responsibility to “civilize” the rest of the world.
 The idea of the “white man’s burden” played a major
part in deciding to rule the Philippines rather then
liberating it after the Spanish-American War.
 Proponents of imperialism believed that imperial rule
protected natives from tribal warfare.
A “Civilizing Mission” cont.
 As a result of peace and stability from European
control, Christianity spread.
 In Africa, Protestant, Muslim, and Catholic
missionaries all worked to convert, and educate.
 An example of conversion through missions are the
Ibo people who became highly Christianized due to
missionary actions.
A “Civilizing Mission” cont.
 While there were occasional success with missionary
efforts in Africa there was a general failure in other
regions like India, China, and the Islamic world.
 The attempts to convert were mostly futile because the
ethnicities they were trying to convert often had long
standing religious beliefs.
 However, this did not stop them from continuing to try
to convert people.
Carly Snyder
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
 Written by Joseph Conrad
 One of the greatest pieces of English literature,
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distinctly non-English flair
Works are some of the first modern novels
Inspired by Conrad’s visit to the Congo
Analysis of not only the atrocities suffered by the
indigenous people, but all human nature
Controversial
Excerpt from Heart of Darkness

"A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six
black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They
walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth
on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps.
Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short
ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I could see every
rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each
had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected
together with a chain whose bights swung between them,
rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff made
me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing into
a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice; but
these men could by no stretch of imagination be called
enemies.
 They were called criminals, and the outraged law, like
the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble
mystery from the sea. All their meager breasts panted
together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the
eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six
inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike
indifference of unhappy savages….This was simple
prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance
that he could not tell who I might be. He was speedily
reassured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a
glance at his charge, seemed to take me into
partnership in his exalted trust. After all, I also was a
part of the great cause of these high and just
proceedings.
 "Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees
leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half
coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the
attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another
mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder
of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The
work! And this was the place where some of the
helpers had withdrawn to die.
 "They were dying slowly -- it was very clear. They
were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were
nothing earthly now -- nothing but black shadows of
disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the
greenish gloom.
 Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the
legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial
surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened,
became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl
away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air
-- and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam
of the eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw
a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full
length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly
the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me,
enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in
the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man
seemed young -- almost a boy -- but you know with
them it's hard to tell…
African Music and European
Colonization:
 African music is defined stylistically by the period of
European imperialism within Africa
 Pre-African colonization music is defined at
“Traditional African Music”
 This style of music is closely related to tribal
traditions/activities
 Also characterized by drums/traditional instruments
 New music type after colonization
 Musicians focused on pleasing Europeans
 Servants attempted to become more European to
gain higher social status, reflected in art forms
 Ex. Palm Wine music
Palm Wine Music
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJXft-YIVG0
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Xt376B81Q
Works Cited
Ajayi, J.F. Ade & Crodwer, Michael. Historical Atlas of Africa. New York: Press
Syndicate of the University Cambridge, 1985.
Conrad, Joseph. "Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924. Heart of Darkness." Electronic Text
Center, University of Virginia Library. 29 February 2012
<http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccernew2?id=ConDark.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/moden
g/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1>.
—. Sparknotes: Heart of Darkness. 2012. 29 February 2012
<http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart/themes.html>.
Hollings, Jill. African Nationalism. New York: The John Day Company, 1971.
Scramble For Africa. 11 January 2009. 29 February 2012
<http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Scramble_for_Africa>.
“The Scramble for Africa.” The Economist, 23 Dec. 1999: Print.