Imperialism Motives &
Justifications
Analyzing Motives of Imperialism
GOAL: You will be analyzing 15 written
and visual artifacts depicting European
motives for empire building in the late
19th century.
Analyzing Motives of Imperialism

STEPS:
 Meet in assigned pairs
 Examine the examples to determine which motive it
reveals.
 Describe what you see, a motive , and write an
explanation of why you chose that motive.
Analyzing Motives of Imperialism
 ECONOMIC:
 POLITICAL:
 REGLIGIOUS:
 EXPLORATORY:
 IDEOLOGICAL:
Open-shaft diamond mining in Kimberly, South Africa, 1872
Example A
A Methodist Sunday School at Guiongua, Angola, 1925
Example B
Germans taking possession
of Cameroon in 1881
Example C
Quote from Henry
Stanley in 1882
Example D
Africans bringing ivory to the wagon in South Africa, c. 1860
Example E
Sketch map of Central African, showing Dr. Livingstone’s exploration
Example F
An advertisement for Pears’
Sope from the 1890s,
Example G
Excerpt from The White Man’s Burden
Take up the White Man’s BurdenSend forth the best ye breedGo bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives’ need:
To wait in heavy harness.
On fluttered fold and wildYour new-caught sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child
-Rudyard Kipling, 1899
Example G
Mrs. Maria C. Douglas, a doctor and missionary, and the first class of pupil
nurses in Burma, 1888.
Example H
British cartoon showing the
Chinese being savaged by
European powers
Example I
The Partition of China
THE Heathen Chinee! The Heathen Chinee!
What a channel for Christian Expansion is he.
Then Ho! For the Flowery Land of the East,
Like Vultures we’ll swoop on the promising feast.
Commission your Natives, ye Nations so free,
To hear the true light to the Heathen Chinee.
If Russia ‘makes converts’, it’s perfectly clear
We need for the ‘converting’ a well defined sphere;
If Germany’s ‘missions’ hold meetings for prayer,
So Christian a work ‘tis our duty to share.
Incidentally, too, there is cash to be made;
There’s naught like Religion to stimulate Trade.
Them come all ye Teachers and Preachers and Fighters,
Backed up by the Press and its wonderful writers,
Let’s give to this darkened and downtrodden nation
A touch of the blessings of Civilization.
And our Christian ‘Maxims’ will work, you will see,
A change for the good in that Heathen Chinee.
Example I
Bagged groundnuts in
pyramid stacks in West
Africa
Example J
French capture of the citadel of Saigon, Vietnam
Example K
British Lipton Tea advertisement in the 1890s
Example L
British cartoon “The Rhodes
Colossus” showing Cecil
Rhodes’ vision of making
Africa “all British from Cape
to Cairo” 1892
Example M
Epitaph and quote from
missionary and explorer
David Livingstone
Example N
An imperial yacht passing through the Suez Canal in Egypt at the opening of
the canal in 1870
Example O