Let’s go and get some colonies!
IMPERIALISM
BY THE END OF THE DAY, YOU WILL BE
ABLE TO
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Describe at least motives for imperialism.
Describe three types of imperialism.
Which nations became imperial powers?
Which nations were controlled by imperial powers?
How did imperial powers justify their control over foreign
nations?
DEFINITION

Imperialism: The
policy by a stronger
nation to attempt to
create an empire by
dominating weaker
nations
economically,
politically, culturally
or militarily.
COLONIALISM SPEEDS UP
Age of Exploration
↓
Europeans raced for overseas colonies
↓
Growth of European commerce and trade
worldwide
↓
Commercial Revolution
“OLD” IMPERIALISM
•1500s-1700s
•England,
France, Holland, Portugal,
and Spain
•Wars
over colonies
INTERLUDE – LATE 1700S-LATE
1800S
Europeans were preoccupied with happenings on the European
continent and in the existing European colonies.
American Revolution
French Revolution
Napoleonic Wars
Latin American Wars for Independence
Growth of Nationalism
Industrial Revolution
“NEW” IMPERIALISM
•Beginning
circa 1875
•Renewed race for colonies
•Spurred by needs created by the Industrial Revolution
•New
markets for finished goods
•New sources of raw materials
•Nationalism
•Colonies
= economic and political power
•Social Darwinism = racist justification
EXPLORATION
David Livingstone
 Mapping the “Dark
Continent”

TASK
Write down the definition of Imperialism.
 Create a Venn Diagram comparing and
contrasting Old Imperialism and New
Imperialism.
 Finally, do you think the concept was
romanticized by some people?

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES
The steam engine
 Better transportation
 Increased exploration
 Improvements in communication

CONCEPT OF “RACES” CIRCA 1900
IDEOLOGICAL MOTIVES
A desire to “civilize” non-Europeans also
spurred the development of imperialism.
 Charles Darwin, “The Origins of the Species”

 The
idea of the evolution and survival of the fittest.
 Turned into Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism said that strong people should rule over weak people…
THE MAXIM GUN

First self-powered
machine gun
One English writer put it this way:
“Whatever happens, we have got
the Maxim gun, and they have not.”
NATIONALISM
19th century political change
 Allegiance to one’s country rather than one’s
monarch
 Role of the Common people
 Unification movements
 Militarism


Other
nations
emerged in
the mid1800s as
the result of
political and
economic
changes in
Europe and
beyond.
ECONOMIC MOTIVES

Industrialized nations
sought:
 Raw
materials
 Natural resources
 A cheap labor supply
 New marketplaces for
manufactured goods.
ECONOMIC MOTIVES
•Markets for finished goods
•Products of British Industrial Revolution sold in
China and India
•Sources of raw materials
•Egypt – cotton
•Malaya – rubber and tin
•Middle East – oil
•Capital investments
•Profits from Industrial Revolution invested in mines,
railroads, etc., in unindustrialized areas
JUSTIFICATIONS
•Social
Darwinism
•Interpreted
Darwin’s evolutionary theory in terms of
powerful nations
•“Only
the strong survive”
•Powerful
nations able to develop areas and resources
being “wasted” by native peoples
•Racism
•Increased
feelings of white superiority
•Increased
•Eugenics
feelings of Japanese superiority
developed as a branch of science
RELIGIOUS MOTIVES
†
•Conversion
to Christianity
•End-of-the-century
•Missionaries
crusading spirit
in Africa, Asia, Hawaii, etc.
Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book, was an
Anglo-Indian – an Englishman who was born in India.

His ideas about imperialism can be seen in a
poem he wrote in 1889, called The White
Man’s Burden:
THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN
Turn to the White Man’s Burden page in your
passport and read the entry together.
 Answer the following questions

SOCIAL MOTIVES
•Surplus population
•Japanese in Korea
•Italians in Africa
•“White Man’s Burden”
•Rudyard Kipling’s poetry and prose
•Whites morally obligated to bring the “blessings of
civilization” to “backward” peoples
•Cecil Rhodes – imperialism is “philanthropy—plus
five percent”

The White
Man’s Burden
was the idea
that Europeans
had to conquer
the rest of the
world, to spread
the benefits of
Western
Civilization.
This was supposed to help them…

Appeared on advertisements
and on children’s books
during that time period.
INDIA
Mahatma Gandhi was born in India
around the same time as Rudyard
Kipling. Gandhi lived in India and
Africa and studied law in England,
but he had different ideas about
imperialism.
Reporter: “What do you think about
Western Civilization?”
Gandhi: “I think it would be a good
idea!”
Gandhi led India to independence
from England through nonviolent
resistance.
Gandhi and others
thought that
Europeans were
just talking about
helping the people
they conquered.
The West wasn’t
really civilized. It
was brutally
conquering the
entire world and
taking foreign
countries’ natural
resources.
POLITICAL MOTIVES
•Nationalism – national pride
“The sun never sets on the British empire.”
•Large empires increased national pride
•French acquisitions in Africa and Asia followed
France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War
THE SUN NEVER SETS ON THE BRITISH EMPIRE
AFRICA

Berlin Conference:
established rules
on how the
colonies would
behave in regards
to Africa
MILITARY MOTIVES
•
Bases
•
British naval bases
•
•
Aden, Alexandria, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Singapore
Manpower
•
•
British – Indian sepoys
French – north African troops
CHINA

In the
1700s,
China
enjoyed a
favorable
balance of
trade.
OPIUM
By 1779, the
British East
India Company
was importing
opium to China.
 Within a generation, opium addiction in China
became widespread.

China and
Britain Clash
over Opium
In 1839, a
Chinese official
demanded that
the opium trade
in Guangzhou
stop. The British
refused and war
ensued.
Boxer rebellion
CONCESSION IMPERIALISM
•Economic
privileges and rights given
for a specific purpose
•U.S.
and British oil concessions throughout the Middle East
•Ottoman
Turks granted Germany permission to build Berlin-toBaghdad Railroad
SPHERE OF INFLUENCE IMPERIALISM
•Exclusive
or special control over an area
•Examples
•British
trading rights in China’s Yangtze
valley
•French trading rights in southeastern China
•Japanese trading rights in Korea
LEASEHOLD IMPERIALISM
•Lease
over an area
•Suez Canal Corporation
•Suez
Canal built by French in 1860s
•Controlled by British shortly thereafter until
1968
•Panama
Canal
•United
States
•Germans
in Kiachow
•French in Kwangchow
•British in Weihaiwei
Plan of Suez
Canal as
envisioned in
1881.
PROTECTORATE IMPERIALISM
•Foreign
control exercised through native
“puppet” rulers
•French
– Morocco (1906-1956)
•British – Egypt (1914-1968)
•Britain
held a sphere of influence in Egypt from 1882-
1914
•Britain gained control of Egypt as Egypt’s protectorate
when the Ottoman empire fell apart during World War I
ANNEXATION IMPERIALISM
•Territory
annexed and turned into a colony under the
complete control of a foreign power
•German
colonies in east and southwest Africa – until 1918
and the end of World War I
•French
Indochine (Vietnam) – until 1955
•British
Burma – until 1948
MANDATE IMPERIALISM
•Victors
of World War I gained control over German
possessions under mandates granted by the League of
Nations
•German
•Pacific
•Syria
East Africa → Great Britain
islands north of the equator → Japan
→ France
JAPAN
Closed its doors to the World until 1600
 It opened its doors in the 1800s to the United
States.
 Soon caught up to the rest of the world in being
an industrialized nation.

THE MEIJI RESTORATION
Tokugawa
Shogunate
overthrown by
imperial forces.
 Emperor
Mutsuhito
ruled 18671912
 Modernization

JAPANESE MODERIZATION
JAPANESE INDUSTRIALIZATION
THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
1904-1905
 Japan and
Russia fought
for control of
Manchuria
 Japan won
easily; Russia
was humiliated.

JAPANESE EMPIRE BUILDING 1929-1939