Chapter 20: The Apex of Global Empire Building- Vocab Flashcards
Berlin West Africa Conference
Meeting organized by German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1884–1885 that provided the justification for European colonization of Africa.
Cecil John Rhodes
An English man who built a massive fortune by exploiting African laborers to mine for diamonds in southern Africa. He advocated for the extension of British rule to the rest of the world.
Direct Rule
A style of colonial rule typical of French colonies with administrative districts headed by European personnel. It aimed to remove strong kinds/leaders, keep the populations in check, and engage in a “civilizing mission.” Difficulties were personnel shortages, limited communication, and limited cultural understanding.
East India Company
British joint-stock company that grew to be a state within a state in India; it possessed its own armed forces.
Emilio Aguinaldo
1869–1964 C.E. Filipino revolutionary who declared independence from Spain and then fought against the United States during its war of occupation.
Great Game
Nineteenth-century competition between Great Britain and Russia for the control of central Asia.
Indentured Labor
A trade of indentured laborers starting in the 1820s when French and British colonial officials sent Indian migrants to work on sugar plantations on Indian Ocean islands, Malaya, South Africa, and Pacific islands.
Indian National Congress
A forum for educated Indians to communicate their views on public affairs to colonial officials formed in 1885. Representatives aired grievances about poverty, wealth transfer, harmful trade and tariff policies, relief programs, racism, etc.
Indirect rule
A style of colonial ruling typical to British colonies promoted by Frederick D Lugard, where indigenous institutions gave moral and financial advantages of exercising control. This rule worked in regions where there was already organized states, but sometimes it wasn’t effective.
Khoikhoi
South African people referred to pejoratively as the Hottentots by Europeans.
Leopold II
The King of Belgium who wanted to gain a role in world affairs by acquiring colonies like Britain and France did. In the 1870s, he hired Henry Morton Stanley to develop commercial ventures and establish the Congo Free State.
Lili’uokalani
1838–1917 C.E. The first and only queen of Hawaii, and the last Hawaiian sovereign to rule the islands prior to Hawai’i’s annexation by the United States in 1898.
Maori
Indigenous people of New Zealand.
Mission civilsatrice
The “civilizing mission” of French Imperialists; ideas like European style legal systems, modes of dress, gender relations, market consumerism, etc. that was justification for their expansion into Africa and Asia.
Monroe Doctrine
American doctrine issued in 1823 during the presidency of James Monroe that warned Europeans to keep their hands off Latin America and that expressed growing American imperialistic views regarding Latin America.
Omdurman
A battle in 1891 where a large British army engaged a Sudanese force seeking to expel the British from omdurman near Khartoum. In 5 hours of fighting, the British lost a few hundred men and their guns and gunboats killed 20,000 Sudanese.
The Origin of Species
A book by Charles Darwin in 1859 that argued that all living species had evolved over thousands of years in a ferocious contest for survival.
Panama Canal
A canal built from 1904 to 1914 that facilitated the building and maintenance of empires by enabling naval vessels to travel more rapidly on oceans and lowered the costs of trade between imperial powers and subject lands.
Ram Mohan Roy
1772–1833 C.E. Bengali intellectual who sought to harmonize aspects of European society with those of Indian society with the goal of reforming India along progressive lines.
Roosevelt Corollary
A proposition added by Teddy Roosevelt to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904. It exerted the US right to intervene in nations in the Western Hemisphere if they couldn’t maintain the security necessary to protect Us investments.
Russo-Japanese War
A war in 1904 between Japan and Russia over territorial ambitions in the Liaodong peninsule in China, Korea, and Manchuria. By 1905, Japan had won the war along with international recognition of its colonial authority.
Scientific Racism
Nineteenth-century attempt to justify racism by scientific means; an example would be Gobineau’s Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races.
Scramble for Africa
Period between about 1875 and 1900 in which European powers sought to colonize as much of the African continent as possible.
South African War
A conflict in 1899 where Britons and Afrikaners fought over the right to control the land and resources of the Orange Free State and the Transvall. It was expensive and brutal, and the British prevailed at a high cost and had to resort to imprisoning Afrikaner women and children.
