( Role of Individuals) role of traders Flashcards
What role did traders have ?
Traders seeked new markets or materials.
how did the role of traders grow the empire ?
Once commercial enterprises had been established somewhere, British administration followed.
Case study - Cecil Rhodes
Rhodes owned all South Africa’s diamond mines ( some 90% of global diamond production).His wealth allowed him to pursue his ambitions of bringing the world under British rule.
He formed his own company, the British South Africa Company, which received a royal charter in 1889.Rhodes became prime minister of the Cape Colony from 1890- 1896
Rhodes impact as Cape Colony politician ?
He forced indigenous peoples from their lands to make way for industrial developments and amassed huge fortune and wielded political power in SA asa result.
Rhodes’ British South Africa Company of 1889 came, through concessions and treaties, to control large areas of land in the interior off Africa.
Case Study - Sir William MacKinnon ( trader )
Sir William McKinnon was a ‘self made’ Scottish ship- owner and businessman who built up substantial commercial interests.
Began in the coasting trade around the Bay of Bengal and in 1856 he founded the Calcutta and Burma Steam Navigation Company.( this became the British India Steam Navigation Company ). This grew into a huge business organisation, trading through the Indian Ocean.
McKinnon company after the British India Steam Navigation Company ?
Mackinnon then founded the Imperial British East Africa Company. This received a charter in 1888 and was supported by the British government in a means of establishing influence in the region.
Case Study - George Goldie ( trader )
The family of George Goldie bought a palm oil business in the Niger basin in 1875 - palm oil was a particularly adaptable product as it served as an industrial lubricant or could be used as main constituent in soap and candles.
Goldie formed the Central Africa Company in 1876.In 1879, he persuaded all the British trading firms on the Niger River to join forces to create a single company, the United African Company, Goldie’s success was largely a result f his agents having secured 450 local treaty arrangements which transferred territory to the company.
Impact of George Goldie ?
As a result of Goldie’s efforts Britain successfully asserted its right to proclaim a protectorate over both northern and southern Niger at the Berlin Conference.
In later years, Goldie became a British colonial administrator - he was thus responsible for the development of Northern Nigeria into a prosperous protectorate for the British
