Unit 6: Consequences of Industrialization Flashcards
How was colonial rule experienced by the societies that it encompassed?
Foreign rule by Western Europeans, Russians, and Americans was a major new experience for many millions of Africans, Asians, and Pacific islanders
How did the Industrial Revolution shape nineteenth-century European imperialism?
- gave rise to new economic needs
- created the need for extensive raw materials and agricultural products (cotton, opium, rubber, gold, rice, wool)
- Europe needed to sell its own products since its factories churned out more goods than its people could afford to buy
Explain the role of nationalism in the growth of imperialism in Europe.
By 1871, the unification of Italy and Germany intensified Europe’s already competitive international relations. Much of this rivalry spilled over into the struggle for overseas colonies or economic concessions
How did Industrialization help European powers achieve their goals?
- steam-drived ships allowed Europeans to reach Asian, African, and Pacific ports more quickly and predictably
- underwater telegraph made instant communication possible
- the discovery of quinine to prevent malaria reduced European death rates in the tropics
What role did racial superiority play in European quest for empire?
- Their opinions of other cultures dropped sharply
- Europeans believed that they were superior (had unsurpassed military power, unprecedented wealth, etc.)
How did scientific racism factor into the European view of their own global expansion?
- Europeans believed that they had a right and duty to civilize inferior races
- Used the prestige and apparatus of science to support their racial preferences and prejudices
Which countries were major players in the new age of Imperialism?
- Germany, Italy, Belgium, the US, Japan
Why did Europeans prefer informal control over a region?
Economic penetration and occasional military intervention without colonial takeover was cheaper and less likely to provoke wars
How did environmental factors play in European imperial efforts ?
- Climactic instability that caused monsoon rains gave “the green light” for an imperialist landrush
- In Africa, a drought helped British success in reining in Zulu independence
How did the scramble for Africa impact the indigenous populations?
African kingdoms and societies were unable to overcome European modern weapons and professional armies. This meant that Europeans divided the continent among themselves with little attention to ethnic or linguistic divisions
How did imperialism impact Oceania and the South Pacific?
- Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, the US. and Australia claimed control of all the islands of Oceania
- Conquest accompanied by large-scale European settlement and diseases reduced native numbers by 75% or more by 1900
- Disease took a terrible toll on people who lacked immunities to European pathogens
How did imperialism impact the indigenous populations of the United States?
- Indigenous peoples were confined and children in boarding schools were removed
- Seeking territory for white settlement, the US removed and sometimes almost exterminated Indigenous peoples
- Reformers sought to civilize remaining Native Americans, eradicating tribal life and culture
How did indigenous societies in general try to confront empire builders?
- Some tried to pitt off imperial powers against one another and others resorted to military action
- Some negotiated, attempting to preserve as much independence and power as possible
In what ways did indigenous peoples cooperate with colonial authorities?
- Many men found employment, status, and security in European-led armed forces
- Colonial rulers relied on a range of local intermediaries due to the shortage of European administrators
Explain the shift from traditional elites to an educated Western class.
- Colonial governments and private missionary organizations had an interest in promoting European education
- As colonial governments and business enterprises became more sophisticated, Europeans increasingly depended on the Western-educated class at the expense of the more traditional elites
Describe the Indian Rebellion of 1857
- Many groups of people had grievances generated by the British colonial presence (religious beliefs and practices transgressed, local rulers lost power, peasants were overtaxed)
- Greatly widened the racial divide
- Convinced the Britihs government to assume direct control over India, ending the era of British East India Company rule
Describe the Ghost Dance
- A religiously inspired rebellion
- Practiced by multiple Native American societies in the western states
- Practitioners believed that the Ghost Dance would reunite the living with the spirits of their ancestors, oust the foreigners, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to the Native American population
What did resistance look like in Africa?
- Frequent uprisings
- Traditional religions enabled opposition movements
- Islam provided an ideology of resistance, supporting rebellions in Algeria, Niger, Somalia, and the Sudan
What role did women play in resistance in Africa?
- Thousands of women gathered in protest, singing and dancing, sometimes naked, and directly confronting African warrant chiefs appointed by the British, shaming them for their bad behavior, damaging their homes, and sometimes directly attacked them
- Women destroyed native courts and released prisoners from jails
In what ways were nineteenth-century European empires distinctive?
- the prominence of race in distinguishing rulers as superior to the ruled
- Scientific racism coincided with the acquisition of Asian and African colonies
- Racial distinctions were more pronounced when there were large European settler populations
Why were Europeans reluctant to encourage modernization in their colonies?
- Europeans were reluctant to encourage urban growth, industrialization, individual values, and religious skepticism, fearing that this social change would encourage unrest and challenge colonial rule
- Preferred a traditional rural society, with social hierarchies and established authorities
In what ways did older ways of working erode with imperialism?
- Subsistence farming diminished as growing numbers started working for wages or selling what they produced for a cash income
- Artisans suffered greatly when cheaper machine-manufactured merchandised displaced their handmade goods
How did coerced labor during the era of new imperialism differ from the plantation systems of old imperialism?
- European powers used forced labor systems where workers were technically free but were subjected to exploitative conditions
- Old imperialism depended on slavery and plantation agriculture but new imperialism used forced labor in industrial, resource extraction, and infrastructure projects, often under the guise of modernization
How did the cultivation system strengthen the Dutch economy and authority?
- Cash crops were highly profitable for Dutch traders, the state, and its citizens
- Improved the Dutch economy by enabling it to avoid taxing its own people and providing capital for its Industrial Revolution
How did the cultivation system affect the peasants?
- there were double burdens of obligations to the colonial state as well as to the local lords
- many became indepted to moneylenders when they could not meet obligations
- Demands, coupled with the loss of land and labor contributed to famines where hundreds of thousands perished
Give an example of the successful resistance of forced cultivation.
In German East Africa, colonial authorities imposed te cultivation of cotton, interfering with the production of local food crops. This prompted the massive rebellion in 1904-1905 known as the Maji Maji. This persuaded the Germans to end the forced growing of cotton
How did cash-crop agriculture transform the lives of colonized people?
- Local small farmers benefited because they were able to own land, build houses, and buy imported goods
- Standards of living improved sharply
- Huge increases in rice production fed millions of people
Explain the environmental consequences of cash-crop production.
- Involved the destruction of mangrove forests and swamplands along with the fish and shellfish that supplemented local diets
- New dikes and irrigation channels depleted soils in the deltas of these major river systems
- Agriculture generated large amounts of methane gas, contributing to global warming
How was cash-crop production different in the Gold Coast of West Africa?
- African farmers took the initiative to develop export agriculture
- They became the world’s leading supplier of cocoa, used to make chocolate
- Labor shortage fostered the employment of formerly enslaved people, bringing a huge influx of migrants
In what ways did colonial economies affect the lives of African women?
- Women’s lives increasingly diverged from mens
- Women assumed nearly total responsibility for domestic food production
- Subsistence workload of women increased
- Women had to supply food to men in the cities to compensate for very low urban wages
- Women often took over traditionally male tasks in addition to normal responsibilities
How did women cope with difficult circumstances?
- Many sought closer relations with their families of birth
- Women introduced laborsaving crops, adopted new farm implements, and earned some money as traders
- In the cities, they established self-help associations, including those for prostitutes and for brewers of beers
How did colonial economies provide opportunity for women?
- Provided a measure of opportunity for enterprising women, particularly in small-scale trade and marketing
- Women gained considerable economic autonomy
- Nupe women in northern Nigeria gained sufficient wealth as traders that they were contributing more to the family income than their husbands and frequently lent money to them
How did colonialism affect the lives of impoverished rural women?
- They became virtually independent heads of households in the absence of their husbands
- Some took advantage of new opportunities in mission schools, towns, and mines to flee the restrictions of rural patriarchy
- Challenges to patriarchical values elicited increased accusations of witchcraft against women
How did wage labor lead to migration?
Millions of colonial subjects across Asia, Africa, and Oceania sought employment in European-owned plantations, mines, construction projects, and homes. This often required migration to distant work sites, many of them overseas
Explain the African migratory stream after the slave trade.
- Many Africans lost their lands to Europeans and had to migrate to European-controlled farms or plantations to find work
- Some were displaced to native reserves, limited areas that could not support growing populations
What did migration look like for Asians?
29 million Indians and 19 million Chinese migrated to Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, East and South Africa, the Caribbean, or the lands around the Indian Ocean basin, where they generally lived in ethnic enclaves
How did Asian wage labor differ in the British Empire?
- They were subject to strict control, often housed in barracks, and paid poorly, with women receiving 50-75% of a man’s wage
- Disease was common
- Death rates were at least doubled that of the colony as a whole
- Some worked as Indentured larborers
- Gender ratios were altered so women faced increased workloads
Briefly state why many people were migrating for work in Manchuria, Australia, and California.
- Encouraged by a Chinese government eager to prevent Russian encroachment of the area
- the gold rushes of Australia and California attracted hundreds of thousands of Chinese, who often found sharp discrimination from local people
What did the cities look like in the colonial world due to rapid migration?
- Racially segregated, often unsanitary, and greatly overcrowded
-Traditional elites, absentee landlords, and wealthy Chinese businessmen occupied the top rungs of SE Asian cities - Western-educated people everywhere found opportunities for jobs
- Skilled workers represented a working-class elites
Imperialism generated new patterns of cultural identity in Asian, African, and Oceanic societies. How did Western education generate a new identity?
- The knowledge of reading and writing suggested an almost magical power
- Education meant access to better paying positions in government, bureaucracies, mission organization, or business firms
- Education provided social mobility and elite status
How were cultural identities forged during the colonial era?
People embraced European culture, dressing in European clothes, speaking French or English, building European-style houses, getting married in long white dresses, and otherwise emulating European ways
What impact did Western education have on colonial societies?
- Asian and African societies had a new cultural divide between small numbers who mastered the ways of their rulers and the vast majority of who had not
- Literate Christians in Buganda referred with contempt to their pagan neighbors as those who do not read
Explain the reform efforts organized by Western-educated men in India.
- Sought a renewed Indian culture that was free of idolatry, caste restrictions, and other errors that had entered Indian life over the centuries
- centered on improving the status of women
- Campaigned against sati while advocating women’s education and property rights
Why were Europeans unwilling to view educated Asians and Africans as equal?
- They declined to treat their Asian and African subjects, even those with a Western education, as equal partners
- Frequent denigration of Asian and African cultures as primitive, backward, or uncivilized rankled particularly among the well-educated
Explain how religion provided the basis for new identities in the colonial era.
Widespread conversion of Christianity in Pacific Oceania and non-Muslim Africa led to 50 million Africans claiming a Christian identity
What were the attractions of Christianity in colonial Africa?
- Christianity was widely associated with modern education, and, especially in Africa, mission schools were its primary providers
- The young, poor, and women found new opportunities and greater freedom
- Provided a measure of social cohesion for people devastated by disease and other disruptions
How did Christianity generate conflicts?
- Created a wide range of issues focusing on the lives of women/gender roles
- Female nudity offended Western notions of modesty
- Polygyny contradicted Christian monogamy
- Marriages betweenn Christians an non-Christians remained problematic
How did Christianity in Africa adapt to local cultural patterns?
- Converts continued using protective charms and medicines and cunsulting medicine men
- Converts continued to believe in their old gods and spirits
- Thousands of separatist movements established a wide arrany of independent churches that were Christian but under African rather than missionary control that incorporated African cultural practices and modes of worship
Explain revived Hinduism under Swami Vivekananda.
- It was in part an effort to provide for India a religion wholly equivalent to Christianity
- Create an accessible tradition and a feeling of historical worth when faced with the humiliation of colonial rule
- Served to distinguish a spiritual East from a materialistic West
How did Hinduism emerge as a distinct religious tradition during the colonial era?
- Contributed to a clearer sense of Muslims as a distinct community in India
- Hindu and Muslims were being cast as separate communities
- The British created different sets of inheritance laws for Muslims and HIndus
What types of characteristics were similar in African culture and history to Europeans?
- Ethiopia, Mali, and Songhay were large empires with complex political systems, which is what Europeans valued
- Black people had a history of achievement fully comparable to that of Europe
In what ways were “race” and “tribe” new identities in Africa?
- African people recognized the differences among themselves based on language, kinship, clan, village, or state
- Local communities often incorporated a variety of culturally diverse people
- Colonial governments spread the idea of a tribe widely within their colonies
How was the idea of a “tribe” or ethnicity useful for Africans in cities?
- Migrants to the city found it helpful to categorize themselves and others in larger ethnic terms
- Migrant workers found a sense of security in being part of a recognized tribe, with its chiefs, courts, and established authority
To what extent did colonized people retain some ability to shape their own history?
- Some state authorities actively negotiated with European powers
- African farmers effectively resisted the unprofitable work Europeans imposed (cotton)
- African women took advantage of opportunities to grow cash crops and engage in small-scale trading
- Colonized people shaped/reshaped their social and cultural identities
