Unit 6 - The Consequences of Industrialization c. 1750 - 1900

Question 1

Explain how ideologies contributed to the development of imperialism from 1750 to 1900.

Answer 1

• A range of cultural, religious, and racial ideologies were used to justify imperialism, including Social Darwinism, nationalism, the civilizing mission, & the desire to religiously convert indigenous populations
• nationalism = glory:
  - after losing american colonies, britain looked to australia + expanded influence in south asia + se asia
  - after losing franco-prussian war, france colonized algeria, senegal, indochina, and other islands in s. pacific
  - italy + germany = newly unified states = wanted to build a rep
  - japan invaded korea -> irritated china who always exerted a strong presence in korea -> sino-japanese war (1894-5)
• social darwinism: darwin’s theory of natural selection (survival of the fittest) applied to humans
  - argued that the spread of western power proved biological superiority of whites
• white man’s burden: the duty of white ppl to ‘share’ their better culture w/ more ‘primitive’ ppls of africa + asia
• american manifest destiny = god-given right to expand + take everything
• christian missionaries wanted to spread their faith + gain followers
  - missionaries usually combined religious + humanitarian efforts like setting up schools, providing better med care, & some worked to end the illegal slave trade
• desire for raw materials, new markets, and low-wage labor also drove imperialism

Question 2

Compare processes by which state power shifted in various parts of the world from 1750
to 1900. (shifts from non-state to state, expansion of power, and china’s econ imperialism)

Answer 2

• Some states with existing colonies strengthened their control over those colonies and in some cases assumed direct control over colonies previously held by non-state entities
  - Shift from the private ownership of the Congo by King Leopold II to the Belgium gov’t (can get into inland africa instead of being confined to coast bc of quinine (treats malaria) and the steamship)
  - HELLA BRUTAL
  - Shift from the Dutch East India Company to Dutch gov’t control in Indonesia & Southeast Asia
  - Shift from British EIC to the British gov’t (british raj) after sepoy rebellion
  - 1869 Suez Canal connected red + mediterranean seas which saved a lot of time -> more efficient communication btwn eu & its asian colonies
  - french company managed proj but 1.5 mil egyptians were corvee laborers (unpaid + forced to work as a form of taxation) thousands died -> unrest in region threatened british commercial interests so they seized control of egypt from ottomans
  - Boer Wars (dutch -> british): during napoleonic wars, the british replaced the dutch in cape colony -> angered boers (descendants of 1600s dutch settlers) -> fought wars -> british drive boers/afrikaners + africans into refugee camps -> when wars ended britain formed the union of south africa which was composed of all previous south african colonies made by the british, afrikaners, and black africans
  - the Great Game: russia + uk fight for afghanistan
• berlin conference: partition of africa by industrialized eu nations -> scramble for africa
  - drew arbitrary borders that united longtime rival tribes + split others -> made it hard for these colonies when they became indep states
• eu also sometimes established settler colonies:
  - australia was a penal colony but also attracted settlers bc of its discovery of copper + gold + fine wool industry
  - british annexed setter colony of new zealand w/ treaty of waitangi which guaranteed maori rights but war broke out when eu settlers encroached on maori lands
• US also participated in imperialism as evidenced by the Trail of Tears (forced relocation of eastern woodland ppl from the southeast to reservations in oklahoma) + Manifest Destiny (god-given right to expand) + Monroe Doctrine which declared that eu cannot interfere w/ stuff in the western hemisphere (set path to becoming an imperial power) + roosevelt corrollary which stated that US will intervene in latin america if ‘unstable’ + overthrow of hawaii’s constitutional monarch and its annexation in 1900 + US’s victory in Spanish-American War in 1898 brought Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico, & the Philippines
• in contrast to south asia + africa, china maintained its own gov’t despite eu econ domination
• eu carved china into spheres of influences where they had special trading rights + access to natural resources
• several internal probs that facilitated eu’s econ imperialism of china:
  - taiping rebellion in 1850 against the qing dynasty - crushed
  - yellow river changed course, flooding farmlands + causing droughts -> famines
  - another bout of bubonic plague
  - boxer rebellion in 1899 - 1901 which was against western influence
  - cixi at first encouraged the boxers but most killed were chinese christians, thus the qing court suffered a humiliating defeat -> eroded legitimacy

Question 3

Explain indigenous responses to state expansion from 1750 to 1900.

Answer 3

• Increasing questions about political authority (ENLIGHTENMENT) & growing nationalism contributed to anticolonial movements, some of which were influenced by religious ideas
  - Ghost Dance in the U.S.
  - Native American vision that said that doing the Ghost Dance would drive the whites out
  - Xhosa Cattle-Killing movement in Southern Africa
  - Belief that if they killed their cattle, the British would leave
  - Mahdist wars in Sudan
  - Muhammad Ahmad, a muslim cleric, declared he would restore the glory of Islam by throwing off egyptian + british rule -> were successful for a bit but fell apart bc of Ahmad’s death
• Anti-imperial resistance took various forms, including direct resistance within empires and the creation of new states
• direct resistance:
  - Maori Wars
  - Treaty of Waitangi violated -> war -> ended in an uneasy peace in 1872 but by 1900, the Maori had lost most of their land
  - Túpac Amaru II’s rebellion in Peru
  - tupac amaru ii, descendant of the last inca ruler, arrested + executed a colonial administrator charging him w/ cruelty -> sparked the last indian revolt against spain which spread throughout the continent until he was caught + executed
  - Samory Touré’s military battles in West Africa
  - in west africa 1868, samory tried to establish a kingdom but the french came -> resistance but failed
  - Yaa Asantewaa War in West Africa
  - began when british governor of the gold coast sat on the golden stool, a symbol of national unity -> yaa asantewaa, a strong warrior queen, led a rebellion against the british -> ended in 1900 w/ a british victory + asantewaa exiled + asante became a part of the gold coast colony
  - Sepoy rebellion in India
• creation of new states:
  - Establishment of indep states in the Balkans
  - 1815 & 1832, serbia + greece won their indep after wars -> bosnia and herzegovina + montenegro + bulgaria rebelled w/ help from serbia + russia -> treaty of berlin in 1878 freed bulgaria, romania, & montenegro but placed bosnia and herzegovina under control of austria-hungary
  - Sokoto Caliphate in modern-day Nigeria
  - berlin conference designated the caliphate as britain’s -> after much resistance, britain made it a protectorate
  - Cherokee Nation
  - tried to assimilate by adopting a constitution, developing a syllabic alphabet, and adopted colonial methods of farming, weaving, and building however this did not save them bc after the discovery of gold on cherokee land, congress passed the indian removal act
  - Zulu Kingdom
  - britain tried to invade the zulu kingdom to make it join its south africa federation -> zulu won many battles but britain won the war

Question 4

Explain how various environmental factors
contributed to the development of the global
economy from 1750 to 1900.

Answer 4

• the need for raw materials, food supplies for the growing pop at home, new markets, and low-wage labor drove economic imperialism + the growth of export economies such as:
• Cotton prod in Egypt
  - britain got most of its cotton from US but once they got into the civil war, britain turned to egypt + india
• Rubber extraction in the Amazon and the Congo basin
  - crucial material for industrial rev -> colonial powers forced natives to extract rubber from trees -> most rubber trees destroyed
• The palm oil trade in West Africa
  - great lubricant for factory machines -> used enslaved labor
• The guano industries in Peru and Chile
  - seabird/bat poop was huge export bc it was used for fertilization
• Meat from Argentina and Uruguay
  - as middle class ↑, they want beef -> arg + uru start raising a lot of cows to export their meat to eu -> ships used new refrigeration tech to keep meat fresh
• Diamonds from Africa
  - 1871 diamond rush in south africa -> cecil rhodes formed debeers mining company -> south africa exported 90% of the world’s diamonds -> rhodes wanted cape-to-cairo railroad but nvr worked out bc britain didn’t own all territory needed to build it on + rhodes gets elected to south african parliament where he enacts racist policies that lay the foundation for apartheid
• CONSEQUENCES:
• interconnected global econ bc after manufacturing prods, eu sold them right back to colonies
• dev of monocultures bc subsistence farming replaced w/ cash crop farming -> soil rendered unusable many times bc cash crops drain nutrients
• deforestation -> ↓ biodiversity

Question 5

Explain the concept of economic imperialism and its effects on the global economy in the period 1750 to 1900.

Answer 5

• industrialized EU nations looked for raw materials, new markers, and low-wage labor
• tech advances, such as the steamship, railroads, and mass-produced military weapons, gave them the ability to control other territories
• econ imperialism in asia:
• culture system in dutch east indies where they forced villages to set 1/5 of their rice fields for cash crops or work in a gov’t field for 66 days w/o pay
• in hawaii, a group of american businesses + sugar planters overthrew the constitutional monarchy in 1893 in hopes that the islands would be annexed which they would be in 1898
• OPIUM WARS:
• chinese goods like porcelain, silk, and tea were high in demand in britain but chinese not interested in british goods -> trade imbalance -> to make up for this, british EIC forced indian farmers to grow opium & sell it for silver in china where millions of ppl got addicted -> company was then able to use profits to buy tea + other goods
• in 1729 the Chinese emperor banned opium in response to rising addiction levels but w/ little to no avail -> first Opium War w/ british victory
  - revealed the fate of industrialized states: industrialization gave a significant power advantage to those that pursued it, allowing for them to dominate and defeat states that lacked the tech
• chinese were unhappy w/ forced concessions + britain wanted opium legalized -> 2nd Opium War (1856 - 1860) -> treaty of tientsin: allowed foreign diplomats to reside in Beijing, opened several new ports to Western trade and residence, allowed Christian missionaries to freely move around, legalized opium, and ceded the Kowloon Peninsula to the British
• other industrialized countries wanted the same trading privileges so they forced china to give them spheres of influence -> US feared one power exerting total control over china proposed that china be open to all countries equally (Open Door Policy)
• econ imperialism in africa:
• EU got raw materials + new markets -> in exchange Africans got cheap cotton textiles, canned foods, & alcoholic beverages
  - this unequal trading structure led to the colonies being econ dependent on imperial powers
• food prod ↓ as farmers forced to plant cash crops like cotton instead of real food -> widespread famine
• slave labor used to produce oil palms, coffee, and cocoa
• econ imperialism in latin america:
• US invested heavily in mexican + cuban infrastructure and industries like guano extraction & meat processing in exchange for being trading partners
• britain invested heavily in arg + brazil similarly
  - designed new ports to aid with exportation of goods like the Port of Buenos Aires
• companies such as the American United Fruit Company pressured Central American gov’ts to maintain conditions that would be favorable for them -> became banana republics: countries under the economic power of foreign-based corporations & were politically unstable states with large export economies

Question 6

Explain how various environmental factors contributed to the development of varied patterns of migration from 1750 to 1900.

Answer 6

• new modes of transportation, such as railroads and steam ships, allowed internal and external migrants to move to cities as most industry was located there -> ↑ global urbanization
• improvements in transportation tech made it more efficient + cheaper for some who migrated for work reasons to return to their home societies, either for a period of time or permanently
• as slavery was gradually being abolished in the 1800s, the demand for goods was still increasing -> eu states recruited new laborers to work on plantations thru systems of coerced (convict labor) / semi-coerced (contract labor) migration of ppl
• ex of contract labor:
• indian laborers often migrated to British colonies in the Caribbean, South Africa, East Africa, and Fiji to work on plantations as indentured laborers
• chinese laborers migrated to California and British Malaya to build railroads and serve as farmhands, gardeners, and domestic laborers
• asian contract workers were usually exploited as subs for slave labor, often working for little wages -> media criticized this -> britain + us stop trade mid 1800s
• most diasporas were the result of escaping poverty, political conditions, or famine
• ex:
• In India, poverty was the main reason that led ppl to leave -> +1.5 million Indians were shipped to colonies in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania before Britain abolished the indenture system in 1916
  - most signed 5-yr contracts + renewed them + some decided to stay permanently, accepting a piece of land or money rather than a passage back to India
• in china, some left to escape poverty + famine, others for better opportunities
  - late 1700s many chinese emigrated to SE asia to escape the opium wars + taiping rebellion
  - later, most chinese emigrated to the west to work, usually recruited for US Transcontinental Railroad
• most Irish moved to the US because of the Great Potato Famine but some also moved bc after North Ireland became a part of the UK, their parliament was abolished & being Catholics under a Protestant UK, they were discriminated against
• in british penal colonies, convicts were sent there to perform hard labor + suffer harsh treatment
  - some convicts were nvr allowed to return to britain + transportation all the way back was too $$ so many stayed
• one of france’s penal colonies, French Guiana included Devil’s Island, a place notorious for its brutal treatment of convicts.
• many british moved to colonies as officers, soldiers, or engineers -> spread western science + tech
• 1893 japan decided that they should build an overseas empire and to achieve this, they established the Colonization Society -> tried to establish settler colonies in mexico + hawaii but failed

Question 7

Explain how and why new patterns of migration
affected society from 1750 to 1900.

Answer 7

• Migrants tended to be male, leaving women to take on new roles in the home society that had been formerly occupied by men if the man had not left another male relative in his place
• most male migrants sent back remittances, funds from their foreign earnings, back home
• Migrants often created ethnic enclaves in different parts of the world that helped transplant their culture into new environments:
• chinese immigrants in SE asia thrived bc they managed opium farms + some worked for dutch east indies colonial gov’t
• chinese workers were also sent to cuba + peru to replace slaves as they were abolished -> peruvian cuisine uses chinese foods + ingredients but peruvian cooking styles
• chinatown in US
• indians went to mauritius + caribbean sugar plantations -> affected national cuisines, film, music, & religion in those places
• irish in US helped spread catholicism
• italian industrial workers moved to argentina -> argentina adopted a lot of italian words
• However, receiving societies did not always embrace immigrants -> faced many ethnic + racial prejudice bc they were willing to work for lower wages than the native pop so they got the jobs
• many nativist policies passed in california
• Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882
• during australian gold rushes, the chinese pop grew + violence against them grew -> White Australia Policy banned anyone from coming who was not bRiTisH