Imperialism

Imperialism: The policy by a stronger nation to attempt to create an empire by dominating

weaker nations economically, politically, culturally, or militarily.

A coaling station for steamships, Cape Town, South Africa

How Did Imperialism Begin?

Imperialism in the 1800’s resulted from 3 key factors:

1. Nationalism prompted rival European nations to build empires in their competitive quests for power.

2. . The industrial Revolution created a tremendous demand for raw materials and expended markets, which prompted industrialized nations to seek new territories.

3. . Both religious fervor and feelings of racial and cultural superiority inspired Europeans to impose their cultures on distant lands.

Causes of ImperialismECONOMIC INTERESTS POLITICAL & MILITARY

INTERESTS

HUMANITARIAN GOALSSOCIAL DARWINISM

Manufacturers wanted access to natural resources.

Manufacturers hoped for new markets for factory goods.

Colonies offered a valuable outlet for Europe’s growing population.

Merchant ships and naval vessels needed bases around the world.

Western leaders were motivated by nationalism.

Many westerners felt concern for their “little brothers” overseas.Missionaries, doctors, and colonial officials believed they had a duty to spread western civilization.

Many westerners viewed European races as superior to all others.

They saw imperial conquest as nature’s way of improving the human species.

Imperialism is the domination by one country of the political, economic, or cultural life of another country or region.

Between 1500 and 1800, European states won empires around the world. However, Europe had little influence on the lives of the people of these

conquered lands.

By the 1800s, Europe had gained considerable power. Encouraged by their new economic and military strength, Europeans embarked on a path

of aggressive expansion that today’s historians call the “new imperialism.”

Forms of Imperialism

Colony: territory that an imperial power ruled directly through colonial officials.

Protectorate: Had its own government, but its policies were guided by a foreign power.

Sphere of Influence: was a region of a country in which the imperial power had exclusive

investment or trading rights.

Nationalism• 19th-century political

changes

• Allegiance to one’s country rather than to a monarch

• Role of the “common people”

• Unification movements

• Militarism Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi (on horseback) leading an attack in Palermo, Sicily

Other strong nations emerged in the mid-1800s as the result of political and economic changes in Europe and beyond.

German Unification

The Industrial Revolution

• The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the mid-18th century

• Britain’s advantages

• The spread of industrialization

Factories ranging from The United States to Europe consumed raw materials and churned out thousands of manufactured goods.

The Colonies provided new markets for the finished products of the industrial Revolution such as Tools, Weapons, and Clothing.

Africa

•Rubber

•Copper

•Gold

India

•Cotton

• Jute

Southeast Asia

•Tin

Economic Motives

Industrialized nations sought:

• Raw materials• Natural resources• A cheap labor

supply• New

marketplaces for manufactured goods

Technological Advances

• The steam engine• Better transportation• Increased exploration• Improvements in

communication

The steamboat Herald (with mounted machine guns) on the Zambezi river in Africa

One of the first steam engines

British troops fighting forces in Benin in 1897

The Maxim Gun

Exploration

• David Livingstone• Mapping the “Dark

Continent”

David Livingstone

Ideological Motives• A desire to “civilize” non-Europeans

also spurred the development of imperialism

• Social Darwinism

Darwin’s handwritten cover page for The Origin of Species

Herbert Spencer

“The White Man’s Burden”

Take up the White Man’s burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go, bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives’ need;

To wait, in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden—

In patience to abide,

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple,

An hundred times made plain,

To seek another's profit

And work another's gain.

By Rudyard Kipling

The “White Man’s Burden” appeared in children’s books and

even in advertisements of the time period.