At the turn of the twentieth century, large portions of Africa and Asia had been absorbed into foreign empires. The Belgians, British, French, German, Italians, Portuguese, and Spanish, along with the United States and Japan, were enthusiastic empire builders. Every nation in Africa except for Ethiopia and Liberia would be colonized by 1900. China would be carved into spheres of influence, Korea would be conquered by Japan, and the United States would take over the Philippines. What explains this desire for an empire? Economic, political, and cultural factors motivated it.
Economically, overseas colonies served as sources of raw materials and as markets for manufactured goods. These colonies were strategic sites with harbors and resupply stations for naval ships, commercial and military. Politically, colonial expansion spurred nationalist sentiment at home, as citizens took pride in military conquest. Lopsided wars against native peoples and second-tier powers were often justified with sensationalist journalism about supposed crimes committed in those foreign countries against Europeans, often missionaries or women.
Culturally, the motivation and justification for imperialism arose in part from the concept of Social Darwinism, which attempted to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to societies and politics. According to proponents of this theory, societies either prospered or failed because, as is the case in nature, only the strong survive as they are able to dominate the weak. Therefore, the imperial powers must be better than those in Asia and Africa and
had the right to impose their economic and political will on them.
The theory of scientific racism developed during this period of imperialism to explain differences between nations. These theorists assumed that humans consisted of several distinct racial groups and that European racial groups were intellectually and morally superior. These ideas were often used as justification for the exploitative and cruel treatment of colonial peoples.
James Bruce, the Eighth Earl of Elgin, who fought in the Second Opium War and ordered the looting and burning of the Summer Palace, and later served as Viceroy of India in the British Raj, wrote about the peoples he encountered. His journals were published in the 1872, and reflect the racism that underlined imperialism: "It is a terrible business, however, this living among inferior races. . . . one moves among them with perfect indifference, treating them, not as dogs, because in that case one would whistle to them and pat them, but as machines with which one can have no communion or sympathy."
Additionally, missionaries hoped to convert Asians and Africans to Christianity. While many missionaries served as protectors of native peoples, some saw their mission as one of bringing civilization to the uncivilized. The poem
“The White Man’s Burden”
by Rudyard Kipling, written in 1899, illustrates this mindset well. Below is an excerpt:
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.
European Imperialism
India
England’s involvement in India began strictly as a business venture. Founded in 1600, the British East India Company enjoyed a monopoly on English trade with India, and increasingly took advantage of the Mughal Empire’s growing weakness. Expanding its trading posts, the Company petitioned the British government to outright conquer areas important to its trade in order to protect its interests. It enforced its rule with a combination of British troops and Indian troops, known as
sepoys.
In the subcontinent's Punjab region, which overlaps modern-day eastern Pakistan and northern India, the previously pacifistic Sikhs grew militant due to persecution
under the Mughal Empire. While only seven percent of the Punjab's population, the Sikh message of religious tolerance and social justice attracted many supporters from other faiths. This eventually led to the founding of the Sikh Empire (1799–1849).
Following the collapse of the Mughals, the Sikh Empire was the last rival power on the subcontinent to the British East India Company. The British sought greater control over Central Asia as part of their “Great Game” with the Russian Empire; they also saw the non-sectarian Sikhs as a potential threat to their control over the rest of India. Sepoys were often used to police areas of the Indian subcontinent that clashed with their own ethnic or religious identity. The British Empire did this to play different native groups against each other, ensuring that they stayed in overall control. Following two Anglo-Sikh wars, the British conquered the Sikhs, cementing imperial control over India.
In 1857, the
sepoys
mutinied after they received rifles with cartridges rumored to be greased in animal fat;
beef and pork fat violate Hindu and Muslim customs, respectively. The
sepoys
killed British officers, escalating the conflict into a large-scale rebellion. At least 800,000 Indians would die in the ensuing war. This conflict has been called many names, such as the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. By May 1858, the British government had crushed the rebellion. It went on to impose direct imperial rule on India (the "British Raj") with a viceroy represented British authority.
Under British rule, forests were cleared; tea, coffee, and opium were cultivated; and railroads, telegraphs, canals, harbors, and irrigation systems were built. English-style schools were set up for Indian elites and Indian customs were suppressed. British imperialism had a profound effect on the decline of
existing Indian textile production, as British merchants desired Indian cotton, which would be shipped to England, made into textiles, and then sold in India. Severe famines became more frequent, as British
laissez-faire policies focused on export agriculture rather than domestic food production, and heavy taxes to support the empire left poorer Indians unable to buy food whenever prices rose. Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, areas under British administration would experience fourteen major famines. Over fifty-five million people would die.
Counterintuitively, the existence of British rule eventually inspired a sense of Indian national identity. The elite Indians who had been educated in British universities were inspired by Enlightenment values and began to criticize the British colonial regime. They called for political and social reform. As such, with British approval, the Indian National Congress was founded (1885) as a forum for educated Indians to communicate their views on public affairs to colonial officials. It was initially sought to reform rather than end British rule. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the Congress sought self-rule and joined forces with the All-Indian Muslim League. In 1909, wealthy Indians were given the right to vote, but, by that time, the push for independence had become a mass movement.
Africa
With the exception of coastal colonies and trading posts, Europeans had little presence in Africa in the early nineteenth century. European territorial acquisition occurred rapidly during the imperial "Scramble for Africa." From 1875 to 1914, almost the entire continent was carved up by European empires, with Ethiopia and Liberia the only two African nations to retain their independence.
From 1879 to 1882, the Urabi Revolt (or Revolution) saw Egyptians fight against foreign domination of their country's government, army, and economy. After a naval bombardment of Alexandria, the British launched an invasion that defeated the rebels and took control of the Suez Canal, a key shipping route. In 1885, King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State, ostensibly as a free-trade zone. In reality, the Congo served as his personal colony, with rubber plantations supported by forced labor. The conditions were brutal; infamously, workers who did not meet their quota would have a hand hacked off. As European competition intensified, a world war seemingly loomed. In response to this rising tension, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck called the Berlin Conference (1884–1885). Delegates—none of whom were African—were invited to establish the ground rules for the colonization of Africa. It was decided that any European state could establish an African colony after notifying the others and establishing a large enough presence.
European colonies in Africa operated under three main types of rule: direct rule, indirect rule, and settler rule. The French, Belgians, Germans, and Portuguese used direct rule. These centralized administrations, usually in urban centers, enforced assimilationist policies by forcing the adoption of Western values and customs. The British mostly used indirect rule to govern their colonies. This system used indigenous African rulers within the colonial administration, although they were often relegated to subordinate roles. Settler rule refers to the type of colonialism in which European settlers imposed direct rule on their colonies. Settler colonies differed from other African colonies in that many immigrants from Europe settled in these colonies. These settlers were not like missionaries or European colonial officials. They were more like early European settlers in the United States and Canada, who planned to make the colonies their permanent home and displace the native population.
Japan
Because Japan was so greatly strengthened by
government-sponsored industrialization, it was able to compete with other imperial powers. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) was sparked by a rebellion in Korea. Japan quickly defeated the Chinese fleet and was ceded Taiwan, the Pescadores Islands, and the Liaodong peninsula. China was forced to sign unequal treaties with Japan as it had with the Western powers. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea.
Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904) is, however, the most notable globally. The war solidified Japan's international position. As the first time a non-European people had defeated a major Western power, it inspired anti-colonial activists across the world from Vietnam to Ireland. It also offered inspiration to states under threat of foreign encroachment, such as the Ottoman Empire.
