Imperialism

Pre-1880:
  • Europe barely touched Africa

  • Europe only colonized the edges along with a few small regions in the inside

  • Most Europeans only colonized portions of Africa to get to India, and re-establish trade routes of the Ottoman-Turk Empire.

Post-1880:

  • Quinine - Helps prevent malaria, Europeans drink it to move into Africa

  • Machine Guns - The creation of the Maxim Machine Gun allowed the Europeans to kill large amounts of people rather than muskets.

  • European countries arbitrarily divided based on power of military

  • The warring tribes were now grouped together allowing them to war easier causing issues.

  • Liberia not colonized due to America purchasing it to send back slaves

  • Ethiopia not colonized due to them having mountains and guns.

Battle of Omdurman ( 1898 ) - Sudanese Casualties: 14k, British Casualties: 47

Motives:

  • Economic

    • Purpose of a colony is to send resources back to the mother countries

    • Colonies can't manufacture goods, but must send raw materials

  • Exploration

    • Europeans were fascinated with the Interior of Africa

    • Dr. Livingstone - Missionary and Doctor

      • Set out to find the source of the Nile, and reports it back to Britain

      • Henry Stanley goes searching for Livingstone and finds him with a tribe of Africans.

  • Social Darwinism

  • Missionaries

    • Went to Africa because they thought that the people in the continent would go to hell since they aren't Christian.

    • When people first got to Africa, they saw people that were far less developed they thought they HAD To help since the people were DEFINITELY not able to govern themselves.

      • They thought that White men were Burdened to help them due to their superiority.

  • Jingoism

    • They don't want to fight, but if they did the countries would be able to decimate the people.

    • Based on the idea that your country is better than the others.

    • "Because you can" idea.

  • Military Bases

    • Thought that British only wanted Africa for getting to India.

    • Military bases to help the countries that owned them control the areas.

  • Berlin Conference

    • No European countries can attack each other upon the idea of Imperialism

    • The countries can expand so long as there was no other Eu country already colonizing the area.

  • South Africa

    • British Imperialism.

    • Dutch has major needs, but their country is very is small

      • They don't have enough land

      • They meet the tribespeople, who are very kind and nice.

      • The Dutch take them over and settle in the Cape Town, on the Cape of Good Hope

      • People who lived there called themselves Dutch-Bowers and come up with language of Afrikaans.

      • They separate themselves from Netherlands, and so the Dutch lose it as a colony.

      • The British take it over and they abolish slaves so the Bowers are forced to move northwards.

      • The Bowers go north and find Diamonds and Gold, and the British people wanted it so they fought a war that ended with the British taking it over.

      • The majority of the government was Bower though which meant they started an Apartheid.

        • It states that the Africans cannot do many things and are separated from the 10% of the White Africans, compared to the 90% that are black.

  • King Leopold-

    • He was greedy and cruel

    • He got all the major world powers to ratify the sovereignty of Leopold to control the area of tbe Congo

    • 10 million Congolese people were killed over 20 years.

    • Leopold used the Rubber that he got by enslaving and dehumanizing the Congolese and sold them for major profits.