Imperial ism in Africa [Image source: http://www.bcpl.net/~sullivan/modules/imperial/images/imperiali
Dec 15, 2015
Imperialism in Africa
[Image source: http://www.bcpl.net/~sullivan/modules/imperial/images/imperialism.gif]
Imperialism
• Latin word from the days of the Roman empire
• domination of a country’s political, economic, and social life by another country
Causes for nineteenth-century European Imperialism
1. Economics
2. Nationalism
3. Balance-of-Power
4. White Man’s Burden
“Take up the White Man’s burden –Send forth the best ye breed –Go bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives’ need;To wait in heavy harnessOn fluttered folk and wild –Your new-caught, sullen peoples,Half-devil and half-child.”
- Rudyard Kipling
[Image source: http://www.usd.edu/honors/HWB/1999/1999f/imperialism%20in%20africa.htm]
Initially, European holdings were limited to coastal areas near the mouths of rivers along the trade routes to Asia.
Missionaries such as David Livingstone
often expanded European
knowledge of the interior of
Africa as a result of their
travels.[Image source: http://www.historicprints.com/hf-17.jpg]
[Image source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/maps-at-anona/davidlivingstone2.gif]
The travels of these
explorers allowed
their respective nations to
lay claim to those lands.
Chancellor Otto von
Bismarck of Germany
convened a conference to
discuss the procedures for
establishing colonies.
[Image source: http://www.museumofworldwarii.com/images/TourPictures/01_Wilhelm1_lge.jpg]
Berlin Conference
• met in late-1884/early-1885• set the criteria for claiming colonies
in Africa• initiated the “Scramble for Africa”
- succeeded in deflecting European attention and aggression outward- resulted in the partitioning of Africa
[Image source: http://www.cpror.com/cprorGB/images/portchX.gif]
King Charles X started France on the road to
empire when he ordered his
troops to invade Algeria in 1830.
[Image source: http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/empires/images/0083.jpg]
Meanwhile, Great Britain was chewing up territory elsewhere in
Africa.
Britain acquiredSouthern Africafrom the Dutchduring the Napoleonic Wars, in an effort to maintain their trade routes to their empire in the Orient.
[Image source
http://www.hydro.com/library/images/about/hydro_worldwide/continent_countries/south-africa.gif]
British interests collided with an expanding Zulu Empire.
[Image source: Into The Fire by Mark Churms ]
After some initial defeats,
the British managed to extend their hegemony
over most of southern Africa.
[Image source: http://www.military-art.com/images/dhm_371_small.jpg]
[Image source: http://www.edinfor.pt/anc/f-lesseps.jpg]
In 1859, the French
entrepreneur, Ferdinand de
Lesseps, set up a company to build the Suez
Canal.
The Suez Canal
provided a more direct route
between Europe
and East Asia.
[Image source: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch1en/conc1en/img/suez.gif]
[Image source
http://www.cc-pays-de-gex.fr/edres01/ecoles/ecsgplio/images/SuezNASA.gif]
Great Britain gained
control of the canal in 1875 when Egypt sold
its shares to pay off some
debts.
Mediterranean Sea
RedSea
Concern over the security of the Suez Canal led Britain to take a greater
interest in the affairs of Egypt.
[Image source:
Egypt became a protectorate of
Great Britain in 1882 after the
defeat of a nationalist
revolt led by Ahmed Arabi.
[Image source: http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/p-3959.jpg]
[Image source: http://sudanhome.com/cards/cards/el_mahdi.jpg]
During the 1880s, an
Islamic revival, led by a self-proclaimed
deliverer known as the
Mahdi, threatened
British interests in Egypt.
His force swept across the Sudan, re-instituting fundamentalist practices.
[Image source: http://ron.heavengames.com/gameinfo/nations/nubia/nubia.shtml]
Among the practices revived by the Mahdi was slavery.
[Image source: http://mirrormax.i8.com/images/children.gif]
The British ultimately defeated the forces of the Mahdi at the
Battle of Omdurman.
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/images/aa332391.jpg]
“Whatever happens, we have got,the Maxim gun, and they have not.”
[Image source: http://www.uh.edu/engines/maximgun.jpg]
- Hillaire Belloc
[Image source: http://users.westconnect.com.au/%7Eianmac5/choc.jpg]
Many people, such as Britain’s competitors in
colonization, the French, hoped
that Britain would fail miserably in their efforts to
establish a global empire.
British and French interests
collided at Fashoda in 1898, almost resulting
in a shooting war between the two great imperialist
powers.[Image source: http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/empires/0055.html]
The British met opposition in
places like West Africa, when they sought to conquer
and subdue the Ashanti Empire of
Queen Yaa Asantewaa.
[Image source: http://www.ashanti.com.au/Asantewa.jpg]
The French also ran into difficulties when they tried to defeat Samory Touré,
the “Black Napoleon” of the Western Sudan, in the late-nineteenth century.
[Image source: http://www.playahata.com/pages/bhfigures28.html]
King Behanzin of
Dahomey turned out
to be a formidable foe for the French as
well.[Image source: http://shopping.corbis.com/search/details.asp?imageid=11017521]
King Leopold II of Belgium aspired to be the ruler of a large empire like his fellow
European monarchs.
[Image source: http://worldroots.clicktron.com/brigitte/gifs3/leopold2belgium.gif]
He managed to claim
virtually all the land
drained by the Congo River for Belgium.
[Image source: http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~benjamin/316kfall/316kunit3/studentprojects/conrad/congo.jpg]
Leopold was able to claim the Congo for Belgium because he promoted the fiction that his rule would
be benign. In reality, the colony became
one large plantation producing rubber.
[Image source: http://www.historywiz.com/images/africa/snake.gif]
Natives who failed to
harvest their quota of latex
were often punished by having their
hands cut off.[Image source: http://www.me.mtu.edu/~aswaisan/leopold.htm]
Menelik II succeeded in conquering
many smaller kingdoms, creating a reunified Ethiopian Empire. [Image source:
http://www.macalester.edu/courses/geog61/kshively/images/menelik.gif]
The Italians suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Adowa in 1896.
[Image source: http://www.rastaites.com/images/ithiopianversion.jpg]
As a result of their victory at Adowa, Ethiopia
managed to be one of the only African
nations to maintain it’s
independence.[Image source: http://www.artehistoria.com/historia/jpg/REC12781.jpg]
Much against Chancellor Bismarck’s desire, nationalist groups in Germany succeeded in driving Germany into the ranks of Imperialist powers in Africa.
[Image source: http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/victalb/e13ab3.htm]