THE COLONIAL EXPANSION1850-1914

What is it? The political and economical dominance exercised

Who?Europe: Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal and Russia.

BUT also USA and Japan

by the Capitalistic states:

Where? Mainly over all Africa, Oceaniaa large part of Asia and North America.

When? From the first half of the XIX Century to the first half of the XX century.

But… Why?

REASONS or FACTORSREASONS or FACTORSREASONS or FACTORSREASONS or FACTORS

A) ECONOMICALIndustrializationandMechanization

Companies needed new markets

- Where to sell their products

- and where to find raw Materials for the factories

Increase in productionand in productivity

Overproduction Crisis

X 10

They “encouraged” states and governments to conquer new colonies

to impose a commercial monopoly

For this reason

B) DEMOGRAPHICencourage

Millions of European citizens to leave to the colonies.

1850-1914: + than 50 millions)

REASONS OR FACTORSREASONS OR FACTORSREASONS OR FACTORSREASONS OR FACTORSHigh increase of

population in Europe

Population Any 1800 180 millionsAny 1900 430 “

A period of overproduction, unemployment, and misery

British 17Italians 10Germans 5Balkans 4’5Spanish 4’4Others 13

Emigration to other countries (USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, North Africa, South America, etc.)

was an opportunity for Europe‘s poorest.

AND STRATEGIC

To protect the country’s trading routes and

their companies’ policies from foreign competitors.

C) POLITICAL, IDEOLOGICAL…

Governments and military men

Encourage colonization

It strengthened the nationalist spirit of the country

and its prestige.

They got medals and promotions

REASONS OR FACTORSREASONS OR FACTORSREASONS OR FACTORSREASONS OR FACTORS

because

THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE...

1841-1871- Expeditions across Africa by Livingstone,

Stanley,...1871- Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species”

1878- Discovery of a passage between Asia and America

1895-1908- Expeditions across Central Asia

1909- Expeditions to the North Pole

1910- Expeditions to the South Pole

D) OTHER REASONS FOR COLONIALISM

E) Other reasons for Colonialism…

or.......maybe...

JUSTIFICATIONS?

E.1) THE CIVILIZINGMISSION

E.2) RACISM

Europeans believed that their civilization was superior and that

they had the duty to impose it to the barbarians.

The belief that one’s own race was superior to the other races.

A belief that could only be provedexerting some kind of political influence over other peoples

TYPES OF COLONIES

Settler Colonies

Europeans settled themselves in the

country permanently.

They took control of the territory.

In time they became independence.

CanadaAustralia

New ZealandSouth Africa

Algeria

Trading CompaniesThe states granted private companies large territories

to administer who were only interested in

exploiting and plundering the natural resources of

the territories.

The natives worked merely as slaves for this

companies who employed racist and draconian

policies.

The army and a military governor used to rule the

colony and kept the natives under control.

IndiaAfrican Colonies

Indo-China

Protectorates

In theory this type of colonies consisted on

independent native governments who

voluntarily demanded military protection to a

colonial power.

In fact, most of these protectorates became so

subordinate to the protecting powers that

they lost their independent statehood.

MoroccoEgypt

4.- CONSEQUENCES4.- CONSEQUENCES4.- CONSEQUENCES4.- CONSEQUENCES

Exploitation of men and women and of their

territories for the benefit of the metropolis.

Land expropriation and destruction of traditional

agriculture.

Colonies were forced to trade with the metropolis with the consequent destruction of

craftsmanship.

The natives had to pay taxes and had to work in the mines or

in the plantations

3.- ECONOMICAL

1.- POLITICALCreation of

artificialboundaries

Acculturation

2.- CULTURAL

Increase in International Conflicts

Cuba

Morocco

55.- CONSEQUENCES.- CONSEQUENCESACROSS THE WORLDACROSS THE WORLD

Crises in the Balkans…

Colonial Empires 1914What was colonialism?

Canal de Panamà

Colonies in 1914

America

What countries were involved in

imperialism in America?

Colonies between 1914-19

Asia

What countries were involvedin colonialism?

Colonies in Africain 1830

Colonies in 1914

Africa

What countries were involved?

Some interesting texts to read...

CAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORS1898- The March of the Flag Speech. By senator Beveridge (future President of the USA).

What reasons are given in the text?

Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

CAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORS1849- Northampton Herald Advertisment

Carta de Cecil Rhodes (empresari i aventurer anglès)1895.

“Urgent. Whoever wishes to come to the wealthy and prosperous lands of Australia, either as a peasant, servant or as a miner, will be provided with a first class free ticket (Immigrant Commission for the Colonies)”

“Yesterday I went for a walk to the East End (a working class neighborhood) and attended a meeting of unemployeds. What I saw there convinced me more than ever of the importance of Imperialism (…) We must conquer new colonies to allocate the excess of population that we suffer.

What reasons are given in the text?

Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

CAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORSCAUSES o FACTORSSpeech to the Parliament by J.Ferry, French Prime Minister ,1884“Gentlemen, in Europe such as it is today, in this competition of the many rivals we see rising up around us, some by military or naval improvements, others by the prodigious development of a constantly growing population; in a Europe, or rather in a universe thus constituted, a policy of withdrawal or abstention is simply the high road to decadence! In our time nations are great only through the activity they deploy; it is not by spreading the peaceable light of their institutions ... that they are great, in the present day.Spreading light without acting (…) and seeing as a trap (…), all expansion into Africa or the Orient-for a great nation to live this way, (…) is to abdicate and (…) to sink from the first rank to the third and fourth.”

Speech by Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, 1895.“I venture to claim two qualifications for the great office which I hold, which to my mind, without making invidious distinctions, is one of the most important that can be held by any Englishman; and those qualifications are that in the first place I believe in the British Empire, and in the second place I believe in the British race. I believe that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever seen. ”

What reasons are given in the text? Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

From: F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, (Edinburgh, 1893

I am convinced that the indiscriminate application of such precepts as those contained in the words to turn the other cheek also to the smiter, and to be the servant of all men, is to wholly misunderstand and misapply the teaching of Christ. The African holds the position of a late-born child in the family of nations, and must as yet be schooled in the discipline of the nursery. He is neither the intelligent ideal crying out for instruction, and capable of appreciating the subtle beauties of Christian forbearance and self-sacrifice, which some well-meaning missionary literature would lead us to suppose, nor yet, on the other hand, is he universally a rampant cannibal, predestined by Providence to the yoke of the slave, and fitted for nothing better, as I have elsewhere seen him depicted. That is to say, that there is in him, like the rest of us, both good and bad, and that the innate good is capable of being developed by cultureWhat reasons are given in the text?

Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

From “The Conquest of Civilization” p.114By James Henry BreastedNew York: Harper & Brothers, 1926

On the south of the Northwest Quadrant lay the teeming black world of Africa, separated from the Great White Race by an impassable desert barrier and unfitted by ages of tropical life for any effective intrusion among the White Race, the negro and negroid peoples remained without any influence on the development of early civilization. We may then exclude both of these external races from any share in the origins or subsequent development of civilization. .

What reasons are given in the text?Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

Finally remember that Colonialism was:

The political and economical dominance exercised by the capitalistic states over all Africa, Oceania, a large part of Asia and North America, from the first half of the XIX century to the first half of the XX century.

END