Imperialism – Nathan Michalewicz

Old Vs New Imperialism

Old Imperialism
- Settler Colonialism
- replaced indigenous populations
New Imperialism
- Ruled through Indigenous
- Few Settlers
- Severe inequality between metropole and colony

Imperialism took new forms during this period
- it became a central feature of state policy and great power relations.
- Greeted with great enthusiasm in popular press, and conscious decision by businessmen, statesmen, engineers, and missionaries shaped it.
- new intensity of the program:
  - more land under dominion by more advanced armed force.
  - by end of period 70% of land under European control
- European powers trained local leaders to carry out European directives in political org and economic extraction.

Informal Imperialism

Unequal Trade Agreements
Imposed through Force

- **informal imperialism:**
    - one-sided trade agreements or the exchange of advanced tech for control of profits, and it was often negotiated under threat of force.
- extreme inequality between metropole and the non-Eur colony.(258)

Motivations for Imperialism: Not One Can Explain It Alone.

Money
Power
Security
Ideology

Motives
- No single cause, but many.
- Money
  - sought new colonies for potential of new markets
  - only way to create new markets at home was to pay people more, and they didn’t want to do that.(259)
  - business ment played major role in imperialism: they drove the British East India Company for instance.
  - but not only reason because they became expensive to run.
- Power
  - less powerful countries thought gaining colonies was a way to remain competititve.
  - In 1870, Fr. wanted to give away its African colonies to Germany that would not take it.
    - by 1880, French and English argued that without colonizing Africa, they would fall from great power status. (260)
  - Balance of power appeared to shift toward those countries with major overseas colonies after 1870 (260)
- security
  - Strategy to dominate trade routes
  - Established certain colonies just to protect routes
    - Eng took Purim, Aden, and Socotra to protect route to India after the Suez Canal crisis in 1869.
  - For the most part “empires continued to grow in defiance of economic wisdom and strategic planning” (260)
Ideology
- nationalism
- racism,
- religion,
- civilizing mission
- 2 underlying intellectual projects of explaining and justifying imperialism:
  - tried to construct and explain difference between people
  - tried to construct and justify hierarchies of those different peoples
    - But problems from the ind rev society created anxieties about differences between civilized and uncivilized.
    - imperialism could unify these differences in a common goal of conquering others.
      - civilizing project sought to create clear-cut gender, cultural, and racieal hierarchies. (261)
      - but ambiguities in the dichotomies caused Europeans to try and remake more clear dichotomoies.
    - mass nationalism and racism spread further.

British India, Part I: Collapse of Mughal India

Mughal Empire (1530-1707)

Mughal Collapse (1707-1730)

Early British Conquests (1750-1800)

British India, Part II: India Under British Rule

British East India Company (1800-1850)

Sepoy Rebellion (1857) & Aftermath

Benefits vs Costs

British Rule in India
- Eng = first imperial power (earliest colonizers, and everywhere by 1914)
- first colonies were in thinly inhabited lands
- India = jewel in the crown.
- 1763, India was a collection of identities and religions.
  - 2 processes:
    - indirect rule:
    - direct annexation:
  - British East India Company administered the colony
    - could collect taxes and use its own military to enforce those rights over local population.
    - some areas it governed directly, others were only by co-opting local elites, and others were controlled with trade monopolies.
    - its rule was oppressive and deeply resented
      - 1857: Sepoy rebellion spread adn became a war of liberation.
        
        sepoys were Indian soldiers fighting for hte British.(263)
      - the rebellion ended the East India Company
      - broken into two groups:
        
        those under direct rule and those feudal or native state that were nominally ruled by fabulously rich local leaders.
        
        ruled by resident advisors, through which the English would interefere.
        
        created a system of divide and rule.
        
        richest areas in Punjab, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay were ruled directly.
Benefits after 1880, transitioned to moderninzing the economy with rail and other economic developments
- improved economy:
  - population grew (mid centruy: 136million people; 1904: 300 million).
  - telegraphs, rail, universityes.
  - beginning of middle class.
  - total wealth increased and spread more widely among population in 1914 than 1763.
    - cities of importance to the British gained
      - Punjab, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay
Costs:
- India’s consumer market gave Br largest export markt.
  - indian trade dominated by Br manufactured good, hindering the local manufacturing.
  - India provided cheap labor
- More than 1 million indentured servants left India to work in other places of hte empire.
- British army used Indian soldiers to maintain order in other places.
- vast majority of Indians were peasants living in terrible poverty improved not at all by other sectors of eocnomy.
- British not committed to raising the standard for all Indians.
- Briytish in India were more concerned with security and control than with development
  - elevated a tiny elite to serve British interests,
    - but it displaced local mechanisms of economic stimulation that might have spread the benefits of modern industry more widely(268).

Opium Wars: Britain & China, Part I

Qing China (1640-1911)
Britain, Tea, & Opium: a Trade Defecit
Opium in China
Lin Zexu

China in late 18th/19th century
- Eng needed tea, caused trade imbalance.
- 18th century china richer than 18th century England
- traded porcelein, tea, etc.
- Lord Mccartney tried to negotiate treaty.
Qing Dynasty Trade
- Qing dynasty was a very open empire
- maintained connections with north and south
- not closed empire
- Eng. came in during early 19c when Qing saw the need to apply brakes with trade wiht Eng due to the realtive power
- trade deficit:
  - 1830s, 6million silver dollars worth of tea was purchased.
Opium
- easy to carry
- value fluctuates
- British started producing opium around 1793.
- opium before 17th century was medicinal
  - after portugues arrive in 16c, they introduce smokintg
    - comes from smoking tobacco, something they learned in the Americas.
  - 17 century, smoking opium became widespread.
Tea in Britain
- transition from alcohol to tea.
- breakfast
  - tea became fundamental part of daily routine.
Qing trying to ban opium
- partly for social control.
Lin Zexu
- 1811, entered imperial academy.
- more known as reformer before opium war.
- demanded all the opium.
  - from Canton
  - surrounded factory in March for 2 months.
  - Zexu burned the opium. (3 June 1839)
    - 20,283 chests.
    - took three days

Opium Wars: Part II

First War (1839-42),
- Treaty of Nanjing (1842)
- China pays cost of war
- Hong Kong to Britain
- 4 new treaty ports open

Second War (1856-1860)
- Treaty of Tianjin (1858)
- Russia, France, Britain, USA treaties
- English Ambassadors
- 10 trade ports open

English leader Charles Elliott wanted to extend Br traders opportunities.
- he flouted the regulations.
- increasing attacks by imperial war junks on pirate smugglers of opium led by Elliott
real beginning of the war was in Sept.
- many foreign sailors get drunk and go to Kaolong.
- the sailors beat up a civilian
- Chinese began firing on the merchants to force them to give up the drunk sailors.
British intervened due to this issue
- came in with ironplated steamships (the fleat).
- Fleat under Henry Partinger doesn’t have
Treaty of Nanjing (1842)
- allowed foreign nations to establish
- forced the Chinese to pay for cost of fleat.
- long tradition of exchanging parts of land for peace.
  - began with trading territories given to Russia that created an acceptable situation
  - trade of Hong Kong made sense under this dynamic (thought of it as a barron rock).
- later regarded as unequal.
- it was an acceptable treaty at the time.(under debate)
2nd opium war (1856)
- continuation of the first
- unfinished business.
- chinese owned hong kong ship was searched in Canton (British unhappy with it because it was kind of their ship).
- British officer shelled canton, captured its governor, took him to India.
- Took Fleet to coast of Tianjing.
- New treaty
  - English got an ambassador
  - Fr. Eng. USA and Russia all got treaties.
- Taiping rebellion (create a counter capital in Nanjing)
Effect and Treaty of Tianjin
- opened up more ports
- allowed foreign missionaries
- opened up interior of the country to trade.
- opium trade forced on the Chinese in a massive way to buy the tea.
  - but real picture is more complicated
  - Chinese demand and dependancy of foreign goods.
    - dyes, cloth, cotton products
    - because China is urbanizing rapidly
    - urgency of modernizing
    - chinese merchants welcomed the trade and led to early capitalization of China.
- created a modern China economy.
- adopted a more consumerist practice.
  - helped it become a part of the international community.