Imperialism

Part I: India and Asia

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)

Map of Mughal India from 1530 to 1707

Map of India in 1765

Map of India in 1765

British India, Part II: India Under British Rule

British East India Company (1800-1850)

Sepoy Rebellion (1857) & Aftermath

Benefits vs Costs

Map of India in 1823

Map of India in 1823

Map of India in 1823

• 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.