25 Africa, India, and The New British Empire

Africa, India, and the New British Empire, 1750-1870
Changes and Exchanges in Africa India Under British Rule Britains eastern Empire
Saturday, March 10, 12
Learning Objectives: After reading and studying this chapter you should be able to discuss: 1. Understand the concepts of "New Imperialism" and "colonialism" and be able to analyze them in terms of motives, their methods, and their place in the development of the world economy and the global environment. 2. Understand the "Scramble for Africa" and be able to use concrete examples to illustrate the process of colonization and reactions to colonization in Africa.
3. Understand the process by which Central and Southeast Asia and the Pacic islands were brought under the domination of the great powers. 4. Understand and be able to analyze the causes and signicance of free-trade imperialism in Latin America.
Focus and Essential Questions: How did different African leaders and peoples interact with each other, and how did European nations' relationship to African peoples change during this period? How did Britain secure its hold on India, and what colonial policies led to the beginnings of Indian nationalism? What role did the abolition of slavery and the continued growth of British overseas trade play in the immigration to the Caribbean and elsewhere of peoples from Africa, India, and Asia?
Changes and Exchanges in Africa
In 1870, Africa underwent dynamic political changes in a great expansion in trade. the continents external slave trades to the Americas and to Islamic lands died slowly under British pressure. The trade goods: Palm oil, Ivory, Timber , Gold, rubber
New States in Southern and Inland West Africa Zulu Kingdom

The changes in warfare of Southern Africa gave rise to a powerful Zulu kingdom and other new states. An upstart military genius named Shaka created the Zulu kingdom in 1818 out of the conict for grazing and farming lands.
They were the most powerful and most feared ghters in Southern Africa because of their strict military drill and close combat warfare featuring: Oxhide shields Lethal stabbing spears Shaka expanded his kingdom by raiding his African neighbors, seizing their cattle, and capturing their women and children.
Shaka succeeded in creating a new national identity as well as a new kingdom even though he only ruled for a little more than a decade. He grouped all his people in his domain by age into regiments. Regiments members lived together and immersed themselves in learning Zulu lore and customs, including ghting methods for the males. Parades showed off the kings enormous herds of cattle, a Zulu measure of wealth.
Islamic Reform Movements

Movements were creating another cluster of powerful states in the Savannas of West Africa. Most Muslim rulers had found it prudent to tolerate the older religious practices of their rural subjects. In the 1770s, local Muslim scholars began preaching the need for vigorous reform of Islamic practices.
The reformers followed a classic Muslim pattern of a Jihad (holy war) added new lands were governments enforced Islamic laws and promoted the religion which spread among conquered people. The largest of the new reform movements occurred in the Hausa states under the leadership of Usuman dan Fodio (a Muslim cleric of the Fulani people). The king of Gobir Usuman issued a call in 1804 for Jihad to over throw him.
The successful armies united the conquered Hausa states and neighboring areas under a caliph who ruled from the city of Sokoto. These new Muslims states became centers of Islamic learning and reform. They suppressed public performances of dances and ceremonies associated with the tradition religions of non-Muslims
During the Jihads, many who resisted the expansion of Muslim rule were killed, enslaved, or forced to convert. Sokotos leaders sold some captives into the Atlantic slave trade and many more into the trans-Saharan slave trade.
Modernization and Expansion in Egypt and Ethiopia The ancient African states of Egypt and Ethiopia in Northeastern Africa were Napoleons invading army had withdrawn from Egypt by 1801 The successor to Napoleons rule was Muhammad Ali, who eliminated his rivals and ruled Egypt from, 1805-1848 and began the political, social, and economic, reforms that created modern Egypt.
He set up a European style state school system and opened a military college at Aswan and required Egyptian peasants to cultivate cotton and other crops for export to pay for these ventures. The technical expertise of the west was combined with Islamic religious and cultural traditions for example the Egyptian printing industry, began to provide Arabic translations of technical manuals, turned out critical additions of Islamic classics and promoted a revival of Arabic writing and literature later in the century.
Egyptians were replacing many of the foreign exports, and the edgling program of industrialization was providing the country with its own textiles, paper, weapons, and military uniforms
Ismail (1863-1879)
His effort increased the number of European advisors in Egyptand Egypts debts to French and British banks. By 1870 there was a network of new irrigation canals, 800 miles of railroads, a modern postal service, and the dazzling new capital city of Cairo.
Under emperor Tewodros II and his successor Yohannes IV most highland regions were brought back under imperial rule. In the 1840s Ethiopian rulers purchased modern weapons from European sources and created strong armies loyal to the ruler. Tewodros committed suicide to avoid being taken as a prisoner.
West Africa Before 1880, Europeans controlled little of the African continent directly Intensive European rivalries led to the conquest and control of Africa Following the end of slavery, peanuts, timber, hides, and palm oil became important exports
In 1874, Great Britain *annexed (incorporating a country into another state) the west coastal states France had added the huge area of French West Africa to its colonial empire Germany controlled Southwest and East Africa
Central Africa Explorers aroused popular interest in the dense tropical jungles of Central Africa *David Livingstoneexplorer and missionary *Henry StanleyBritish explorer in Central Africa and the Congo River King Leopold II of Belgium led the colonization of Central Africa
East and South Africa
1885, Britain and Germany had becoming the chief rivals in East Africa The Boers, or *Afrikaners descendants of the original Dutch settlers were called had occupied Cape Town Boers formed two independent republics Orange Free State and Transvaal *indigenous peoples were often moved to reservations
Colonial Rule in Africa Most European governments ruled their new territories in Africa with the least effort and expense possible indirect rule kept the old African elite in power British indirect rule showed the seeds for class and tribal tensions
Rise of African Nationalism

A new class of leaders emerged in Africa by the beginning of the twentieth century Members of this new class admitted Western culture and sometimes disliked the ways of their own countries Westerners had exalted democracy, equality, and political freedom but did not apply these values in the colonies
Europeans expressed their superiority segregated clubs, schools, and churches Western educated Africans ercely hated colonial rule and were determined to assert their own nationality and cultural identity
India Under British Rule
The people of South Asia felt the impact of European commercial, cultural, and colonial expansion more immediately and profoundly than did the people of Africa. During the 250 years after the founding of the East India Company in 1600, British interests commandeered the colonies and trade of the Dutch, fought off French and Indian challenges, and picked up the pieces of the decaying Mughal Empire. In 1795 the Dutch East India Company was dissolved.
Indian states took advantage of Mughal weakness to assert their independence. Ruling their own powerful states were the Nawabs. British, Dutch, and French companies were also eager to expand their protable trade into India in the eighteenth century.
To protect their fortied warehouses from attack by other Europeans or by native states, the companies hired and trained Indian troops known as sepoys. The weak Mughal emperor was persuaded to rule Bengal in 1765. Along with Calcutta and madras, the third major center of British power in India was Bombay.
The Raj and the Rebellion 1818-1857

In 1818 the East India Company controlled an Empire with more people than in all of western Europe and the fty times the population of the colonies the British had lost in North America. The main policy was to create a powerful and efcient system of government.
Another policy very much in the interest of Indias new rulers was to disarm approximately 2 million warriors who had served Indias many states. A third policy was to give freer rein to Christian missionaries eager to convert and uplift Indias masses.
Another key British policy was to substitute ownership of private property for Indias complex and overlapping patterns of landholding. Such policies of westernization, Anglicization, and modernization, The other side was the bolstering of tradition Princes, holy men, and other Indians frequently used claims of tradition to resist British rule as well as to turn it to their advantage.
Women of every status, member of subordinate Hindu caste system, the untouchables and tribal outside the caste system. In the eighteenth century India had been the worlds greatest exporter of cotton textiles. Many high-caste Hindus objected to a new law in 1856 requiring new recruits to be available for service overseas.
The rebels asserted old traditions to challenge British authority: sepoy ofcers in Delhi proclaimed their loyalty to the Mughal emperor. Concentrating on the technical fact that the uprising was an unlawful action by soldiers; nineteenth-century British historians labeled it the Sepoy Rebellion or the Mutiny.
Political Reform and Industrial Impact 1858-1900 In its wake Indians gained a new centralized government, entered a period of rapid economic growth. In 1858 Britain eliminated the last traces of Mughal and Company rule.
A new secretary of state for India in London oversaw Indian policy, and a new government-general in Delhi acted as the British monarchs viceroy on the spot. British rule continued to emphasize both tradition and reform after 1857. When Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India in 1877, the viceroys put on great pageants known as durbars.
Members of the elite Indian Civil Service (ISC), mostly graduates of Oxford and Cambridge Universities.. Recruitment into the ISC was by open eliminations. In theory any British subject could take these exams; Subsequent reforms by Viceroy Lord Lytton led to 57 Indian appointments by 1887.. The key reason blocking qualied Indians entry into the upper administration of their country was the racist contempt most British ofcials felt for the people they ruled.
A second transformational of India after 1857 resulted from involvement with industrial Britain. Most of the exports were agricultural commodities for processing elsewhere: Cotton ber, Opium, Tea, Silk, Sugar
In return India imported manufactured goods from Britain, including ood of machine-made cotton textiles that severely undercut Indian hand-loom weavers. Beginning in the 1840s, a railroad boom (paid for out of government revenues) gave India its rst national transportation network, followed shortly by telegraph lines; By 1900 Indias trains were carrying 188 million passengers a year.
Cholera deaths rose rapidly during the nineteenth century, and eventually the disease spread to Europe.. In many Indian minds kala mari (the black death) was a divine punishment for failing to prevent the British takeover. The installation of a new sewage system (1865) and ltered water supply (1869) in Calcutta dramatically reduced cholera deaths there; In 1900 an extraordinary four out of every thousand residents of British India died of cholera.
Rising Indian Nationalism 1828-1900

Both the successes and the failures of British India stimulated the development of Indian nationalism. Individuals such as Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) had promoted development along these lines a generation earlier. Many Indians intellectuals turned to Western secular values and nationalism as the way to reclaim India for its people.
Many of the new nationalist came from the Indian middle class, which had prospered from the increase of trade and manufacturing. They convened the rst Indian National Congress in 1885. The congress effectively voiced the opinions of the elite Indians, but until it attracted the support of the elite Indians, but until it attracted the support of the masses, it could not hope to challenge British rule.
Britains Eastern Empire
Colonization of Australia and New Zealand The development of new ships and shipping contributed to the colonization of Australia and New Zealand by British settlers This resulted in the displacement of the indigenous population
Portuguese mariners sighted Australia in the early 17th C. and Capt. James Cook surveyed New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia between 1769 and 1778 Unfamiliar diseases brought by new overseas contacts substantially reduced the population of the Aborigines and the Maori.
Australia received British convicts and, after the discovery of gold 1851, a ood of free European (and some Chinese) settlers. British settlers came more slowly to New Zealand until defeat of the Maori, faster ships and a gold rush brought more immigrants after 1860
The British crown gradually turned governing power over to the British settlers, but Aborigines and the Maori experienced discrimination. However, Australia did develop powerful trade unions, New Zealand promoted availability of land for the common person, both granted suffrage to women in 1894.

25 Africa, India, and The New British Empire

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

25 Africa, India, and The New British Empire

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Africa, India, and the New British Empire, 1750-1870

Saturday, March 10, 12

Saturday, March 10, 12

Changes and Exchanges in Africa

Saturday, March 10, 12

New States in Southern and Inland West Africa Zulu Kingdom

Saturday, March 10, 12

Islamic Reform Movements

Saturday, March 10, 12

East and South Africa

Saturday, March 10, 12

Rise of African Nationalism

Saturday, March 10, 12

India Under British Rule

Saturday, March 10, 12

The Raj and the Rebellion 1818-1857

Rising Indian Nationalism 1828-1900

Britains Eastern Empire

Saturday, March 10, 12

You might also like