New Imperialism
New Imperialism
refers to the colonial expansion adopted by Europe's powers and, later, Japan and the United
States, during the 19th and early 20th centuries; expansion took place from
the French conquest of Algeria to World War
I: approximately 1830 - 1914. The period is distinguished by an unprecedented
pursuit of overseas territorial acquisitions.
Rise of New Imperialism
The American Revolution and the collapse of the Spanish
Empire in the early 1810–20s, following the revolutions in the
viceroyalties of New Spain, New Granada, Peru, and the Rio de la Plata ended the first
era of European imperialism.
Especially in the United
Kingdom (UK), these revolutions helped show
The deficiencies
of mercantilism,
The doctrine of
economic competition for finite wealth which had supported earlier imperial
expansion.
In 1846, The Corn Laws,
which were the regulations governing the import and export of grain, were repealed
after a great deal of protesting from the middle class. Because of the repeal,
manufacturers were faced with a tremendous benefit, seeing that the regulations
enforced by the Corn Laws had slowed their businesses.
With the repeal in place, the manufacturers
were then able to trade more freely.
Thus, the UK began
to adopt the concept of free trade.
The Congress of Vienna by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, (1819).
The congress was actually a series of face-to-face meetings between
colonial powers.
It served to divide and reappropriate imperial holdings.
During this period, between the 1815 Congress of Vienna (after the defeat of Napoleonic
France) and the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), Britain
reaped the benefits of being the world's sole modern, industrial power.
As the "workshop of the world",
the United Kingdom could produce finished goods so efficiently that they could
usually undersell comparable, locally manufactured goods in foreign markets,
even supplying a large share of the manufactured goods consumed by such nations
as Germany, France, Belgium, and the United
States.
Economically, adding to the commercial
competition of old rivals like France were now the newly industrializing
powers, such as Germany and the United States. Needing external markets for
their manufactured goods, all sought ways to challenge Britain's dominance in
world trade – the consequence of its early industrialization.
This competition was sharpened by the Long
Depression of 1873-1896, a prolonged period of price deflation punctuated
by severe business downturns, which put pressure on governments to promote home
industry, leading to the widespread abandonment of free trade among Europe's powers.
New overseas colonies would provide
export markets free of foreign competition, while supplying cheap raw materials
for their mother country to use as they saw fit.
The revival of working-class militancy
and emergence of socialist parties during the Depression decades led
conservative governments to view colonialism as a force for national cohesion
in support of the domestic status quo.
Also, in Italy, and to a
lesser extent in Germany and Britain, tropical empires in India
and Burma were
seen as outlets for what was deemed a surplus home population.
They remapped Africa without considering
the cultural and linguistic borders that were already established. At the end
of the conference, Africa was divided into 50 different countries.
The attendants established who was in
control of each of these newly divided countries.
They also planned, noncommittally, to
end the slave trade in Africa.
Britain during the era of New Imperialism
British Prime Minister Benjamin
Disraeli and Queen Victoria
In Britain, the latter half of the 19th
century has been seen as the period of displacement of industrial capitalism by finance capitalism.
Britain's entry into the old imperial
age is often dated to 1875, when the government of Benjamin
Disraeli bought the indebted Egyptian ruler Ismail's shareholding in the Suez Canal
to secure control of this waterway, deemed a strategic holding since its
opening six years earlier as a shipping lane between Britain and India. Joint
Anglo-French financial control over Egypt ended in outright British occupation
in 1882.
"civilizing mission"
New Imperialism in Africa
Between 1885 and 1914, Britain brought
nearly 30% of Africa's population under its control, to 15% for France, 9% for
Germany, 7% for Belgium and 1% for Italy: Nigeria alone
contributed 15 million subjects to Britain, more than in the whole of French West Africa, or the entire German colonial
empire. The only regions not under European control in 1914 were Liberia and Ethiopia.
Motivations
The British government gave many excuses
to the public for the New Imperialism strategy. However, there were often
underlying motivations behind what the government said.
Humanitarianism
One of the biggest
motivations behind New Imperialism was the idea of humanitarianism
and "civilizing" the "lower" class people in Africa and in
other undeveloped places. This was a religious motive for many Christian
missionaries, in attempt to save the souls of the "uncivilized"
people, and of the idea that Christians and the people of the United Kingdom
were morally superior.
Most of the missionaries that supported
imperialism did so because they felt the only true religion was their own.
Similarly, the Roman Catholic
missionaries opposed the British missionaries because the British missionaries
were Protestant.
At times, however, imperialism did help
the people of the countries being invaded due to the fact that the missionaries
ended up stopping some of the slavery in some areas. Therefore, Europeans
claimed that they were only there because they wanted to protect the weaker
tribal groups they conquered.
The missionaries and other leaders
suggested that they should stop such practices as cannibalism, child marriage,
and other "savage" things.
This humanitarian
ideal was described in poems such as the "White Man's Burden" and other
literature.
Theories
The accumulation
theory adopted by Karl Kautsky, John
A. Hobson and popularized by Lenin centered on the accumulation of surplus capital during
and after the Industrial Revolution:
restricted opportunities at home, the
argument goes, drove financial interests to seek more profitable investments in
less-developed lands with lower labor costs, unexploited raw materials and
little competition.
The World-Systems theory approach of Immanuel Wallerstein sees imperialism as
part of a general, gradual extension of capital investment from the
"core" of the industrial countries to a less developed
"periphery." Protectionism and formal empire were the major tools of
"semi-peripheral," newly industrialized states, such as Germany,
seeking to usurp Britain's position at the "core" of the global capitalist
system.
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