The Changes Wrought by Imperialism WHAP/Napp

“Ironically, both the successesand the failures of British Indiastimulated the development ofIndian nationalism. Stung bythe inability of the rebellion of 1857 to overthrow Britishrule, some thoughtful Indians began to argue that theonly way for Indians to regain control of their destinywas to reduce their country’s social and ethnic divisionsand promote Pan-Indian nationalism.

Individuals such as Rammohun Roy(1772–1833)had promoted development along these lines a generationearlier. A Western-educated Bengali from a Brahminfamily, Roy was a successful administrator for the East India Company. He was also a thoughtful student of comparativereligion. His Brahmo Samaj(Divine Society), foundedin 1828, attracted Indians who sought to reconcile thevalues they found in the West with the ancient religioustraditions of India. They supported efforts to reformsome Hindu customs, including the restrictions on widowsand the practice of child marriage. They advocatedreforming the caste system, encouraged a monotheisticform of Hinduism, and urged a return to the foundingprinciples of the Upanishads, ancient sacred writings ofHinduism.

Roy and his supporters had backed earlier British effortsto reform or ban some practices they found repugnant. Widow burning (sati) was outlawed in 1829 andslavery in 1843. Reformers sought to correct other abusesof women: prohibitions against widows remarrying wererevoked in 1856, and female infanticide was made acrime in 1870.

Although Brahmo Samaj remained an influentialmovement after the rebellion of 1857, many Indian intellectualsturned to Western secular values and nationalismas the way to reclaim India for its people. In thisprocess the spread of Western education played an importantrole. Roy had studied both Indian and Westernsubjects, mastering ten languages in the process, andhelped found the Hindu College in Calcutta in 1816.

Other Western-curriculum schools quickly followed, including Bethune College inCalcutta, the first secularschool for Indian women, in 1849. European and Americanmissionaries played a prominent role in the spreadof Western education. In 1870 there were 790,000 Indiansin over 24,000 elementary and secondary schools, andIndia’s three universities (established in 1857) awarded345 degrees. Graduates of these schools articulated anew Pan-Indian nationalism that transcended regionaland religious differences.” ~ The Earth and Its Peoples

1. Where did Indian nationalism come from?
(A) A complex hybrid of elite civic nationalism, resistance to imperial Britain, and ethnically fragmented national identities.
(B) Post-colonial resistance to state formation.
(C) Ideology alone.
(D) None of the options given are correct. / 2. 11.Rammohan Roy, regarded as the father of modern India, believed that the true Hinduism was found in the
(A) Mahabharata
(B) Ramayana
(C) Bhagavad Gita
(D) Upanishads
Key Words/ Questions / I. Imperialism and Economy
A. Colonial rule created conditions that increased cash-crop production
  1. African farmers took the initiative to develop export agriculture; planting cacao trees, they became the world’s leading supplier of cocoa
  2. Many colonies came to specialize in one or two cash crops, creating an unhealthy dependence when world market prices dropped
  3. Plantations across Southeast Asia grew sugarcane, rubber, tea, etc.
  4. In Vietnam in 1927 alone, one in twenty plantation workers died
  5. Settler colonies in Algeria, Kenya, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and South Africa led to European communities obtaining most land
  6. A 1913 law in South Africa legally defined 88 percent of the land as
belonging to whites, who were then about 20 percent of the population
  1. Appalling living conditions, disease, accidents led to high death rates
II. Effects of Imperialism on Women
A. In pre-colonial times, African women were everywhere active farmers
1. Women were expected to feed their own families and were usually allocated their own fields for that purpose
  1. Clearly subordinate to men but had some economic autonomy
  2. But where cash-crop agriculture was dominant, men acted to control the most profitable aspects of agriculture
4. Greatly increased the subsistence workload of women
  1. As men sought employment in cities, their wives were left to manage the domestic economy almost alone
  1. In Botswana, which supplied male labor to South Africa, married couples lived together for only about two months of the year
III. Additional Impact of Colonial Rule
A. More integration of Asian and African economies into a global network
  1. Yet for a minority, acquisition of Western education, obtained through missionary or government schools, generated a new identity
1. Western education meant access to better-paying positions
2. Education provided social mobility and elite status
3. Asian and African colonial societies now had a new divide: between minority who had mastered ways of rulers and majority who had not
  1. British created separate inheritance laws for Muslims and Hindus
1. Some anti-British patriots began to cast India in Hindu terms which threatened minority Muslims who feared a Hindu-dominated India
2. The beginnings of what became in the twentieth century a profound religious and political division within the South Asian peninsula
  1. Some Africans became to think of an “African identity” whereas previously thought of themselves as members of local communities
1. C.A. Diop, a French-educated scholar from Senegal, insisted that Egyptian civilization was in fact the work of black Africans
  1. Diop argued that Western civilization owed much to Egyptian influence and was therefore derived from Africa
  1. Conquered people began to challenge views of European imperialists

1.Nineteenth-century empires differed from earlier empires because
(A)The modern empires did not require payment of tributes.
(B)Modern empires provided a vehicle for advancement for colonial peoples.
(C)Modern empires were able to thoroughly dominate the economies of their colonies.
(D)Modern empires were not able to thoroughly dominate the economies of their colonies.
(E)All of the above.
2.Which of the following was not an economic motivation for imperialism?
(A)Cheap raw materials from overseas colonies were needed to sustain industrialization.
(B)Overseas colonies offered markets for manufactured goods.
(C)Overseas colonies offered a haven for the settlement of surplus populations.
(D)European and American industry needed more sources of coal.
(E)All were economic motives for imperialism.
3.All of the following improved communication between India and Britain except
(A)Completion of Panama Canal.
(B)Use of steamships.
(C)Invention of the telegraph.
(D)The laying of submarine cables. / 4.The “white man’s burden” proposed by Rudyard Kipling refers to
(A)The cost of creating and supporting an empire.
(B)The moral duty of the west to work to “civilize” the rest of the world.
(C)The cost of abolishing slavery in Africa.
(D)The need for Christian missionaries to undermine Islam in Africa and Asia.
(E)All of the above.
5.One social goal of the British authorities in India was to
(A)Abolish the caste system.
(B)Establish a system of public education.
(C)Convert the local population to Christianity.
(D)Abolish the custom of burning widows with their husbands’ bodies.
(E)All of the above.
6.The colonization of the Belgian Congo is noted for
(A)The spirited resistance of the Congolese people.
(B)The brutal treatment of the Congolese people by King Leopold II.
(C)A policy of free trade that encouraged merchants from all countries.
(D)A policy of religious toleration

Thesis Practice: Continuity and Change over Time

Analyze continuities and changes in India’s social, cultural, and economic systems from 1500 – 1914 C.E. ______

“The most infamous cruelties of forced labor occurred during the early twentieth century in the Congo Free State, then governed personally by Leopold II of Belgium. Private companies in the Congo, operating under the authority of the state, forced villagers to collect rubber, which was much in demand for bicycle and automobile tires, with a reign of terror and abuse that cost millions of lives. One refugee from these horrors described the process.

‘We were always in the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating fields and gardens. Then we starved…We begged the white man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said ‘Go. You are only beasts yourselves…’ When we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our towns and killed us. Many were shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with ropes round their necks and taken away.’ ~ Ways of the World

1-What happened in the Congo Free State? ______

2-Describe the cruelties in the Belgian Congo. ______

Shifts in Methods of Economic Extraction

“By the late 19th century, colonial administratorsattempted to introduce scientific agricultural techniques and to make their subjects work harderand more efficiently to produce cheaper and more abundant raw materials. Among theincentives employed were the introduction of cheap consumer goods, increased taxation, andharsh forced labor. The economies of most colonies were reduced to dependence onindustrialized European nations. Railways and roads were built to facilitate export of rawmaterials. Mining sectors grew dramatically and vast regions were given over to export cropsrather than food. The profits went mainly to European merchants and industrialists. Rawmaterials went to Europe to be made into products for European consumers. Indigenous workersgained little or no reward.” ~ World’s Civilizations

Additional Reflections:

1-Why was the creation of a western-educated elite in the European colonies ultimately the nail in the coffin of imperialism? ______

2-How did European imperialism benefit and harm colonial women? ______