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European Imperialism. What were the original reasons for exploration?. What were the original reasons for exploration?. God Spread Christianity Gold Find natural resources, especially gold and silver Glory Create a large empire and become more powerful than other European kingdoms.
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What were the original reasons for exploration? • God • Spread Christianity • Gold • Find natural resources, especially gold and silver • Glory • Create a large empire and become more powerful than other European kingdoms
Where did the kingdoms explore/colonize? • Beginning the 1400s (15th c.), explorers set out on behalf of their monarchs to discover and settle new worlds. • Where did they go? • British? • French? • Spanish?
British Colonization Focus: Middle East, southern Africa, India
Spanish Colonization Focus: Central and South America
French Colonization Focus: West Africa and Southeast Asia
Kingdoms Countries • In1648a peace treaty was signed at Westphaliathat ended a war and created a new European political orderbased on the idea of a sovereign state. • Sovereignty: the ability to govern oneself without outside interference • State = country • SIGNIFICANCE(huge!): This creates the world as we know it today with countries and firm borders instead of confusing boundaries that shift and overlap.
Who cares? • With the creation of states, people now belong to a country. It is still ruled by a monarch (king/queen/kaiser/tsar) in most places but over centuries people begin to identify as a group based on their country. “We are British.” “We are French.” • This feeling of pride for one’s country is called nationalism.
European Imperialism • Countries continue to explore and colonize, trying to gain glory for their country. • Throughout the 19th century most of Europe had become involved in colonization. Those who had entered the game later had fewer colonies but many European countries had created empires. • Imperialism: the policy of creating empires
Why the 19th century? World History Crash Course: Imperialism (3:40-6:20)
By 1914, the world looked like this… Bonus: Why did I choose 1914?
How did they rule? And why did the colonized put up with it? World History Crash Course: Imperialism (8:18-10:30)
Nationalism Gone Wrong (example 1 of many) • In an empire, the “mother country” is always treated better/higher than the dependent countries or groups. Otherwise, the system would fall apart. (People don’t usually choose to be subjects in an empire – it is forced upon them from above.) • So how was European Imperialism justified?
Scientific Racism • Darwin published his Origin of the Species in 1859, right in the middle of the age of European Imperialism. • His argument was that humans had evolved from lower species through a process of “survival of the fittest.” • How could this be used to justify European Imperialism?
Racism was not new… • Many Enlightenment thinkers, such as Voltaire, expressed racist views based on white supremacy. • “It is a serious question among them whether the Africans are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything.” • But with the publication of Darwin’s scientific theory, many white Europeans had their racist ideas “confirmed” through science.
Foreshadowing? • This is the mindset of most of the European (and American)people that we will be studying in the next few units. • Keep this in the back of your mind as we go through the first half of the 20th century. • What might this (scientific racism/white supremacy) be foreshadowing?
