Imperialism and Colonialism in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Imperial Expansion
From Colonialism to Imperialism
The former colonial powers were already in the late nineteenth century a very secondary place:
- Spain: only kept Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines
- Portugal had Angola and Mozambique in Africa, Goa, Indonesia, and Macau in China
- The Netherlands retained Java.
Throughout the nineteenth century there was a strong current of European emigration that placed its surplus population abroad. On the other hand, the crisis of the 70s drove the countries to seek new markets and raw materials sought in the Congo Belgium minerals, Britain and France in Egypt cotton silk in Indochina.
The colony was organized to be controlled and administered by the metropolis. We distinguish three kinds of colonies:
- Colonies of exploitation: In them, the mother was devoted to economic exploitation. They had their own government and the Europeans exerted on them a policy of occupation.
- Colonies of settlement: They were colonies that were white population migrating to settle permanently. They have autonomy in government. The known as British dominions (Canada, Australia …)
- Protectorates: Were territories that after the European occupation, maintained state organization, the Indian government and its own administrative apparatus. The metropolis created a parallel government that deals with foreign policy.
The British Colonial Hegemony
Great Britain formed the greatest colonial empire of the time. The British Empire brought together in 1914, 20% of the Earth’s surface and 25% of the world population. Colonies were spread across all continents, many located in strategic places fundamental (Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore, Hong Kong) that converted to Britain in owns the world’s sea routes.
India was the main colony because of its wide range of wealth, such as tea, spices and cotton. To ensure safe passage to India, the British took control of Suez and Egypt, and to protect against the advancing Russians and French territories conquered Asia. In Africa, Great Britain moved from the south, from its colony of the Cape, to the north, trying to link with Egypt through a vertical continuous corridor. This immense empire was completed by the possession of Canada and much of Oceania and Pacific Islander.
France
The French empire was the second empire in importance and size. In Africa, French expansion in the Mediterranean coast started with the conquest of Algeria and Tunisia and the establishment of a protectorate in Morocco, then won significant territories in central and western Africa. In Asia, the great French acquisitions occurred in Indochina.
Other European Empires
- Russia: No screened outside their own geographical area and sought to expand Land Asia following the tradition begun in the sixteenth century. The expansive action Russia in the nineteenth century went in three directions: incorporation of the lands south Caucasus, the Pacific coastal area (Vladivostok), Turkestan, and Pamir. In the attempt to dominate Manchuria, Russia will be defeated by Japan in the war 1905.
- Germany and Italy: two countries engaged in the process of national unity, belatedly joined the imperialist enterprise. Germany managed to annex after the Berlin Conference some African possessions: Togo, Cameroon and Tanganyika; Oceania: New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, the Marianas and Carolinas Italy held a number of African territories: Eritrea, the Somali coast ocean Indian. Later seized Tripoli and Cyrenaica (in modern Libya) to Turkey.
- Belgium: He secured the domain of the Congo Basin. Leopold II.
The Cast of Africa
It is part of a previous situation in which European powers were present only on the coast, another in which there will be an inch of territory without shared between them. British and French took advantage because they had bases in Africa since the eighteenth century. Both countries dreamed of creating continuous empires: from north to south, the British, from west to this the French. Other powers were late and had to settle with parties pequeñas. La colonial expansion provoked more frequent friction between the powers. To met to avoid the Berlin Conference (1885), organized by Bismarck, in which European powers made a genuine sharing of the African continent. Also adopted the following agreements:
- Recognition of the Congo as a Belgian domain
- The occupation of the coast took a right on the inside
- The Niger and Congo rivers to free navigation
Political maps were altered by the creation of artificial boundaries that nothing had to do with the existing configuration and that forced the union or division of groups tribal and ethnic, causing innumerable conflicts (Rwanda, Liberia, etc..) that have remains to this day.
The consequences of colonization were enormous from the standpoint of positive and negative:
Positive:
- Built in coastal ports with modern facilities
- Staple crops encouraged each territory (monoculture)
- Wins against tropical diseases
Negative:
- Profound transformations of indigenous societies
- Sudden impact of Western culture
- The boundaries of the Europeans did not respect the ethnic map (or cultural each territory). This has left a legacy of tribal hatreds.
Democracy Take Hold
At this stage the European states were gradually democratize: it moved in the field of social legislation, universal male suffrage was widespread and mostly came socialist parties in parliament and masses, the working class, entering the political arena.
The Politics of Democracy
The ruling classes found that, despite their fears, democracy Parliament was compatible with maintaining the capitalist system and order social and political. In 1914 democracy was consolidated in the countries benefiting from advanced economies: Britain, America, France, Belgium, Scandinavia, Germany … He had failed in Czarist Russia and was insufficient in the Empire Hungary and the Mediterranean countries.
United Kingdom lived a golden age (Victorian era). Two parties took turns in the Government: the Conservative (Tory) and liberal (Whig). British structures were stable and progressed gradually.
France lived under the Third Republic, governed by the Constitution of 1875 with measures social protection.
In Germany, the monarchy of the Second Reich was authoritarian, there was a large difference between the economic development and limited political modernity.