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European Nationalism

After losing its American colonies, Britain looked for new lands to open to settlement. In 1788 the first British settlers arrived in the colony of New South Wales on the east coast of the island continent of New Holland today's Australia. (See Topic 6.2.) Britain was also expanding its influence in South Asia, gradually taking control of India from the East India Company. By 1857 Britain controlled the entire Indian subcontinent. Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma (Myanmar), the Malay States (which included Singapore). and parts of Borneo in Southeast Asia were also under British control. France compensated for its humiliating defeat by Prussia in the Franco Prussian War 18701871 by expanding its overseas territories. It had already occupied Algeria in Northern Africa, New Caledonia and other islands in the South Pacific, Senegal in Western Africa, and Indochina in Southeast Asia. Italy and Germany were newly unified states in the late-19th century. Each wanted colonies not only for economic and strategic reasons but also for prestige. However, neither began acquiring an empire until the mid-1880s. While Spain had led the quest for colonies in the first wave of imperialism during the 16th and 17th centuries, its power was greatly diminished by the 19th century. It did not play a dominant role in this second wave of imperialism.

The "New Imperialism"

After the Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Britain was the leading economic power throughout the first half of the 19th century and already had a sizable colonial empire. Its colonies provided raw materials such as cotton, wool, jute, vegetable oils, and rubber for its factories, as well as foodstuffs such as wheat, tea, coffee, cocoa, meat, and butter for its growing cities. Its colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa-also provided markets for British manufactured goods. especially settler colonies As the Second Industrial Revolution progressed, other nations began to challenge Britain's economic lead. They looked to Asia, Africa, and the Pacific to expand their markets, provide raw materials for their factories, and food for their growing urban populations.

Cultural Ideologies

Based on technological superiority over indigenous societies, colonial powers felt justified in superimposing aspects of their own cultures on their colonies. For administrative purposes, many colonies combined into a single colony peoples from several cultures who often spoke different languages and had different customs. Colonizers introduced their own language, which helped to unify these often diverse colonies. They also introduced their political, educational, and religious institutions and exerted other cultural influences on architecture and recreational activities. Expressing the belief of many, Congregationalist minister Josiah Strong wrote in 1885,"Is there room for reasonable doubt that [the Anglo-Saxon] race. .. is destined to dispossess many weaker races, assimilate others, and mold the remainder, until, in a very true and important sense, it has Anglo-Saxonized mankind?"

Japan in East Asia

Japan asserted its nationalist pride through incursions into Korea. This irritated China, a country that had exerted a strong presence in Korea for centuries. The conflict grew into the Sino-Japanese War (1894- 1895). Japan's victory gave it control of Korea, Japan also seized Taiwan, which was known as Formosa from the time of Portuguese colonization in the 16th century until the end of World War II. (Connect: Identify three events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that encouraged the growth of Japanese nationalism. See Topic 5.8.)

Religious motives

Missionaries were among the most tireless "civilizing" influences. Like the Spanish and Portuguese Catholic missionaries who combined conquest and evangelism during the Age of Discovery, British Protestant missionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries also participated in colonization. Critics charged that missionaries supported imperialism by persuading people to give up their traditional beliefs, such as ancestor veneration, and adopt the faith of most Europeans, Christianity. This change in religion could pave the way for others who were more focused on economic gain. In response, missionaries pointed out that they commonly combined religious and humanitarian efforts: • Missionaries often set up schools for instruction in religion that also taught secular subjects, which prepared students to become teachers, lawyers, and other professionals. Many missionaries provided improved medicines and medical care. • Some missionaries, most famously David Livingstone from Scotland, worked in Sub-Saharan Africa to end the illegal slave trade.

East India company

The English monarch granted the East India Company (EIC) a royal charter in 1600 giving it a monopoly on England's trade with India. After driving the Portuguese out of India, the company traded primarily in cotton and silk, indigo, and spices. Eventually, the EIC expanded its activities from the Persian Gulf to East Asia. By the beginning of the 18th century, it had become the major agent of British imperialism in India, and after 1834 it became the British government's managing agency in India. Starting in 1620, the EIC engaged in the slave trade. and during the 19th century it illegally exported opium to China in exchange for tea. The East India Company is often referred to as the English East India Company or, after 1707, the British East India Company to distinguish it from the Dutch East India Company