Advanced World History—Semester B

Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 10.03: How to Win Wars and Intimidate People

This elephant doesn't buy the "it's for your own good" argument. Side-eye FTW!
(Source)

In terms of things that are hard to justify, you might think that imperialism would be right up there with deep-fried cheesecake. Like, we're obviously going to eat it, but we'll know we're doing a bad thing.

Imperialists, by contrast, didn't tend to feel that guilty about putting their own economic interests ahead of other people's happiness, safety, independence, etc.—not because everyone in the 19th-century was a selfish monster, but because they lived in a cultural atmosphere that made imperialism look reasonable and sometimes even good. Inequality at home had surged as a result of the Industrial Revolution, and the ideas that got tossed around in an attempt to justify class inequality (think: poor people are just lazy) combined with forces like racism to create a kind of perfect storm for imperialism.

According to this line of thought, the rest of the world just didn't measure up to Western Europe and America. At best, other people were "backwards," but not hopelessly so: with enough coaching, they could be brought up to speed. At worst, they were deemed racially inferior and therefore undeserving of basic rights. Either way, conquering them, exploiting them, forcing them to change their way of life, etc. was all totally legit. Obviously, these justifications were nonsense, but they served their purpose: they let people take part in colonialism without feeling terrible 24/7.

As widespread as these ideas were, though, they didn't take root everywhere. For one thing, they didn't tend to be a hit with the people being colonized. Shocking, right? Even elsewhere, though, alternatives to imperialism were cropping up. Sure, they sometimes rejected Western imperialism in favor of some empire-building of their own, but you take your anti-imperialist victories where you can.

Or, as we're sure the social Darwinists loved to say: beggars can't be choosers.

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 10.10.03: Empire States of Mind

Lies Imperialists Told Me

Ever had your words taken entirely and annoyingly out of context? Maybe your aunt thought you were talking about her cat when someone told her you "hate pickles," or maybe everyone heard that you'd claimed the Tooth Fairy was real…but didn't hear that you'd said that while playing around with your five-year-old cousin.

If you've ever been the victim of this kind of misunderstanding, we're guessing Charles Darwin feels your pain. A handful of jerks coopted his theory of natural selection to justify trampling all over anyone who wasn't rich and European, even though Darwin himself was a critic of inequality (Source). The school of thought these folks founded even bears Darwin's name: that's gotta sting.

Just as a recap for anyone who might have dozed off in biology: Darwin famously speculated that human beings had only become human beings after millions of years of evolution, instead of being dropped into the world readymade. This was an upsetting idea to a lot of people, mostly because it conflicted with the story of creation as told in the Bible.

Even beyond that, though, it was kind of a grim way of viewing the world; according to Darwin, species evolved because certain kinds of traits were more likely to be passed on than others—specifically, traits that helped an organism stay alive long enough to reproduce. Individuals that lacked these traits were basically genetic dead ends, and fell by the wayside in favor of others who were better adapted.

Well…we think that's kind of dark, because we're nice people that don't like to think about dying puppies and whatnot. Some people, though, heard Darwin's theory and were like, "Score! But could you maybe kick it up a notch, please?"

The most famous of those people was a guy named Herbert Spencer, who took the idea of natural selection and applied it to disciplines we'd now call economics, sociology, anthropology, etc. According to Spencer, human society operated according to the same principles as evolution; people with "good" traits (hard work, ambition, intelligence, etc.) rose to the top, while people with "bad" traits (laziness, ignorance, etc.) sank to the bottom. Furthermore, Spencer thought that this phenomenon was a good thing that helped society progress, because the best people grew powerful and influential, while the worst were weeded out (Source).

No, we're not exaggerating. See for yourself:

The well-being of existing humanity, and the unfolding of it into this ultimate perfection, are both secured by that same beneficent, though severe discipline, to which the animate creation at large is subject: a discipline which is pitiless i the working out of good: a felicity-pursuing law which never swerves for the avoidance of partial and temporary suffering. The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many "in shallows and in miseries," are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence. It seems hard that an unskilfulness which with all his efforts he cannot overcome, should entail hunger upon the artizan. It seems hard that a labourer incapacitated by sickness from competing with his stronger fellows, should have to bear the resulting privations. It seems hard that widows and orphans should be left to struggle for life or death. Nevertheless, when regarded not separately, but in connection with the interests of universal humanity, these harsh fatalities are seen to be full of the highest beneficence

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, 1851
(Source)

At the risk of stating the obvious, let's just tease out a few of the problems with that theory, shall we?

• It assumes that certain kinds of traits (e.g. ambition) are better than others that are arguably just as important (e.g. the kind of compassion that might prevent you from doing whatever it takes to get ahead).
• It assumes that certain kinds of people do, in fact, "rise to the top." As you can probably imagine, the average 19th-century street urchin didn't have much of a shot at becoming a factory owner, no matter how hard-working he was; in other words, a person's success in life depends on a lot of factors (what social class they happen to be born into) that have nothing to do with personal character.
• If you go all-out on the "scientific" underpinnings of the theory and assume that character traits are hereditary, you can end up in a very scary place: "People dying in the streets? Good riddance—they obviously couldn't hack it, and we don't want them to pass that on."

Darwin Would Not Approve

So yeah: social Darwinism was pretty horrific, but it became popular in the 19th century because it gave wealthy people a reason to actually feel good about the fact that they were buying their fifth pair of diamond cufflinks while the people they employed tried to scrape together enough money for dinner.

Spencer himself was most interested in the class-based implications of his theory, arguing that it justified a completely free-market economy where everyone was free to amass as much wealth as they could, regardless of the consequences to others; in fact, social Darwinists typically argued that policies designed to address poverty were not only useless but actually bad, because they flew in the face of nature. As a result, they championed things like the reformed English Poor Law of 1834, which changed what had been an early attempt at social welfare into a "workhouse" system that basically imprisoned poor people (Source).

Anyway, it's not a huge leap to take what Spencer said about the British class system and apply it to the entire world. According to this line of thought, Western powers had every right to go around bullying other peoples, because those other peoples obviously weren't the "fittest"—if they were, they'd be the ones barging around the world grabbing other people's stuff. In its most extreme articulations, this view was used to excuse forced displacement if not outright genocide, since other races were seen as just standing in the way of humanity's evolutionary progress.

Check it:

Let us suppose we could prevent the white man, if we liked, from going to lands of which the agricultural and mineral resources are not worked to the full; then I should say a thousand times better for him that he should not go than that he should settle down and live alongside the inferior race. The only healthy alternative is that he should go and completely drive out the inferior race. That is practically what the white man has done in North America…But I venture to say that no man calmly judging will wish either that the whites had never gone to America, or would desire that white and Red Indians were to-day living alongside each other as negro and white in the Southern States, as Kaffir and European in South Africa, still less that they had mixed their blood as Spaniard and Indian in South America…I venture to assert, then, that the struggle for existence between white man and red man, painful and even terrible as it was in its details, has given us a good far out-balancing its immediate evil. In place of the red man, contributing practically nothing to the work and thought of the world, we have a great nation, mistress of many arts, and able, with its youthful imagination and fresh, untrammeled impulses, to contribute much to the common stock of civilized man

Karl Pearson, "National Life from the Standpoint of Science," 1900
(Source)

Oof.

But wait: there's more! A lot of social Darwinism's appeal lay in the fact that it was "scientific"; people in the 19th century were still riding the Enlightenment wave, and any idea that couched itself in terms of reason and cold, hard truth was bound to be popular. So it's not surprising that the social Darwinist "justifications" for imperialism were strengthened by other pseudoscientific ideas floating around at the time—for instance, phrenology, which is the "study" of personality and intelligence based on, um, head shape. We're not kidding.

Needless to say, this is about as scientific as that online quiz purporting to know your Myers-Briggs based on your ice cream preferences. It was wildly popular in the 1800s, however, when it quickly went from being a parlor trick to ammunition for racists; people like Samuel George Morton argued that it was possible to prove the "natural" superiority of white people based on the size and proportions of their skulls.

This racial phrenology—along with similar ideas like social Darwinism—is known as scientific racism and it really took off in the 1800s, partly thanks (or no thanks) to slavery: it's easier to treat people as possessions if you tell yourself that that's all they're capable of, or that they're not really people at all.

However, the idea that certain groups (especially African peoples, but more broadly anyone who wasn't from Western Europe) were inferior hung around even after slavery was on its way out; Francis Galton, for instance, gave scientific racism a eugenics-y spin by advising people to selectively pair off based on intelligence.

Maybe even more significantly, Galton ranked different races' intelligence in ridiculous amounts of detail—think Northern English as opposed to generic English—and that sort of slicing and dicing was a mainstay of imperialist policy. For instance, while the Hutu/Tutsi ethnic divide in Rwanda predated colonialism, the Belgians gave the Tutsi preferential treatment largely because they were seen as being more "European" in appearance (and therefore, more "European" in terms of abilities, too…whatever that means).

Oh, and did we mention that this is also the era when philosophers like Thomas Malthus argued that phenomena like famine and disease acted as checks on overpopulation—ring any bells about, say, British colonial policy in India?

Not everyone was so flagrantly prejudiced, of course. But even people who didn't buy into the idea that other races were hopelessly inferior tended to believe they at least needed to get their priorities in order, courtesy of some Western help. This was a particularly common idea among the Christian missionaries who traveled to Asia and Africa, but it wasn't exclusive to religion. For instance, here's an excerpt from Rudyard Kipling's 1899 poem "The White Man's Burden":

Take up the White Man's Burden—
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper—
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

(Source)

In fairness, we should tell you that some critics think Kipling was being sarcastic when he wrote this. Still, it kind of says a lot about the prevailing attitude, doesn't it?

Fighting Back

One of the bad things about this pro-imperialist way of thinking (besides, you know, everything) is that it's hard to snap out of, even if it would really, really benefit you to do so. For colonized peoples, it often paid to play along with imperialist attitudes; being "grateful" for what your colonizers are doing can mean more and better opportunities—educational, economic, whatever. Unfortunately, it's hard to play along with a stereotype without starting to believe that it's true, so imperialism often ended up distorting colonized peoples' attitudes about themselves and their culture.

Some people, though, did manage to withstand the pull of imperialism. Resistance to colonialism was widespread, and we'll be looking at several examples in Lesson 5. Just to tide you over, though, let's spend a few minutes talking about one we've already mentioned: the Cherokee response to the Indian Removal Act, which not only challenged imperialist practices, but also the belief system behind them.

Although the Indian Removal Act itself was only passed in 1830, Cherokee leaders like John Ross could see the writing on the wall long before then, and began to plan accordingly. Ross (who was biracial) used his familiarity with American law and politics to try to beat the U.S. government at its own game.

In the late 1820s, the Cherokee worked to be recognized as a sovereign nation—the kind that, in theory, can't just be invaded on a whim (Source). When the state of Georgia continued trying to force the Cherokee out, Ross took them to court.

Twice.

The Cherokee ultimately came out on top of this legal battle; in Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court decided that the Cherokee Nation was, in fact, a nation. Unfortunately, this didn't prevent the federal government from meddling in its affairs, and in 1835, it cherry-picked a handful of Cherokee to sign a treaty disposing of their land. This was so obviously sketchy that even some members of the U.S. government protested, so you can bet Ross himself had something to say about it. Here's an excerpt from the letter he sent to Congress:

By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.

…

The instrument in question is not the act of our Nation; we are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people. The makers of it sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country. And we are constrained solemnly to declare, that we cannot but contemplate the enforcement of the stipulations of this instrument on us, against our consent, as an act of injustice and oppression, which, we are well persuaded, can never knowingly be countenanced by the Government and people of the United States

John Ross, 1836
(Source)

Did you catch how Ross simultaneously drew on concepts like the right to private property (shout-out to Lesson 1) while also defending the rights of the Cherokee to do things their own way, with "Chiefs, Head men," etc.? Yes, the Cherokee were eventually forced to relocate anyway, but the resistance they put up was pretty spectacular.

Ottoman: Not Just a Chair For Your Feet

If it's successful resistance you're looking for, the list is sadly a lot shorter. However, one region of the world that did manage to land a few hits against a powerful empire was the Balkans.

As you hopefully remember, the Balkans had been under Ottoman rule for like a zillion years by the time the 19th century rolled around. Well, more like three to four centuries—varying from region to region—but who's counting? Point is, it had been a long time since Serbia and Romania's glory days (and even longer since Greece's).

Now, when we think of imperialism in the 19th century, we typically don't think of the Ottoman Empire, what with all the stuff Britain and France were getting up to. And in some ways, living under Ottoman rule wasn't the literal worst (er…at least until the 20th century).

For instance, rulers tended to be tolerant of other religions—at least Christianity and Judaism (Source). "Tolerant," though, doesn't necessarily mean "totally cool with"; the majority of people in the Balkans were Orthodox Christians, and their laws and customs were still ultimately subordinate to Ottoman law (which was influenced by but not identical to Islamic law).

Maybe more importantly, though, the Balkans were well positioned to hear about the changes taking place in Western Europe throughout the 18th and 19th centuries—Enlightenment, revolutions, and even Romanticism (which often involved a nostalgia for folk like and traditional cultural identity). The Greeks in particular had multiple opportunities to learn about those things, because many were merchants or ambassadors who travelled frequently (Source).

Other regions came by the same influences via different routes; for instance, the proximity of the Austrian Empire to Serbia meant that some Serbs were able to gain military experience serving in the Austrian army (Source). Which brings us to another point: as Western European military technology improved, they (and their ideas) came closer and closer to the Ottoman heartland.

Events finally came to a head in Serbia, where local government had been destabilized as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. Although the uprising that began in 1804 was initially a campaign against the violence on the ground, the sultan's refusal to compromise drove the rebels further toward demanding independence. Still, defeating a massive empire isn't the kind of thing you can just knock off in time for summer vacation; it took about a decade of on-and-off fighting to bring the Ottoman Empire to the table, and even then, Serbia didn't become fully autonomous right away.

From 1815 to 1878, Serbia technically remained in the Ottoman Empire, although in practice it became more independent throughout the period, gaining limited self-government (e.g. an assembly) in 1815, full control over its internal affairs in 1830, a constitution in 1835, etc. (Source).

The Greeks came by their independence a little differently. They launched a carefully planned uprising in 1821, but quickly found themselves struggling to control class-based infighting among themselves. Fortunately, they had friends in high places. Britain, France, and Russia initially all had different hopes for how the revolution in Greece would go down, but they set their differences aside in the face of a common enemy: Egypt, which invaded Greece in 1825.

To prevent Egypt from becoming a major player on the world stage, the Brits, French, and Russians intervened on the side of the Greeks, and the tide of the war turned. Greece gained its independence in 1830 and went on to do some pretty rad things like redistribute land to the peasantry. So everything was good, except for the part where Greece somehow ended up with a German ruler, leading to governmental instability and a series of coups (Source).

Well, you can't have everything.

Speaking of which, the reason we've talked mostly about Serbia and Greece is that those rebellions were successful. The 19th century was full of unrest in the Balkans, but a lot of it ultimately came to nothing, at least in the short term. Bosnian, Bulgarian, and Romanian uprisings were suppressed, sometimes very brutally.

The major turning point for these states was the 1877 ¬– 1888 Russo-Turkish War (which, despite its name, was more about the Balkans than anything else). The 1878 Congress of Berlin recognized Romanian independence, gave Bulgaria some autonomy, and placed Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austro-Hungarian occupation, laying the groundwork for WWI.

Like we said: you can't have everything.

Movers and Shaka-rs

Resistance to Western imperialism didn't always take place within the areas being colonized (imperialized?). Sometimes, alternatives to it arose in neighboring regions, in the form of independent states.

Unfortunately, some of those independent states were imperialist themselves. Go figure.

Take the Zulu Kingdom, which was established right before European imperialism in Africa kicked into hyperdrive. In the late 18th century, the Zulu controlled a small kingdom in southeastern Africa, but Shaka Zulu—the son of a Zulu chief—had big plans. After getting in good with the army, Shaka had the resources he needed to launch a coup against his brother and take power himself.

That was Step One. Step Two involved revolutionizing the Zulu army and using it to carve out a large empire; Shaka changed up the weapons and strategies used by the Zulu, and quickly succeeded in subduing chiefdoms like the Ndwandwe, Thembu, and Chunu. And by "subduing," we mean that he might have killed as many as a million people, and displaced many others as chiefdoms fled his army and invaded neighboring territories themselves. Once a region was under his control, Shaka typically used local rulers to maintain order, in true imperial style (Source).

All this makes Shaka a tough nut to crack. On the one hand, we kind of want to root for the guy who created an empire right on the doorstep of British South Africa. On the other, we really don't want to condone mass killings—that's just not cool.

Regardless of what you think of Shaka, though, it's hard not to feel a little sad about what became of the Zulu Kingdom. Shaka himself only ruled for ten years before he himself was assassinated (it's kind of a job hazard, when you're an emperor). This marked the beginning of the end for his kingdom.

By 1878, the Brits were eager to consolidate their control over South Africa, and also hoped to put the Zulu to work mining diamonds (Source). For that reason, demanded that the Zulu king at the time—Cetshwayo—resign, and also hand over all his weapons for good measure.

This kicked off the Anglo-Zulu War, which ended pretty badly for the Zulu; good farmland was confiscated for European settlers, and the Zulu chiefs were incorporated into the British colonial bureaucracy (Source).

Yeah: it's kind of like if Daenerys Targaryen ended up working for the Pawnee Parks Department. Except way worse, because Cecil Rhodes was no Ron Swanson.

Needless to say, this wasn't to the taste of a lot of Zulu, which is one reason why unrest continued throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Alas, a lot of that unrest was internal and counterproductive; anti-British factions fought with British-appointed chiefs, occasionally asking the Boers for help.

Bad move: the Boers ended up snatching a bunch of Zulu land, and the British stepped in to "restore order" (Source). If you know what we mean, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 10.03a: Imperialist Is as Imperialist Does

We've seen a lot of empires in this course. So it's a little weird that historians sometimes refer to the time period we're studying now—the 18th and 19th centuries—as the "Age of Imperialism." Like, Imperial Rome wasn't imperial enough for you, buddy?

The thing is, modern Western-style imperialism has had such a dramatic effect on recent history that it's kind of hard not to treat it as its own thing. It's worth asking, though, whether the Age of Imperialism (which typically refers only to Western imperialism during the 18th and 19th centuries) differed from other kinds of imperialism in kind, or just in scope. After all, if you were one of the people killed during Shaka Zulu's raids, you might not particularly care that it was an African rather than a European that killed you.

Or maybe you would—you tell us.

Step One

Time to consult Professor Google. Take five to ten minutes to research Shaka Zulu in a little more detail, mulling over the following questions:

• How Shaka built his empire (i.e. what military or diplomatic tactics did he use)?
• Why Shaka built his empire. Was there some underlying belief system at play, was he short on cash, etc.?
• What the effects of Shaka's empire were

Step Two

When you're finished, compare your answers to the above questions to the causes and effects of Western imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Was Western imperialism mostly similar to imperialism as practiced by Shaka Zulu, or mostly different, and why? Tell us your opinion in 250 to 350 words, and post your answer to the discussion board, being sure to include links to any sources you consulted.

Here's a Shmooptake on the topic:

Despite some surface similarities, Western imperialism was generally very different than other kinds of imperialism, including the empire-building of Shaka Zulu. Although Shaka used military force to extend his rule and killed many people in the process, his conquests weren't based on any overarching belief in the inferiority of non-Zulu peoples; in fact, Shaka often incorporated conquered forces into his own army (Source). Similarly, while Shaka did promote the adoption of Zulu cultural identity (e.g. Zulu origin stories) this likely had less to do with ideological concerns than it did with the need to encourage cohesion in a large and diverse empire (Source).

By contrast, Western imperialism in the 19th century was inspired and reinforced by concepts like social Darwinism, which maintained that the "fittest" people naturally rose to the top of social power structures. This not only "justified" imperialist practices, but also supported racist beliefs about the supposedly natural inferiority of non-Europeans. In extreme cases, it even led Western powers to see the populations they conquered as totally expendable, leading to atrocities like those committed in the Belgian Congo. In other words, Western imperialism was based on a more sweeping ideology than other forms of imperialism, and this made its effects particularly long-lasting and dangerous.

BTW, you're totally free to draw on examples of empires other than the ones we've talked about in this unit to back up your argument; just make sure the focus stays mostly on the Zulu Kingdom and Western imperialism.

Have at it.

Step Three

Now that you've finished your own response, check out what your peers have to say. Read over the arguments and select two to reply to—because you disagree with them, because they made you consider an angle you hadn't thought about, whatevs. Just make sure you can write about 50 to 100 words in response to each.

For instance:

I see what you're saying about the ideologies that supported Western imperialism, but I don't think that's so unique to this period of history. The Romans, for instance, thought that a lot of the peoples they conquered were savage and uncivilized. I think there's always a tendency to dehumanize people that you're taking advantage of.

Now you.

Sample Lesson - Activity