9.5 Imperialism and the Scramble for Africa

Notes

Imperialism is the policy of a stronger nation taking control of weaker lands politically, economically or socially. It peaked from about 1870 to 1914.

• Causes: economic (raw materials like rubber and minerals, new markets), political (nationalism, prestige, naval bases), social (a belief in racial superiority, called Social Darwinism, and missionary goals) and technology (steamships, railroads, the Maxim gun and quinine to treat malaria).
• Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden" (1899) expressed the racist idea that Europeans had a duty to "civilize" others.
• At the Berlin Conference (1884 to 1885), European powers set rules for dividing Africa. No Africans were invited. Borders often split ethnic groups or combined rivals.
• By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia were independent. Ethiopia's emperor Menelik II defeated Italy at the Battle of Adwa (1896).
• In the Congo Free State, King Leopold II of Belgium ran a brutal rubber system; millions died.
• Resistance included the Zulu in southern Africa and the Maji Maji Rebellion (1905) against German rule in East Africa. Britain fought Dutch-descended settlers in the Boer War (1899 to 1902).