Imperialism: The 2nd Wave of European Conquest
In the 19th century, the second wave of European and western expansion occurred. This wave of European conquest took place in Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. While Europe had interacted with these regions since the 16th and 17th centuries, European nations primarily established trading post empires and coastal settlements. Europeans established direct colonial control only in a few places, such as the Philippines in Southeast Asia or Goa along the western Indian coast.
In North America, the newly formed American and Canadian nations continued their westward expansion into native nations’ territories. Later in the 19th century, Japan began an empire of its own.
What is imperialism?
Imperialism is when one nation extends its power over foreign territories and people. This extension of the outside group’s control can occur through military force or without force by gaining control over a nation’s economy and resources.
The terms colonization and imperialism are often used interchangeably.
Rationales for imperialism
Like first-wave colonization in the 16th and 17th centuries, second-wave imperialism conquered other peoples’ societies, economies, and territories. By the 19th century, voices of opposition against imperialism and colonization were getting louder. Those who supported the practice needed justifications for their policies. Supporters of imperialism created various cultural, religious, and racial ideologies to rationalize the theft of land and export of native culture and wealth to colonizing nations.
- The desire for raw materials
- Markets to sell European manufactured goods
- Investment of money abroad
- Foreign exports kept workers employed
“What do nations care about the cost of war, if by spending a few hundred millions in steel and gunpowder they can gain a thousand millions in diamonds and cocoa?”
—W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963), anti-imperialist American writer, historian, and sociologist
- Colonies were viewed as symbols of powerful nations
- Newly unified German and Italian nations desired colonies
“Germany has begun her colonial enterprise very late, and was, therefore, at the disadvantage of finding all the desirable places already occupied.”
–Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), German politician and architect of German political unification
- Based on Charles Darwin’s ideas on evolution
- Believed powerful social groups were genetically superior
- Saw colonized people as inferior and in need of colonial “protection”
- Rejected all types of social support for weaker social groups as protection of the inferior
- Often supported eugenics, which argued that “undesirables” should be removed from the gene pool by preventing “unfit” individuals from reproducing
“The ultimate goal of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
–Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), English philosopher and biologist
- Western nations had a duty to civilize the uncivilized nations of the world
- Civilizing meant bringing western culture to the nations of the world
“Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go send your sons to exile
To serve your captives need”
–Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), English journalist, poet, and writer
- Promote the spread of the Christian religion
“The only reason why our theological views are not as foolish and corrupting as theirs (Ethiopians), and that we are not believers in witchcraft, devil-worship, and a thousand other foolish things, is simply because the light of Heaven shines upon us”
–Daniel Kumler Flickinger (1824-1911), an American missionary in Africa
Scientific Racism and Eugenics
Scientific racism was the attempt to use science to justify racist ideas that white Europeans were genetically superior to people of color and Asian races.
Scientific racism had roots back to the 1600s during the European Scientific Revolution. Colonizers were obsessed with categorizing colonized peoples. Scientific racism developed as a pseudoscience (not scientific but tried to look scientific) that used biological identifiers to rank various races and subgroups within a hierarchy of inferiors and superiors. Whites placed themselves at the top of the hierarchy and people of color at the bottom.
Eugenics
Eugenics developed from scientific racism by arguing that scientists could control human reproduction to prevent the reproduction of inferior people. Eugenicists advocated for the forced sterilization of those deemed inferior.
Scientific racism and eugenics lost most of their advocates following World War 2 after Hitler used these ideas to rationalize genocide in his extermination camps in NAZI-occupied Europe.