“White Man’s Burden,” New Imperialism in Europe and the Scramble for Africa

“White Man’s Burden,” New Imperialism in Europe and the Scramble for Africa

After the termination of the American Revolutionary war in 1783 demonstrated the impracticality of maintaining colonies far away from the home country, the world saw a pause in colonization of almost a hundred years. Nations realized that the economic benefits of colonizing distant lands could be gained much more simply through free international trade. A “laissez-faire” policy allows trade with lands and territories without the intervention of the state and proves to be beneficial without the effort and expenses required to dominate the region of trade. However, in 1872, the charismatic (if not comprehensive) speeches of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (image to the right) set off another era of empire building in Europe and especially Britain known as “New Imperialism.”

New Imperialism was not the result of necessity or a logical cause, but a change of attitude in many aspects and for many peoples. Disraeli’s speeches managed to instill in the British people a sense of nationalism and superiority that made their dominance of many different parts of the world a sensible course of action. For some, there was the idea of social Darwinism. That is, Europeans (and once again, British especially) had achieved a much higher level of civilization, culture, and national might than the rest of the world, and therefore their dominance of other countries could be seen as nature taking its course, as if the fact they had the ability to take over other nations meant that they ought to. There was also the so-called “white man’s burden” which meant that Europeans had an obligation to spread their sophistication to the rest of the world (through conquest, of course) to raise them from their lowly and uneducated state. (following links depict the "white man's burden")

Taylors Murphy

Contexts.org

Harpers Weekly Cartoon

Edo-Nation

Image of Kipling's White Man's Burden

A less metaphysically challenged cause for this new outburst of imperialism was the growing tension between European countries. Each of these relatively small countries was expanding in population and industrially while being packed up against one another. To avoid direct conflict, these countries ended up flexing their muscles in other parts of the world, primarily in Africa.

A particularly interesting case is found in the Boer Wars of British South Africa.(See Image Above)

(The British had colonized South Africa and forced the Dutch out because they wanted control of the Cape of Good Hope, but after gold was discovered in the Transvaal Republic (the new home of the Dutch), the Dutch, or Boers (since at this point they were their own civilization), began to grow in influence and stock up on military equipment. Tensions rose between the two colonies and Britain found itself in a war that would last for 3 years and cost a lot of money and many lives. Even after winning the war, it became evident that the country could not maintain an imperial policy when the control of a small country became so difficult. The termination of this conflict coincides with the publication of J. A. Hobson's Imperialism, which criticizes the Imperialist activities of the British Empire, claiming that they benefit only a small group of investors at the expense of the entire nation. The Boer war as well as this publication mark the end of Imperialism in Europe.

Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar

Chelsea Tanous, Stan Roberts, Chris Dean