Early Imperialism

The Rise of Trade, Mercantilism and Imperialism

Imperialism • Empire building • Domination of a stronger nation over a weaker one • Either conquer and control or allow the country to retain independence but must pay taxes to the dominating counrty

Imperialism • Scramble for extending global markets and trade 1)Goods and ideas spread… during this phase medicine, literature and science was shared 2)Need for technologies increased – transportation 3) God, Gold, Glory!

Motivations • • • • • •

C - Colonizing A - Aggressive Expansion M - Missionaries E - Economic Purposes L – Leadership S - Strategic

The Beginnings of Imperialism • In the 1500s, monarchs from Spain, England, France, and Portugal began searching the globe for attractive business opportunities.

Orange Gold • Chinese have grown oranges for 2500 years • At one time, northern Europeans thought of oranges as a very special treat – to be enjoyed only by the privileged on special occasions.

Trading Networks • Over time, extensive trading networks developed overland and overseas, connecting people of the world.

The Silk Road • The Silk Road is the oldest and longest trading network that historians know about. • This route was a network of trails that wended its way up river valleys, over mountains and across deserts.

The Silk Road • Traders would transport goods using pack animals and riverboats. • An extensive network of strategically located trading posts made possible the exchange, distribution, and storage of goods.

The Silk Road • People moved from place to place to conduct business. • They shared knowledge, inventions, religious beliefs, artistic styles, languages and social customs as well as goods.

Social Consequences of the Silk Road

• There was an increase in the •

number of foreign merchants present in China, which exposed the Chinese people to different cultures and religions. Example: Buddhism spread from India to China because of trade along the Silk Road.

The Silk Road • Cities along the route became cultural and artistic centers, where peoples of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds could meet and intermingle.

The Rise of Mercantilism • They developed this into an economic system called MERCANTILISM. …a system of government sponsored international business ventures designed to make European monarchs wealthy.

Mercantilism • Europeans saw the value in the Arabic approach to trade and became involved in international trade to increase their wealth.

The Fur Trade • For example… The fur trade in New France supplied France with inexpensive fur, which the French made into expensive top hats.

Main Goal • These ventures also accomplished their main goal: putting gold and silver into the monarch’s pockets.

Different View • The Indigenous peoples in the territories that they plundered, however, had a different perspective.

Building Wealth • The Europeans treated Indigenous peoples with respect when doing so helped the Europeans build up their wealth. • That was generally the case in New France as First Nations peoples were so crucial to the fur trade.

Refresher: Imperialism Defined • a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force • the building of an empire

Why would any country want to do this? • What would motivate them? • Brainstorm some ideas

Motives Behind 18th C. Imperialism • There were many reasons, or motives, for Imperialism. • The Economic Motives were usually the most important.

THE ECONOMIC MOTIVE Economic Stage

Explanation

Simplest

Lust for loot or tribute

More Developed

Search for raw materials and markets

Most Refined

Mutual economic benefits for colony and parent country.

Simplest Stage • The earliest Spanish explorations provide an example of the simplest stage. The Spaniards hoped to find gold and silver in the new world.

More Developed Stage • Britain s economic interest in the new world reflects the more developed stage. • Once southern plantations began to thrive, raw cotton was shipped to England, made into clothing, and resold to the colonists at a

Most Refined Stage • Britain s promotion of the tea industry in India illustrates the most refined economic stage. • The growth of tea on a mass scale provided widespread employment for Indians, a cheap and popular drink for English people, a product that the British could sell in

The Strategic Motive • Strategic motives often became as important as economic ones • The acquisition of territory to protect the mother country, her colonies, and their lines of communication.

Britain in Egypt in the late 19th C. • motivated mainly by the desire to protect her trade routes to her most important colony, India, • opening and controlling the Suez Canal.

COLONIZING MOTIVE • During the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the colonizing motive was also very important, though it became less important as time went on.

THE COLONIZING MOTIVE • A nation s need to provide space for its surplus, dissident, or criminal population.

Freedom from Oppression • British settlers who came to the New World included poor people in search of a better life, religious dissenters, such as the puritans, and criminals such as the ones who

Lesser Motives • Three other motives, the less important of the ones we have already discussed, were complimentary to imperialist expansion.

Aggressive motive: •The desire for revenge, excitement, power or prestige; the urge to trample weaker peoples and to advertise strength.

Missionary motive • The desire to convert other peoples to a religion, culture, or way of life.

Leadership motive • A country s conviction of its superior ability to provide orderly government, either as a permanent proprietor or as a temporary trustee. • aka White Man s Burden (a poem by Rudyard Kipling)

Examine These late 19th Century Cartoons

Three Main Motives • Most of Europe s imperialist expansion was based on the economic, strategic, and colonizing motives, with other motives like religion playing a lesser part.