Unit 6: Imperialism

Question 1

Treaty of Tordesillas

Answer 1

After Christopher Columbus discovered America, the Pope issued the Treaty of Tordesillas and divided the continent, giving east to Portugal and the west to Spain

Question 2

Hernan Cortez and Francisco Pizarro

Answer 2

Spain sent explorers to America to conquer the Aztec and Inca empires in modern-day Mexico and Peru

Question 3

Social Hierarchy

Answer 3

In Latin American countries/colonies, there was a social hierarchy based on race: peninsular (Europeans) at the top, creoles (of European descent), mestizos (European and Indian), mulattoes (European and African), Indians, and slaves

Question 4

Imperialists’ objectives

Answer 4

god, gold, and glory

Question 5

Columbian Exchange

Answer 5

the free flow of resources between Europe and the Americas

Question 6

“new imperialism”

Answer 6

interested in spreading commerce, Christianity, and civilization

Question 7

Otto von Bismarck

Answer 7

the first German Chancellor who held the 1885 Berlin Conference to “fairly” divide the continent of Africa among the imperialists

Question 8

King Leopold II

Answer 8

Belgian; referred to the Congo as his “slice of the magnificent cake” & terrorized the colony (30x the size of Belgium), exploiting the land for its rubber, and amputating the arms of rebels

Question 9

Queen Victoria

Answer 9

King Leopold II’s cousin; died a year before the British won the Boer Wars

Question 10

Boer Wars

Answer 10

British won defeating the Dutch and the Zulus and securing South Africa

Question 11

Cecil Rhodes

Answer 11

Diamond businessman who said the British Empire should span “from Cairo to Cape Town”

Question 12

By the turn-of-the-century

Answer 12

British controlled 2/5 of the earth and 1/3 the population; they were dominant because they had superior technology

Question 13

Herbert Spencer

Answer 13

British sociologist who applied British evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin’s theories of natural selection and “survival of the fittest” to humans in what is known as Social Darwinism (racist)

Question 14

The Dutch East India Company

Answer 14

valued the archipelago of Indonesia for its spices

Question 15

Indochina

Answer 15

Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; French held on to Indochina as a colony until the 1950s

Question 16

What was the Sepoy Mutiny

Answer 16

The Indian soldiers rebelled after they were ordered to bit bullets that were greased with animal fat . After the Company lost control the Crown took over and the government was known as the British Raj

Question 17

Mahatma Gandhi

Answer 17

believed in non-violent civil disobedience to secure Indian self-rule; was assassinated in 1948

Question 18

Jawaharlal Nehru

Answer 18

disciple of Gandhi; became the first Prime Minister of India; India was the “Jewel in the Crown” until after WWII when it became independent and it was partitioned into India and Pakistan

Question 19

Spanish American War

Answer 19

the US goal was supposedly to free the Cubans from the Spanish imperialists, but after the war the US acquired territories in the Caribbean and Pacific (including Puerto Rico, Guam, and The Philippines

Question 20

Rudyard Kipling

Answer 20

in response to the American annexation of the Philippines, Kipling wrote the pro-imperialist poem “The White Man’s Burden”

Question 21

Mark Twain

Answer 21

in response to the American annexation of the Philippines, Twain wrote the anti-imperialist treatise “To the Persons Sitting in Darkness”

Question 22

William Seward

Answer 22

Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State who purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867

Question 23

Sanford Dole

Answer 23

a planter who helped depose Queen Liliuokalani and seize Hawaii in 1917

Question 24

John Hay

Answer 24

William McKinley’s Secretary of State who negotiated the Open Door Policy in 1899 to open isolationist China to trade with the West; and despite the Boxer Rebellion, Western influence brought the end of the traditional dynastic system

Question 25

1868 Meiji Restoration

Answer 25

the return of the Emperor and the international education of the samurai in Japan