Week 2- Chapter 25 Flashcards
Define quinine
Extracted from the bark, isolated and named by Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Caventou in 1820, purified quinine and replaced bark as the standard treatment for malaria. Previously, Malaria had decimated Europeans in the tropics, but the better treatment allowed Europe to build its empire more successfully in 1880.
Define palm oil
a tropical product native to West Africa, was widely used to produce soap. The British government promoted its cultivation as a substitute for the slave trade. This shift in African trade was one of the most significant developments in the region before European colonization. It marked the beginning of modern economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. The sale of palm oil from West Africa to Britain increased dramatically, from only one thousand tons in 1810 to over forty thousand tons in 1855. The sale of palm oil proved to be useful for Europe’s industrialization, as it was used to lubricate machines and manufacture cheap soap and other cosmetic products.
Define jihad
- A religious war waged by Muslim scholars and religious leaders against animist rulers and in corrupt Islamic states in the early 18th century.
- Uthman dan Fodio’s Jihad in 1804 had profound consequences for Africa and the Sudan.
- First, the caliphate was governed by a sophisticated written constitution based on Islamic history and law.
- This government of laws, rather than men, provided stability and made Sokoto one of the most prosperous regions in tropical Africa.
- Second, because of Sokoto and other revivalist states, Islam became much more widely and deeply rooted in sub-Saharan Africa than ever before.
- Finally, Islam had always approved of slavery for non-Muslims and Muslim heretics, and “the jihads created a new slaving frontier on the basis of rejuvenated Islam.” In 1900 the Sokoto caliphate had at least 1 million and perhaps as many as 2.5 million slaves.
Define Sokoto caliphate
A revivalist state created in 1804, founded by Uthman dan Fodio. After Gobir’s rulers attacked his religious community, Uthman launched the jihad of 1804, one of the most important events in nineteenth-century West Africa. The triumph of the Sokoto caliphate had profound consequences for Africa and the Sudan. First, the caliphate was governed by a sophisticated written constitution based on Islamic history and law. This government of laws, rather than men, provided stability and made Sokoto one of the most prosperous regions in tropical Africa. Second, because of Sokoto and other revivalist states, Islam became much more widely and deeply rooted in sub-Saharan Africa than ever before. Finally, Islam had always approved of slavery for non-Muslims and Muslim heretics, and “the jihads created a new slaving frontier based on rejuvenated Islam.” In 1900, the Sokoto caliphate had at least 1 million and perhaps as many as 2.5 million slaves.
Define Berlin Conference
The Berlin Conference, where Africans were not invited, established the principle that European claims to African territory had to rest on “effective occupation” to be recognized by other states. A nation could establish a colony only if it had effectively taken possession of the territory through signed treaties with local leaders and begun developing it economically. The representatives at the conference recognized Leopold’s rule over the Congo Free State. In addition to developing rules for imperialist competition, participants at the Berlin Conference agreed to care for the native peoples’ moral and material well-being, bring Christianity and civilization to Africa, and suppress slavery and the slave trade. These rules and agreements were contained in the General Act of the conference. However, these ideals ran a distant second and were not allowed to interfere with the nations’ primary goal of commerce — holding on to their old markets and exploiting new ones.
Define protectorate
Autonomous states or territories are partly controlled and protected by a stronger outside power.
- In 1884 and 1885, Bismarck’s Germany established protectorates over a number of small African kingdoms and societies.
- From 1888 to 1893, Rhodes used missionaries and his British South Africa Company, chartered by the British government, to force African chiefs to accept British protectorates.
- He managed to add Southern and Northern Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe and Zambia) to the British Empire.
- In 1894 China’s helplessness after sino- Japenese war led to a scramble among the European powers for concessions and protectorates in China.
Define Afrikaners
- South African descendants of the original Dutch settlers/ Boers.
- After 1815, they fought against British colonial forces and African chiefdoms to build strong states in southern Africa.
-In 1836, Great Trek northward into the interior. Over the next thirty years, Afrikaner and British settlers reached a mutually advantageous division of southern Africa. - discovery of incredibly rich deposits of diamonds in 1867 in the Afrikaners’ Transvaal, so Rhodes initiated a series of events that sparked the South African War of 1899-1902 (also known as the Anglo-Boer War).
- The British needed 450,000 troops to crush the Afrikaners, who never had more than 30,000 men in the field.
- The British had promised the Afrikaner’s representative government in return for surrender in 1902, and they made good on their pledge. In 1910 the Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal formed a new self-governing Union of South Africa.
- After the peace settlement, Afrikaners began to regain what they had lost on the battlefield.
- South Africa, under a joint British-Afrikaner government within the British Empire, began the creation of a modern segregated society that culminated in an even harsher system of racial separation, or apartheid, after World War II.
Define New Imperialism
New Imperialism refers to the late-nineteenth-century drive by European countries to create vast political empires abroad. Sparked significantly by the Long Depression, this era was characterized by a frenzied rush to expand territorial control, particularly notable in the seizure of almost all of Africa, with substantial but less dramatic expansion in Asia. The economic gains from these new colonies were limited before 1914, as they were too impoverished to provide significant markets or profitable investments. However, these colonies held considerable political and diplomatic value, deemed crucial for national security, military power, and international prestige by the leading European nations.
Key differences from old imperialism included using advanced weaponry, steamboats, railways, telegraph communication, and medical advancements like quinine. These technological innovations enabled a more intense form of colonialism. Motivations shifted from the earlier economic pursuits, such as the slave trade, to a blend of economic, nationalistic, and civilizing missions. The rise of nationalism created a need for countries to assert themselves, supported by propaganda at home. Industrial competition, involving economists, bankers, and traders, played a significant role alongside military superiority and a civilizing mission.
New Imperialism was further characterized by geopolitical strategies, realpolitik, and international cooperation through conferences, which helped legitimize the restructuring of borders and the intense scramble for colonies.
Define the white man’s burden
The idea that Europeans could and should civilize more primitive nonwhite peoples and that imperialism would eventually provide nonwhites with modern
achievements and higher standards of living. Originated from a poem by Rudyard Kipling.
Define Tanzimat
A set of radical reforms designed to remake the Ottoman Empire on a western European model.
Define Young Turks
Fervent patriots who seized power in the revolution of 1908, forcing the
conservative sultan to implement reforms; they helped pave the way for the birth of modern secular Turkey.
Define great migration
The mass movement of people from Europe in the nineteenth century; one reason that the West’s impact on the world was so powerful and complex.
Define migration chain
The movement of peoples in which one strong individual blazes the way
and others follow.
Define great white walls
Discriminatory laws passed by Americans and Australians to keep Asians from settling in their countries in the 1880s.
What were the most significant changes in Africa during the nineteenth century, and why did they occur?
- Decrease in Atlantic slave trade due to humanitarian concerns from the British and France but also as it was an obstacle to their economic interests in Africa, too
- Palm oil sales from West Africa to Britain were from only one thousand tons in 1810 to more than forty thousand tons in 1855.
- peanut production for export also grew rapidly, partly because small, independent African family farmers and large-scale enterprises could produce peanuts for the substantial American and European markets.
- the transatlantic slave trade’s slow decline coincided with the most intensive use of slaves within Africa.
- Unfortunately for West Africans, in the 1880s and 1890s, African business leadership gave way to imperial subordination.
- In 1880, Europeans controlled barely 20 per cent of the African continent, mainly along the coast; by 1914, they controlled over 90 per cent. Only Ethiopia in northeast Africa and Liberia on the West African coast remained independent
