Territorial_Expansion

. The impression given by looking at a late Victorian map of the world would make the observer believe that Great Britain ruled most of it. The large amount of red, depicting British holdings seemed to cover large swathes of the planet. How much of this land acquisition was for economic reasons' How much for reasons of defence, or ideological reasons, how much for the sake of political advantage' This essay will discuss what exactly appeared to be the reasons for territorial expansion in the nineteenth century covering not only economic interests but analysing what other factors were relevant and helped to shape the nature of imperialism. Three aspects will be particularly featured here; firstly, from Block Six, (Nations and Imperialism), Africa and the Victorians and the European Powers and Africa followed by, from Block Four, (Slavery and Freedom), A conclusion will be put forward regarding the beneficiaries of such territorial expansion as discussed here – was this merely trade that benefitted, or was there some other aspect that outweighed this' Finally, an answer will emerge following this analysis – to what extent were economic interests the primary motivation for territorial expansion' Britain, of course was not the only imperial power seeking to acquire territories. France, Belgium and Germany, among others, were all queuing up to take a slice for themselves. In the later part of the nineteenth century, it was companies and organisations rather than the British government who were increasing their influence overseas, most notably in Africa. Christian missionaries had travelled the length and breadth of Africa bringing a ‘civilising’ religious message, building places of worship, and places of education, whilst explorers had opened up previously unknown lands. Sending reports home to the popular press, whose readership devoured the tales of this land of plenty, brim full of resources waiting to be exploited. No wonder then, that the British Government allowed private bodies to colonise parts of Africa. This was a shrewd move, in many cases the riches to be gained would not be a viable proposition to extract for a government, but a smaller scale operation run by private companies could make it financially worthwhile. The British government could possibly see the advantages of having British companies operating in the region, as a source of intelligence. These companies held economic rights to mineral resources and could force Africans to work for them. One such company, The British South Africa Company, owned by the multi-millionaire Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) was allowed to govern territory in Zimbabwe, which later became Rhodesia. South Africa generally had been considered not economically viable, but when gold was discovered there in the later part of the century, making the area integral to the world money market, due to the fact that many countries had adopted the Gold Standard, where nations were valued on the size of their precious metal holdings, this fuelled tensions in the region which led to The Second Boer War (1899-1902). This war was fought by the British, in support of Rhodes and his company, but also to safe guard British acquisitions in the region. These events typified the new, more aggressive form of imperialism which came into play in the late Victorian period. This form of colonisation served many purposes, economic - the local labour force paid taxes, and the product of their labour was exploited by Britain, defensive - the companies which were set up acted as early warning centres for potential trouble in the region, and Jingoistic- in the case of any insurrection Britain could stamp down hard and reaffirm its might, thus sending a warning to other potential Imperial powers. It was rule without cost to some extent, as the companies acted as the local administration. While discussing ‘reports home,’ it should be noted that his had not always been the case – that earlier in the century, illiteracy and general lack of education meant that ordinary people were not entirely aware of imperialist activity abroad. Anecdotal material was no doubt popular and consumerism of ‘foreign’ commodities such as sugar was continuing even with little regard or concern for its origins, but mostly the lower classes were never really going to benefit from financial and economic concerns abroad. Not everybody at home in Britain was for this radical imperialism. J A Hobson (1858-1940) famously made the point that empire exploited the British public and the colonised to make a lot of money for the few. Hobson’s writings do much to inform us of the newer more capitalist aspects of imperialism in the late Victorian period, making the link between investment in regions and subsequent annexation of those regions - economics as the raison-d’etre of imperialism. Rather like modern day Afghanistan and any twentieth century conflict, relief and celebration at success must not necessarily be confused with support, particularly amongst those who stood to gain little or nothing from territorial expansion. This is in variance with Edward Said (1935-2003) in his book Orientalism , quoted in Block 6 p54. Here he states in fact that ‘knowledge is power.’ By teaching about and demonstrating aspects of empire – such as, for example, by using novels, poetry and rhetoric to appeal to the learned, or shows, songs and stories to appeal to the uneducated, everyone could form ideas of empire to the effect that knowledge meant superiority. Britain was not the only imperialist power in Africa at that time. There were many other countries which had colonies there, including France, Germany and Spain. The Berlin Africa Conference (Nov 1884-Feb 1885) was on the face of it, an attempt by Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) to stem Britain’s establishment of an “Informal Empire” over much of Africa. The conference was attended by representatives of all the major powers, along with many smaller states. The situation in Africa with European states competing for acquisitions, meant that none of these countries could really afford not to attend. The official reason for the conference had humanitarian ideals, and it did agree measures to end the internal African slave trade, and made for guaranteed navigation along the Congo and Niger rivers, thus opening routes for trade, and a free trade zone was set up in the central part of Africa including the Congo Basin, but to many it looked more like it was set up to partition Africa for the imperialists. After the conference, Leopold II of Belgium (1865-1909) set up The Congo Free State. Belgium was then still a new state, having been formed as recently as 1831. Leopold saw colonisation of The Congo as a way of strengthening Belgium’s position in the wider world politically, as well as being beneficial economically. He also believed there would be a benefit for the Congo people due to the civilising European influence and increased prosperity due to the trading possibilities opened up by his administration. Not all Belgian statesmen were happy with this, and for almost the same reasons that Leopold believed it necessary. They believed that as a new small state they should be careful not to antagonise their more powerful neighbours. As it happened, the other powers in the region were quite happy for Belgium to take on The Congo, because for each it meant none of their more powerful rivals were there. France, Britain and Germany wanted to see an ‘independent’ state in control and Belgium suited their purpose – despite the fact that Leopold did not necessarily carry out his original plans. The Congo Free State acted as a kind of defensive buffer between all of the other European held colonies. However, by 1890 the press were reporting atrocities that were occurring in the Congo – largely reported by missionaries, these stories found their way into the British newspapers and resulted in the campaign against the regime. In 1884 Jules Ferry the republican prime minister of France gave a speech on colonialism. Although his ideas about and attempts at power over Indochina eventually toppled his government, he had spoken here about expansion. He had three specific points to make and this broadens the question here about economic interests; while this is undoubtedly one aspect of territorial expansion, Ferry added his thoughts about ‘inferior races’ and ‘civilising’ them – this might be otherwise labelled domination or a cultural concern but it is a reason for territorial expansion adopted by not only France. Strategic concerns, as already discussed here, were another factor in expansion – the race to be the first and to ‘beat the competition.’ Old nations such as France and England were generally of the opinion that imperialism was essential to national wellbeing while more modern states including Belgium and Germany saw its importance more as a feature of nation building. Given Ferry’s eventual outcome, he had done little for his nation’s wellbeing. The second block I would like to refer to is Block Four and what Europeans sought to gain from taking advantage of the available commodities and the indigenous people of other countries; why did they feel the need to expand their business as far as those places – were their motives purely economic' The most obvious answer to that question may, at first, appear to be ‘yes.’ Europeans were able to benefit from foreign commodities such as tobacco, coffee, rice and sugar – cane sugar becoming the most valuable of all of these to Britain from the 1700’s to the 1820’s when this was superseded by raw cotton. This was their primary intent – to make a profit. But was the prospect of such riches the sole motivation or were there other features behind this overseas expansion' Historically, Europeans had had no problem with enslaving other Europeans – prisoners of war and criminals were regularly sold into slavery in countries such as Italy, Germany and Great Britain. Block Four refers us to New World slavery and the fact that, largely, those slaves were black and points us to this as a potential ‘justification’ for expansion. In Europe, slavery had been considered as a punishment for original sin and no conversion to Christianity or baptism could alter this. Further, there was a almost a ‘code’ in the north of Europe that white Christians could not be bought and sold as slaves. This indicates that this is based on ethnicity and race rather than religion. The ideas behind this thinking stem from the bible, widely read in Europe and its teachings adhered to. We can look to the story of Noah cursing his grandson, Caanan –‘a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.’ Block Four conveys that the use of the word ‘nation’ in Genesis gives the idea of ‘ethnicity.’ The implication here is that the descendants of Noah’s family became Ethiopians. So, black people ‘bore the curse of Caanan.’ This may all seem remarkably convenient that the bible could be interpreted in this way but it was believed – that black people were born to serve. Aristotle was of the opinion that black people were uneducated – they had no writing and mistreated even their own people, including selling them into slavery; this we know, as powerful Africans had long been using other Africans in this way, albeit it usually as household slaves – when slaves became in demand from Europe the status quo was maintained as the practice was already in place so this was merely an extension of that existing practice. So, the business of slavery, apart from the obvious economic considerations, offered an intellectual, historical and religiously condoned rationale. Aristotle had said that this was a natural order. If slave traders had wanted to boost their profits and work faster then surely they would have used white slaves also' It had been done before as discussed here. Europeans were not bothered about black servitude – has they not almost been given the go-ahead by the bible and Aristotle' Racism was not a consideration and it would be many years before it became so. In answer to the question then, there would seem to have been many reasons to acquire and colonise parts of Africa. There were mineral deposits, natural resources and local labour to exploit and gain profit from, there was kudos to be had politically, there was a defensive element, and there was an opportunity to civilise or Christianise the ‘savages’. Underlying it all was the need for trade and profit, and in the case of Britain, most of this was handled by private companies appointed to do the job. The Marxist theory on imperialism and manufacture cannot possibly be a reliable one; making the assumption that a poor nation could not afford to exploit its own resources and an imperialist power could, it would still lead to a reduced and narrow market for the finished product if that product was still cost-prohibitive for many nations. The nations who could afford to benefit would also have the necessary expenditure for the ‘raw materials’ exploitation themselves. So it should be remembered that economic interests come at a price and do not always result in value for money. While the organisations controlling the supply of Sugar etc were making money for their investors and owners, based on the prices charged to the consumer back home and where-ever else, it may not have seemed quite so economically viable to countries when they had to step in to sort out local uprisings and incursions by other imperialist states. There was also the cost in human life this caused-wars are never popular when they appear remote, so governments would have been aware that there was not only an economic, but a potential political backlash associated with overseeing these “industrialised” colonies. Bibliography Loftus,D., Mackie, R. And Mombaur, A. (2007) A200 Block 6 Nations and Imperialism Milton Keynes The Open University 2nd edition (2011) Waites,B., and Goodrich,A. (2007) A200 Block 4 Units 14, 15, 16.in Slavery and Freedom Milton Keynes The Open University 2nd Edition (2011)