Introduction
Expansionist policies prompted by the desire to acquire territories, resources, and subject populations to exploit are as old as history itself. Still, European imperialism of Modern Times stands out in this respect as one of the greatest and most impactful expansionist movements in history. From the 18th to the early 20th century, most of the populated territories in the world came to be dominated by just a handful of powers from Europe of North America. This process went hand-in-hand with the corresponding development in the military art, transportation, communications, and ideology. European powers exercised their superiority in terms of technology and organization to subjugate less-developed societies, exploit their populations, and plunder their natural and cultural resources. European imperialism manifested in the perception of non-European societies as inferior, their relentless exploitation through superior tools of empire-building, including corporations, and ideological justifications of colonization – and imperialist legacies continue influencing the world after decolonization.
Western Views of Non-Western Civilizations
One common feature that united imperialist exploits of Modern European powers was the perception of non-Western civilizations as decisively and obviously inferior to those of the West. This approach was certainly useful in justifying expansion because it allowed framing it as bringing superior civilization to the societies devoid of it. In his famous poem “The White Man’s Burden,” Rudyard Kipling refers to the colonized people’s criticisms as “The blame of those ye better,” openly stating that Westerners were superior to the population of their colonies. Sometimes this perception of superiority went as far as the complete dehumanization of non-Western peoples. A painting from 1882 depicts the British royal family passionately praying while the artillery blasts Egyptian soldiers to pieces in the background, referring to the Anglo-Egyptian War that led to establishing British dominance in Egypt. The comment under the painting reads: “Is it Christian to thank God for Islam Slaughter?” Admittedly, this particular painting is an American satire that mocks the hypocrisy of British colonial expansion. Still, the very fact that such satire was possible confirms that the perception of non-Western civilizations as inferior was very pervasive.
Some tried to put a humanist spin on this perception and interpret colonialism as a noble effort and even moral duty on the colonizers’ part. Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” may well serve as the manifesto of this approach, outlining it with great clarity. From the poet’s perspective, the titular burden of Western colonizers was to “serve [their] captives’ need” by creating infrastructure, providing education, and otherwise bringing civilization to them by any means necessary. Kipling went as far as interpreting colonialism as an essentially selfless task, as evidenced by the lines “To seek another’s profit, / And work another’s gain.” In a way, this approach was more appreciative of colonized populations – at the very least, it represented them as people capable of learning rather than irredeemable savages pathologically unable to maintain civilization. However, even if this perception depicted the colonized people as capable of eventually achieving the same heights as Westerners, it still portrayed them as decisively inferior to the colonizers at the moment of colonization. Moreover, the exploitation of the natural resources in the colonies severely undercuts Kipling’s emphasis on the selfless civilizing mission.
While some proponents of colonialism, such as Kipling, assigned at least some agency to the colonized peoples – even if it was the role of the colonizers’ wards – others did not even bother about that. By the time when Modern European imperialism reached its height in the second half of the 19th century, hardly anyone perceived non-Western societies as full-fledged actors in international relations. An 1899 cartoon from Punch magazine discussing the project of the Cape-Cairo railroad may serve as a clear example. The drawing depicts the British entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes and the German Kaiser Wilhelm II discussing the political concessions necessary for the project to succeed. The image is telling in itself: while the subject of the conversation is the railroad through the entire African continent, it is two European countries that discuss it. By the late 19th century, Western dominance over non-Western civilizations was so complete that they were seen as unworthy of consideration even in the political decisions directly related to them. Thus, whether Westerners perceived the colonized peoples as wards to civilize or as savages to rule over, they viewed them as inferior in any case.
Tools, Means, and Methods of the Empire
Technological superiority was an essential factor in establishing and maintaining Western dominance over non-Western societies, and, first and foremost, it manifested in better weapons and equipment. Industrially produced modern armaments ensured the West’s superiority in military terms and, as such, were crucial in subjugating colonized peoples and keeping them in check so that they would not rebel. In the 18th and early 19th century, European armies were generally armed with smoothbore muskets that were not necessarily better than the weapons of their opponents. However, the introduction of breech-loading rifles, which were vastly superior in range and accuracy, in the mid-19th century, gave Western countries a decisive advantage in infantry combat. The same applies to artillery, as large batteries of breech-loaded guns allowed dominating battlefields against the less developed enemies. The 1882 painting on the Anglo-Egyptian War illustrates this point by demonstrating Egyptian soldiers falling under the withering salvoes of shrapnel. To summarize, technologically superior and industrially produced weapons and military equipment were a key tool in ensuring Western dominance over subjugated non-Western territories as well as the acquisition of new colonies.
Yet the weapons of war were not the only technological means used to foster the constant expansion of Western empires because advances in transportation were just as – if not more – crucial for empire-building. In order to exploit the colonies efficiently, imperialist powers needed a way of transporting the resources acquired there at greater speed and volumes. This was where the railroads came in, allowing imperialist powers to penetrate deeper into the continent and to transport the resources to oceanic ports. A photograph demonstrates a bridge on one of such railroads – the Uganda Railway that was used to transport the diamonds mined in Africa. Steamboats were also essential among the means of empire-building, as they allowed going up the navigable rivers to reach the areas further from the coast and exploit the resources in the continent’s interior. The main character of the Heart of Darkness spells this importance outright: colonial trading companies cannot “trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of freshwater – steamboats.” These technological improvements in transportation were indispensable for colonialist expansion.
As for the methods of creating the empire, these combined the use of technological superiority previously described with the forced labor of the new colonial subjects. Colonization would most likely begin with trade, which would allow the colonizing powers to assess the resources of the area without too much effort. Upon establishing a presence in the area and assessing its resources, the colonizers were most likely to use their superiority in weapons and organization to use the local population as the pool of labor force. Direct subjugation at the coastal regions where the colonizers were already strong enough to exercise full dominion was combined with trade in the more remote areas where the Western presence was not yet strong enough. Heart of Darkness offers a vivid picture of these methods of empire-building at work in Africa. The author describes how colonizers traded “manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-wire” for ivory, all the while using Africans from the already subjugated areas as forced labor. These methods could vary from region to region, but reliance on technological superiority and trade that eventually turned into full-fledged expansion was fairly common.
Another important aspect of empire-building was the use of religion. Just as commercial relations, religious proselytism usually preceded genuine territorial expansion and administrative control of the territory. For the missionaries themselves, their motivation could have been purely religious and not linked directly to political and economic concerns of colonialism. Yet, regardless of whether the missionaries viewed themselves as agents of empire-building, they often functioned as such. The mere presence of even a small population of Christian converts gave colonialist powers as a support base and a pretext for intervention. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart sums this process up best: “the white man had not only brought a religion but also a government.” Thus, much as commerce, proselytism often served as the initial phase of colonial expansion.
Exploitation Ideology and Pillaging of Resources
As mentioned above, the Western perception of non-Western civilizations provided ample ideological justifications for the exploitation of the colonies. At the very best, Westerners viewed those belonging to non-European civilizations as “half-devil and half-child” who had to be carefully guided by Western overseers to civilization. In other cases, this supremacist ideology and the perception of the colonized people as inherently inferior allowed disregarding their interests completely and only be concerned with the opinions of great Western powers. The painting on the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War even demonstrates that it was not inconceivable to revel at the slaughter of the supposedly inferior peoples. Colonialist powers could talk much about civilizing their colonies, but, being convinced of their own superiority, were never shy to “Exterminate all the brutes,” to use Kurtz’s words from Heart of Darkness. Overall, the perceived civilizational superiority of Westerners over any and all non-Westerners was the cornerstone of imperialist ideologies. It mattered little whether specific ideologists represented their cause a noble civilizing mission or were honest about their perception of the colonized peoples as sub-human because the result was largely the same.
The exploitation of the colonies’ natural resources was one of the main motivations behind the colonial expansion in the first place. Industrialized and affluent countries of the West had a high demand for raw materials and luxury goods and viewed the less-developed regions of Asia and Africa as a natural source of both. European (mostly Dutch) colonies in Indochina were the world’s largest supplier of rubber in the late 19th and the early 20th century. Entire transport lines, such as the afore-mentioned Uganda Railway, were used to transport diamonds mined in Africa to the ports, from where they could be shipped to Europe and America. Trading posts, expeditions, and thorough exploitation of the laborers from the local populations were seen as a good tradeoff as long as they provided a “precious trickle of ivory” in return. Other resources, whether minerals, cash crops, or anything else, were also valid targets for the colonizers. This pillaging of the colonies’ natural resources was the ever-present reality and, one might rightfully argue, the main motivation behind the expansion of the Western imperialist powers.
Yet it was not the only respect in which colonial powers deprived the colonies of their possessions because cultural legacies were also appropriated without any regard. As demonstrated by the cartoon from Punch magazine, the complete and utter disregard for the interests and claims of the colonized peoples was a staple of Western colonialism by the end of the 19th century. As a result, cultural artifacts created by non-Western civilizations were also viewed as the colonizing powers’ rightful spoils, and many of these ended up as pieces of contested art. A clear example would be the bust of Nefertiti, the wife of Akhenaten, an Ancient Egyptian king of the 14th century BCE. The bust was excavated by the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt in 1912. The date means that, by that time, Egypt was already thirty years under British rule following the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882. As such, it possessed no political agency whatsoever and could not protest against Borchardt moving the bust to Berlin. This piece of at remains contested between Egypt and Germany to this very day as yet another manifestation of colonial legacies.
Corporations as Imperial Agents
It would be erroneous to represent the Western colonial expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries as mainly state-run – if anything, probate corporations were even more important as agents of imperial influence. Yet the fact that these enterprises were private did not mean they lacked in resources or economic and political leverage. Although Conrad’s Heart of Darkness does not refer to specific parts of Africa directly, its references to “the true ivory-country” and the author’s own experiences suggest that the book is set in the Free State of Congo. This was a colony owned by King Leopold of Belgium, rather than the Belgian government, meaning it was a private corporation, which did not prevent it from having immense territorial extent and economic potential.
Another example of the role played by corporations would be Cecil John Rhodes, the founder of the British South Africa Company. A business magnate with immense leverage in diamond and, to a lesser degree, gold mining, he carved an entire colony of his own in the southern part of the African continent. His political influence was so significant that he engineered military provocations against the Boer states in the region and was one of the instrumental forces behind the Second Boer War of 1899-1902. Yet his ambitions went far beyond South Africa, as evidenced by his project of building the railroad through the entire Africa continent from Cairo to Cape Town. Rhodes’s example showcases once again how private corporations could act as the agents of empire-building
Finally, it is also necessary to mention that the functions of corporations went far beyond purely economic matters. In order to support their authority in the colonized territories, they had to invest in their own private armies. In order to maximize income, they had to explore the surrounding lands and assess their resources. Even most of the scientific research in eh British colonies was sponsored and carried out by private corporations rather than the government. Thus, corporations were essential for colonization in many ways, and the largest among them could function as quasi-states in their own right.
Impact of Decolonization
The main impact of decolonization, especially in the African continent, was creating significant potential for conflict between and within the newly independent states. As mentioned above, the great Western powers only considered each other’s opinions when carving spheres of colonial influence, which was especially evident in the Scramble for Africa. As a result, they separated the continent into colonies without any regard for the ethnic affiliations of the population, and these arbitrary borders then transformed into national borders of the new states. The main result was the creation of split homelands when the historical habitat of a certain ethnic group is separated between several states. Such partitioned homelands have considerable potential for conflict and demonstrate a much higher incidence of both civil wars and military interventions from neighboring countries when compared to their non-divided counterparts. Hence, even after the age of colonialism is over, its long-lasting effects still remain.
Conclusion
As one can see, Western colonialism was based on a wide range of factors and left a considerable impact. The ideological view of non-Western civilizations as inferior complemented the technological superiority crucial in establishing colonial dominance. Commerce and religion worked hand-in-hand to facilitate imperialist expansion and the appropriation of both natural resources and cultural artifacts. Even after the decolonization, the impacts of Western colonialism, such as split ethnic homelands due to arbitrary borders, still remain.
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