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HISTORY OF EUROPEAN COLONIZATION 13

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HISTORY OF EUROPEAN COLONIZATION 13

TOOLS OF THE EMIRE
(taking birds’ eye POV, discussing wider trends)

  1. Political Systems

Metropole: London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Brussels

  • minister for the colonies, usually, advised by a variety of institutions, persons, lobbyists
  • little to no representation from the colonies
  • famous exception from 19th/20th: Dadabhai Naoroji, asain MP in Britian

Colony:

  • governor, viceroy (wide turnover, 4-5 years max, similar to modern diplomats; desire for strong ties with colonizer)
  • armies (French, british, dutch)
  • indigenious pop. rarely participates in governance
  • exception: British India (post-great mutiny/1858 & transition to crown rule) - advisories and indirect elections, then municipal councils, then provincial governments, by 1937 (almost WW2, decolonization) - 1/6 Indians could participate in elections (for the time - substantial, even for continental EU)
  • not british desire for democracy: introduced only due to major protests
  • Britian - direct/indirect rule

INDIRECT:
local rulers stay in ‘power’ - local administration and such;

  • core power is in the hands of the colonizer - taxes, military, etc.;
  • used for poorer regions, inland regions, less important regions;
  • advantage: places separation between colonizer and colonizer, legitimizes colonization (‘we respect local tradition’), presents EU as improvers of civilization
  • Maharajas in India
  • half of Brit Indian territory: Indirect rule (especially inland territory)
  • elsewhere in other colonies (British/Malaysia, Belgian Congo/Congolese chiefs kinda, Dutch Indies/Batavia/Java princes, French/Indochina - only capital was ruled directly)

DIRECT:

  • France tries to ASSIMILATE colonies into nation, oversees France (failed, ASSOCIATION, linking with metropole used instead) - Algeria for example. Done due to universalism, especially during early 19th.
    [Felix Eboue in early 20th; typical example of French imperialism]
  • Germany/Italy - military rule
  • Segragation: South Africa, Rodhesia, Belgium
  1. Political strategies:
    DIVIDE AND RULE:
  • (ancient strategy, typical of Roman imperialism) - creation and emphisization of difference within a colony.
  • ethnicities become races, Indian social groups become ‘castes’, creation of firm, hardened categories you cannot escape (religion, race, class, etc.)
  • siding with certain groups to oppress others (often minority ones to oppress majority ones)
  • generation of division and weakness

VIOLENCE:

  • gunboats, Maxim gun (1884, automatic rifle; used in colonizing Africa).
  • Herero uprising in South-West Africa; 1904-07; against German rule. German (von Trotha) issue extermination order. 80% of their population die.
  • Repression: racism, colonial propaganda, silencing of European critics (socialists, anti-catholics, etc.)

DISEASES:

  • smallpox in Australia, measles in Fiji, leprosy in Hawaii
  • deliberate genocide, to weaken local population
  • collateral damage (malaria, Indian irrigation)
  • In Hawaii: missionaries imposed upon the king of Hawaii via gunboats, leprosy colonies are basically prisons. (Father Damian - important Belgian missionary). 1890s Hawaii is turned into US state.
  • centralization through cities leads to disease spread

FAMINES:

  • in British India. Bengal Famine, 1770 - 10 million dead.; Great Famine, 1876-78 6-10 mil.; Indian Famine, 1899-1900, 1-10 mil.; Bengal Famine 1943-44 1-3 mil.
  • in reaction to colonialism (such as sacrifices weakening food supplies)
  1. Political actors:
  • Colonial party: not an actual party, merely the circles which support and lobby for colonization (think lawyers, geographers, etc. who support Leopold 2nd)
  • Politicians: advocates of colonialism (Jules Ferry in France; Francesco Crispi in Italy; Disareli, Chamberlain and Marquess of Saulsbury in England); more reluctant actors (Gladstone in England)
  • rulers overseas: CURZON, viceroy in India. A successful colonial career aborad often leads to high position at home. KITCHENER - successful british conquestor, becomes general at home. GALLIENI, French military commander, later successful at home. LYAUTEY, another Frenchman.

GENDERED DIMENSION:

  • Masculinity, the martial, beards, performative masculinity. Europeans enjoy dressing (cosplaying) as locals. Kitchener in a fez. Insulting to local populations through appropriation.
  • But also women. Mary Kingsley - female explorer. Gertrude Bell, mother of Iraq (interwar period). Wives of male colonizers, female missionaries.
  • Among the colonized: female freedom fighters (N’Soumer).
  • STDs, prostitution, obsession with exotic nude.

Were Europeans Heroic?

  • they used help from locals (translators, porters)
  • individual use of violence by expedition-ers.
  • sexual practices: Stanley’s homosexuality. Rhodes’s homosexuality. Baden-Powell’s homosexuality. Kitchener is also maybe homosexual! MacDonald, homosexual and pedophile.

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