?? notes

HISTORY OF EUROPEAN COLONIZATION 16

6 min read

HISTORY OF EUROPEAN COLONIZATION 16:

Missionary work:

  • sexual abuse (in Europe and the colonies)
  • problematic clergy often sent to missions (if accusation → send the priest to another parish)
  • this issue is structural
  • Leon-Gontron Damas: poem about sexual abuse at the hands of a priest
  • were missions more monologue or dialogue like? Arguably, more like a monologue → imposing Christian values upon the colonized. BUT, also a dialogue, local cultures negotiated with Christianity, and Christianity changed because of them.
  • decline of Christianity coincides with end of colonization
  • in China priests adopted Chinese clothes, and the Chinese adopted some European clothes; in India there’s Hindu iconography intwined with Christian one; Jesus or Mary portrayed as non-white
  • emergence of new religions (Voodoo - combination of African religions + Christianity); Kimbanguism
  • many local religions reorganize and modernize
  • use of the colonizer’s infrastructure (Gandhi using railways)
  • Ram Mohan Roy (19th Century)
  • Vibekenanda - important for the Western soft spot for Eastern religion (Yogi - outsiders of BI society)
  • missionaries: link with colonization, but not complete overlap
  • non-colonizer nations also participated in mission activities, etc.

ECONOMY:

TRADE:
Industrial Reovlution, colonies become major markets.

  • demographic revolution in Europe; drop in mortality (natality remains high, population boom)
  • desire for foreign products by new European class
  • DRAIN OF WEALTH (Nairobi, British prime minister; says so about BI)
  • before(18th): high quality goods produced in India
  • now (19th): important of cheap British textiles to India
  • early modern age: monopoly
  • Britian: commits to free trade
  • late 19th Century: economic depression, stagnation, PROTECTIONISM
  • Britian begins engaging with non-interventionalism

SLAVERY:

  • Slavery, slave trade: ATLANTIC TRIANGULAR TRADE (leave Europe with trade ship, sell commodities and buy slaves; go to America to sell slaves; purchase rum, cotton, gold, sugar, tobacco, etc.)
  • about a million slaves shipped.
  • Great slave mortality rates
  • quakers and post-French revolution, American Revolution, ideas of Enlightenment and human rights
  • US North: slave abolition, US South: slave retainment
  • earlier: 18th Century: abolitionism in England (Clapham Sect)
  • Abolitionism: first modern mass movement
  • 1833: Britian abolishes slavery
  • 1848: France
  • 1863: Netherlands
  • 1863: US
  • 1888: Brazil
    West Africa was previous trade hub, 2 countries emerge from abolitionism:
  • Sierra Leone: Founded by Brits as a crown colony, many slaves freed from captured vessels, released into the new colony
  • Liberia: American slaves moved there, helped by US Colonial Society

THE LAND:
Many pre-colonial people did not think you can ‘own’ land, its common

  • Europeans believe terra null to be free to take
    Land taxes in British India:
  • Zamindari system (North, 1793): previous Mughal tax collectors given property rights (Brits want loyal landowners who pay them) → misuse and oppression. Revenues dropped.
  • Raiyatvari system (South, early 19th): peasants pay taxes directly, desire to create closer connection to colonizers → oppression through tax collection
  • Campaigns against landless people (Thugs for example) → with land you’re easier to control.
  • Use of land: gathering of natural resources (rubber in Africa - invention of car, need for rubber)
  • Palm oil: lubricants, lighting fuel, margarine, soap…
  • Plantations: early modern age: Caribbean, Guyana
  • French Indochina: Rice, maize, rubber
  • Dutch East Indies: indigo (dye), cane sugar, coffee
  • British India: tea, opium, also taxes
  • German Kamerun, British Kenya: cocoa, banana, tea… etc.
    Labour required for the plantations
  • slave plantations no longer have acess to labour
  • introduction of endentured labour
  • contracted labour with a very low salary, through shipping ppl to the plantations for about 5 years, they can’t break contract - if they do this is criminal. Their circumstances were VERY poor (similar to the slaves before them)
  • Chinese or Indian ‘coolies’
  • Population increase: Java: 3,5 mil in 1800, 40,9 mil. in 1930
  • happened between and within empires
  • Dutch East Indies (1830-70): not super lucrative, financian losses after Java War & Belgian independence
  • Boosting of exports through CULTURE SYSTEM - peasants cultivate government crops on a 5th of the land, OR, to work for 66 days per year on the government’s land.
  • large single crop plantations (sugar, coffee, indigo)
  • VERY lucrative
  • ‘Max Havelaar’ by Eduard Dekker: novel critical of the culture system
  • enforced by force, misuses, stagnation, etc., native pop. had no acess to capital market (no excess produce)
  • REFORM of East Indies: liberal period (180-1901): agriculture opened up. However, this doesn’t improve local pop.’s living standards.
  • Another ciritical novel: ‘Een Eereschuld’ by Conrad Deventer
  • failed Ethical Policy: education, health, etc. idea of debt to the local pop.’s well being.
  • Due to WW2 the ethical policy falls through

MINERAL EXTRACTION:

  • desire to make quick money
  • lead to infrastructural development (railrods, etc.)
  • little industry

1 gold rushes in white settler colonies:

  • US California - 1840s, Colorado 50s-60s
  • Australia - 1850s; New Zeland - 1870s
    Population of Victoria has a great boom (70K to 0,5mil)
    mainly Irish and British immigrants: 3/4ths
  • South Africa: Kimberly’s diamonds in 1860s; Witwatersrand’s gold in 1880s
  • Gold Coast: mechanised mining (1870s)

2 minerals in the Belgian Congo
Katanga: initially thought to be poor by Brits

  • copper, cobalt (

3 minerals in British India

  • originally: trade, taxes, opium, tea
  • long Indian tradition of artisan skills
  • use of rail network
  • Indian plants: Tata steel plant (Jamsetji Tatas) - steel works (WW2: steel producer for British Empire)
  • Indians develop their own mining

4 pentrol in Dutch Indies and Middle East

  • initially petrol (pre internal combustion engine) was in Europe and America
  • later: Sumatra, Persia (right after its division in the Great Game)
  • Oil companies: Anglo-Persian Oil Company → BP

TRANSPORTATION:

  • transport: arteries of an empire
  • shrinking of imperial distances
  • colonization stimulated the development of transport
  • competition in Europe
    WATERWAYS:
  • rivers used as first highways (Mekong, Zambezi, Congo)
  • new river canals (Ganges Canal, India, 1854): transport + irrigation
  • Sues Canal (1850s, French project): almost halves Europe-South Asia/East Asia travel
  • about 20k Egyptian labourers died for the canal’s construction
  • massive burden for Egyptians
  • Panama Canal: initially French (corrupt), later American
    RAILWAYS:
    in India: dense railways
    Congo: short railways to bypass river networks
    To build railways: private companies, manpower, physical obstacles
  • gyrobuses in Leopoldville which charge at every stop
    General observations: research is ongoing
    AIR TRANSPORT:
  • colonization triggered its further development
  • Imperial Airways (1924)→ modern British Airways
  • KLM: also started to connect Amsterdam and the colonies

Graph View