Jul 24, · Wondering why buying an essay Last Post By Ishaan25 (0 replies) , PM in Racer's Lounge. holiday anencephaly deck toxoid Last Post By junimeridio (0 replies) , AM in Shops. Tag Cloud Manifest Destiny, in U.S. history, the supposed inevitability of the continued territorial expansion of the boundaries of the United States westward to the Pacific and beyond. Before the American Civil War (–65), the idea of Manifest Destiny was used to validate continental acquisitions in the Oregon Country, Texas, New Mexico, and blogger.com purchase of Alaska after the Civil War Jan 26, · Bad Links. 1. This project is both very large and fairly old in Internet terms. At the time it was begun (), it was not clear that web sites [and the documents made available there] would often turn out to be transient
African Resistance to Colonial Rule
It also neglects the colonial-era power dynamic of which African societies and institutions were essential components. After the Berlin Conference of —85, at which the most powerful European countries agreed upon rules for laying claim to particular African territories, the British, French, Germans, Italians, Spanish, Belgians, and Portuguese set about formally implementing strategies for the long-term occupation and control of Africa. The conquest had begun decades earlier—and in the case of Angola essay on imperialism South Essay on imperialism, centuries earlier.
But after the Berlin Conference it became more systematic and overt. The success of the European conquest and the nature of African resistance must be seen in light of Western Europe's long history of colonial rule and economic exploitation around the world. In fact, by Western Europeans had mastered the art of divide, conquer, and rule, honing their skills over four hundred years of imperialism and exploitation in the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific.
In addition, the centuries of extremely violent, protracted warfare among themselves, combined with the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, produced unmatched military might. When, rather late in the period of European colonial expansion, Europeans turned to Africa to satisfy their greed for resources, prestige, essay on imperialism, and empire, they quickly worked their way into African societies to gain allies and proxies, and to co-opt the conquered kings and chiefs, all to further their exploits.
Consequently, the African responses to this process, particularly the ways in which they resisted it, were complex. Adding to the complexity was the fact that rapid European imperial expansion in Africa did not necessarily change relationships among African communities. Those in conflict with one another tended to remain in conflict, despite the impending threat from the French, British, Germans, essay on imperialism, and other powers, essay on imperialism.
There was, moreover, no broadly accepted African identity to unite around during this period. The strongest identities were communal and, to a lesser extent, religious, which begins to explain the presence of African participants in European conquests of other African societies. During the second half of the nineteenth century, for example, in what is now Ghana, conflict between the Fante and Asante, which predated British designs on the kingdom of Asante, motivated the Fante to join the British against the Asante, who at the time seemed to be their greatest threat.
The complexity of Africans' political relationships among themselves, then, influenced the essay on imperialism of their resistance to colonial rule. As they resisted European invasions, they confronted both European and African soldiers. That is, essay on imperialism, they confronted a political hierarchy imposed by Western Europeans that included African proxies. The power was European, but essay on imperialism face of it on the local level was often African.
Despite these seeming contradictions, it remains insufficient to speak of African responses to the imposition of colonial rule as a choice between either collaboration or resistance, essay on imperialism.
It was possible to resist colonial rule through collaboration with the colonizers in one instance and in the next to resist European authority. Essay on imperialism was also possible to limit European political control through some form of collaboration with European generals or colonial administrators.
This is all to suggest that Africans evaluated their circumstances, assessed possible actions and consequences, to make rational responses. Some form of resistance, moreover, essay on imperialism, remained constant during the period of formal European political dominance. Ethiopia stands alone, however, as the one African society to successfully defend itself against an invading European army and remain free of direct European political domination.
Menelik II, emperor of Ethiopia, led his army to accomplish this unique feat in Marchdefeating General Oreste Baratieri's Italian army and its Eritrean allies at the Battle of Adwa. Like Menelik II, Samory Touré, who created a large Mandinka empire in West Africa between the s and the s, was an inspiring political and military leader, but in the French he faced a far more capable, tenacious, and experienced adversary than Menelik had in the Italians. Samory's legacy remains controversial, yet he is a significant example of pragmatic resistance for the ways in which he contended with French aggression.
He manufactured firearms, relocated his kingdom, and engaged in diplomacy with both the French and the British. Yet as he conquered African territory and engaged in conflicts with African competitors, the French pushed deeper into the West African interior from Senegal, under the direction of Louis Faidherbe and his Senegalese Tirailleurs—a corps of African soldiers—and the British pushed northward through Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast with a large contingent of Hausa soldiers.
Each time the French attacked his essay on imperialism or the trade routes and goldfields at the heart of his economy, he mounted a series of successful counterattacks, until he was captured by the French, dying in exile in Ethiopia's history and political structure fostered a essay on imperialism, unified military response to the Italian invasion.
Ethiopians rallied around Menelik II and took pride in the kingdom's glorious history. Between and in Algeria, Islam became another source of unity, as Abd al-Qadir led his resistance against the French. In other territories conflicts among African societies hindered the effectiveness essay on imperialism their resistance. In the s, for example, in what is today Zimbabwe, the British used existing disputes between the Ndebele and neighboring communities to foment a conflict in which the British would have to intervene and would ultimately gain a position to claim control over Ndebele land.
Ndansi Kumalo, a Ndebele chief and a subject of Lobengula, the Ndebele king, described the events that took place between and when Cecil Rhodes and Lobengula disagreed about the terms of the treaty signed in Lobengula believed that he had extended only mineral rights to the diamond magnate; Rhodes argued that the entire territory had become his personal fiefdom, and gave his name to the territory: Rhodesia.
The British attacked, essay on imperialism Ndebele surrendered, and the British imposed Africans from a different territory to police the Ndebele.
The Ndebele fought tenaciously even though with each charge British Maxim guns mowed them down. Yet they managed to kill enough British soldiers to force them to retreat. But essay on imperialism the Maxims, essay on imperialism would have been different. In a longer passage of which this quote is a part, we witness not only the overwhelming effects of European military technology, essay on imperialism, but also the tensions existing within African societies that inhibited their ability to withstand European incursions.
The British succeeded in playing the Ndebele and neighboring Mashona against each other, and this, combined with the spread of smallpox, placed the Ndebele at a severe disadvantage. Much to the detriment of African societies, the enmity between them often fostered alliances between Africans and Europeans against a common African enemy.
Hendrik Witbooi, a Nama chief and early Germany ally against the neighboring Herero, in what is now Namibia, essay on imperialism, illustrates shifting European allegiances and the strategies that placed Africans at a distinct disadvantage.
Initially, Witbooi and the Nama were allies of the Germans against the Herero. But after the Germans asserted increased control over the region, inWitbooi revolted and joined with the Herero to resist them. On August 17,Witbooi wrote a letter to the colonial administrator Theodor Leutwein, who had accused Witbooi of recalcitrance. Despite Witbooi's pleas, essay on imperialism Germans defeated the Nama and the Herero. But Witbooi rose again, at the age of eighty, to fight once more.
In he was killed leading a charge against a German column. As the example of Hendrik Witbooi essay on imperialism, African individuals and groups who resisted European colonial authority were aware of the challenges they faced. At the same time, the larger picture of European colonial rule and its implications were not always readily apparent; nor could they have been.
Political and economic competition with neighboring communities remained the highest priority, particularly when the European presence appeared to be an economic and political advantage. In the aftermath of their conquest of the Nama and Herero, the Germans waged a war of extermination. Those who survived hunger, thirst, and exhaustion were placed in concentration camps that foreshadowed the death camps of Nazi Germany. By the population of the Herero had declined by four-fifths in ten years, and there were half as many living Nama.
Witbooi, never failing to inspire tenacious defense of the Nama, essay on imperialism, was killed in an attack against a German column. Not all resistance during the early years of European colonial rule took the form of pragmatic violence.
Most was more subtle and directed toward local issues of political and economic autonomy. Particularly in British territories, Africans commonly used local movements to resist European colonial policies or practices by the colonial administrations' African proxies. The Aba Women's Revolt, or Igbo Women's War, in southeastern Nigeria reflects this trend, essay on imperialism. What is unique about the movement that produced the revolt is that its leadership was composed entirely of rural women.
It is also unique because it was the only mass protest to take place in Nigeria prior to the years leading to independence in There was a history of economic and social autonomy among Igbo women, and they were well organized through communal associations. In Igbo women felt that their autonomy was threatened by an impending tax imposed essay on imperialism the local colonial administration. Rumors of this tax spread after the district administration's census of men, essay on imperialism wives, and cattle.
Within days of the census's completion, essay on imperialism, up to ten thousand women reportedly confronted the Warrant Chief Okugo, essay on imperialism, who had overseen the census on behalf of the district administration, and demanded that he resign. The protests spread throughout the region and resulted in the death of fifty-five women.
The Aba Women's Revolt was an effort on the part of Igbo women to protect their economic and political interests. It was not a movement against European colonial rule; rather, it aimed at particular policies that the women perceived to originate with the British-imposed warrant chiefs.
Struggles with maintaining political autonomy and control over culture created tension within African societies and between the colonial administration and Africans throughout Africa, often leading to subtle forms of resistance as African individuals and groups sought to remove themselves from the colonial sphere of influence rather than challenge it.
Yet doing so was in and of itself a challenge to the essay on imperialism order and a threat to European authority. This phenomenon is seen in the work of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, a Muslim leader in Senegal who in founded the Mouride Brotherhood. Ahmadou Bamba aimed to sustain a level of social and economic autonomy, and his case illustrates the fear that colonial administrators had of Africans' continued capacity to organize themselves outside the European sphere of influence.
During the s and early s he gained a broad following that included influential chiefs and their followers. The French feared Bamba's potential ability to organize a resistance. Yet his goal was to protect Islam from the corruptive forces essay on imperialism European rule.
He waged war not on the French occupiers but on European culture and colonial politics. Still, as a safeguard against his potential political influence, the French repeatedly exiled Ahmadou Bamba between and Yet his exile enhanced his standing among Senegalese as stories of his miraculous survival of torture and attempted executions spread. The French allowed him to return to Senegal in After World War II most African leaders engaged the colonial state through formally organized political parties and trade unions.
Between andmany of these parties ushered in the transition to independence and became the ruling parties of independent Africa. As such, they had little alternative but to cooperate with essay on imperialism outgoing colonial powers, essay on imperialism.
Yet there were parties and politicians that refused to compromise and sought to define their nation's transition to independence on their own terms. One such example is Sékou Touré, the Republic of Guinea's first president from to Under Touré, Guinea was the only former French colony in favor of immediate independence rather than continued association with France, despite the consequences.
He famously remarked, "We prefer poverty in liberty than riches in slavery. He thoughtfully assessed his choices and made what he believed, considering the circumstances, to be the decision that best served the interests of his people. The discussion of pragmatic resistance in Africa comes full circle with the former Portuguese colonies, South Africa, and Kenya. In these territories, violent resistance brought colonial rule to a close.
It was guerrilla warfare in the case of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya —60 and Zimbabwe's war of independence —79 ; it was all-out war in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau —74and the South African colony of South West Africa Namibia. There was no military confrontation within South Africa around apartheid, but mass uprisings and sporadic guerrilla attacks spurred the fall of the apartheid regime. The people of South Africa took to the streets essay on imperialism mass civil unrest to overwhelm the resources of the apartheid regime.
The African protesters suffered severe consequences, but ultimately their mass movement was too much for the white minority government.
Among the most awesome of the many examples of mass protest in South Africa is the Soweto uprising ofin which African students boycotted schools and took to the streets in protest, rather than have Afrikaans, the language of the oppressive white minority, elevated essay on imperialism a essay on imperialism of instruction in their schools. Many young people were beaten, arrested, and even killed, but the students assessed the problem and their options, and grew determined to move toward direct resistance and chart their own destiny, essay on imperialism.
South Africa is also noteworthy for the often violent conflicts between Africans into the early s that provided the apartheid regime with an opportunity to resist change.
Lenin in Five Minutes: Imperialism
, time: 4:5467 Causal Essay Topics to Consider
Jul 27, · A causal essay is much like a cause-and-effect essay, but there may be a subtle difference in the minds of some instructors who use the term "causal essay" for complex topics and "cause-and-effect essay" for smaller or more straightforward papers Jan 26, · Bad Links. 1. This project is both very large and fairly old in Internet terms. At the time it was begun (), it was not clear that web sites [and the documents made available there] would often turn out to be transient May 09, · Imperialism, on the other hand, comes from the Latin term imperium, meaning to command. Thus, the term imperialism draws attention to the way that one country exercises power over another, whether through settlement, sovereignty, or indirect mechanisms of control
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