Empires through History

Quick facts

'First' British Empire: 1583-1783

Caribbean - sugar and slaves

'New Imperialism': 1815-1945- Imperial century, France and Britain began to govern and put institutions into play

Key Terms: 

Global Policeman- Britain referred to as

Pax britannica- Relating to peace

Splendid Isolation- Britain had control of such a wide sweep of the golbe they believed they were above.

Informal Empire- Exherted control of how other countries functioned even if they weren't subjecgated by Britain/France

India- Known as the Jewel in the Crown

Indochina- 'Pearl of the French Empire'

Scramble for Africa- 1815, Berlinc Conference was when they decided what they were going to do with Africa

'Accidental' Imperialist- John Steely (1834-95) argued 'we have to seem, as it were, to have conquered half the world in a fit of absence of mind' 

Design Imperialist - Jules Ferry and the Civilising mission. 'The superior race have a duty to civilise inferior races'.

• He used the term 'Rayonnement= shining light on barbaric backwardness, showing them the way.

Reasons for imperialism:

France- Ideological reasons, Britain- Expansion

Reasons for imperialism:

Similarites of France and Britain-

• Both spread unevenly around the globe
• Different ways of governing depending on the country
• No consistency on how colonies were acquired 
• Impulse for global influence (especially France after being humilated by the Franco-Prussian war of 1870)

Historiography 

Cultural Turn- Shift in academics/historians research, 1880's there was a shift what was desriable study

Area studies- Centre+Periphery (C= Britain + P= Colonies) 

Imperialism- A policy of expansion & Colonialism- Governism

Gentlemanly Capitalism- The ones that were in the background and were'nt out there colonising. e.g. business and commercial intrest (Cecil Rhodes)

Factors that lay behind expansion

Britain: 

• Governance
• Strategic gains= military 
• Evangelism 
• Adventure/ Explorers e.g Stanley, Rhodes

France

• Imperative, crucial for survival 
• Franco-Prussian war embarrassment
• Patriotism & Evangelism (especailly during 1870 when France decides to keep relgion in the secular and private sector after Catholism was declining, so they went out to evangelize)

French Colonial Ideologies

• Altruism- Act of genorisity 
• Protection- e.g. Indochina, France went into southern Vietnam because it was getting invaded by pirates
• La Mise en Valeur- Policy- showing something off to its best advancment- justification of colonialism 

France's Vocation

• Pro-colonialism ideology- influenced by legacy of enlightenment
• Duty and responsibility in a 'good way'
• Universialism- Got the rights of man after French revolution  & wanted to teach and share

La Mise en Valeur - Not only economic but progressive, constructive & technological 

• Pasteur Institute- labs set up to research diseases in other countries, idea of bringing knowledge (Science, health & education)
• Industry and transport- rebuilding places like Saigon, fiction written about colonial expansion e.g. Route 64

Agriculture, Justice and Cultrual values

Modernity 

Transport networks- They were very far from their colonies e.g. took 48 days by boat for Britain to get to Indochina 

Ethno/Anthropology- experimenting on humans and producing knowledge and experiments on Africans e.g. North Africans were lazy (generalisation & Essentialisation)

Cultrual Superiorty & Racism - 'Les Arrieres, les retardes ' - backward peoples

Britain

• Max Bellof, 1968- believes that the British were not an 'imperially-minded people'- suggests that the British were not ready for colonialism
• Sir John Steely, 1834-5- Absense of mind, argues that the British weren't fit to rule over colonies
• Lord Claredone, 1870- Emphasises on commerce + protecting British goods e.g. China- stritcly commercial 

Britain

The British Empire: Motivating factors 

• Ethnicity and gender- Civilising mission
• Rice, Coffee, Sugar...- Trade

Empire marketing board- The Civilising Mission

• To popularise the Empire
• Understand the Empire
• To get the public involved

Algeria

• Argued that France took control over Algeria because oil was discovered there
• 1830 France established itself there, oldest French colony, France began to establish other colonies 30-40years later
• 1962- Withdraws from Algeria

Overview of colonial conquest 

• Abdel Kader leads revolution (Scorched earth Policy- burning of stuff) against French general 
• Lead to essentialisation of people as the enemy
• After Abdel defeated there is moral pacification leading to Oil Spot Theory (Tache d'huile)- move from assimilation to association 

Late 19th century context:

• 2nd Republic declared Algeria as an integral part of France and dvided it into boroughs (départements) 

Colonial rule of Algeria:

• Doesn't allow musliums to naturalise (become French) but allow Jews 
• 1881 Legal Code- codifies inequalities and discrimination- bizzare controlling of indigenous peoples e.g. not allowed to carry umbrella's on a tuesday
• In order to have French citizenship, Musliums were told to renounce their faith
• Musliums were only seen as French when the French wanted them to fight in war

Indigenous crimes:

• Unauthorised meetings
• Controlling population through not being able to leave territory without travel premit
• Adressing colonial officials in 'disrespectful manner' e.g. informal language
• Sanctions- fines & prison

Economy:

• Fertile land for France to plunder: mining, manufacturing 
• Dominance of 'gros colons'- rich and wealthy colonisers who exploit land, class of wealthy colonisers emerged 

Indochina

• Small Euro-population
• Assoiation- more adaptive to local conditions e.g planning
• Mise en Valuer= constructive development modernity and progressive e.g. infrastructure, tech and education, medicine and science
• Used as justification
• Native legal code- Indigenous code= punishments/fines if they didn't follow rules of the settlers
• Concern of French men 'going native' 
• Not a settlers ecocnomy- Populated by goveernmenet officials, administrators and doctors...

Panivong Norindr (Historian) argues that because French controlled Indochina from territoes like Cambodia & Thailand heritage, boundries & traditions are blurred, calling it a phantasmagorical entity

The 'Dark continet' 

• Africa was mysterious 
• There was trading but actual knowledge of Africa was limited e.g. Trading posts in Senegal

Why do Europe's sights turn to Africa?

• Absolutism- Britain abolished slave trade in 1807, wasn't until 1833 until they abolished slavery
• Britain wanted to be viewed as 'heroes and abolitionists' so they used naval squadons to police Africa from other territoies trying to enslave Africans whilst gaining intelligence on Africa

Role of geographical societies 

• Ethnography ad anthropology-acquiring knowledge which informed people on others they haven't seen before
• Geographical societies funded explorers 

'Scramble for Africa'

• 1870 roughly 10% of Africa under European control
• Africa seen as chess board
• Valuable primary resources and military resevoirs
• European conflicts over Africa

French West Africa (AOF- Afrique Occidentale Fracaise)

• France and Britain creating own 'divisions' within Africa
• French Equatorial Africa (Gabon, congo, Chad)
• Between 1800-1900 Egypt, Somalia, Nigeria, Gambia were controlled by Britain 
• By 1900 France ruled 30% of Africa

Cecil Rhodes- Busineessman, financer and politician 

• Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) named after him
• Invested in gold mining companies
• Building a railwa from the cape to cairo

Charted companies 

• George Goldie- Private investment 
• epitmay of indirect rule- seen as through trading arrangments with tribal chiefs because he wasn't disturbunig indigenous peoples
• Admired beacause it was seen as a form of 'imperialism on the cheap'

Berlin Conference 

• Bismark German chancellor- decides to call European cultures together to debate the Africa question (1884-53)
• Consecrates the 'scramble for Africa
• Bismark keen to encourage Franco-British rivalry

Imperial Action in Africa 

• Justification- Building infrastructure e.g. railways, cables, canals, Aswan Low Dam completed in 1902

'The Cultural Turn'- attention turning to a more democratic history e.g.material culture/popular culture

• Historian/Academic Edward Said - 'Orientalism' He means 'the other', how the West views the rest of the world
• Foucault argues that Said talks about knowledge and power and that he looks to the West as trying to produce knowledge about everyone else.

Colonial Discourse

Said theory of the Occident -West (Rational, Familiar, Moral and Just) and Orient-East/Rest (Irrational, Exotic, ****** and Heathen)

Delaxcroix- The 'oriental woman'= exotic, eager to be dominated. Male- barbaric and savage

The male gaze- Laura Mulvey says the male gaze is a feature of power and the gazer is superior to object of gaze 

Arthur de Gobineau- Inequality between the races in inate

Gender and Empire

• Anxiety of mixing race- miscegenation
• Loaferism- someone who is lazy. British worried about who they were sending to the colonies because most of them were loafers
• Marianne (1870) represented France

Gendered Colonies

• Colony seen as 'virgin territory'
• Penetrating Africa 
• Third World- used to patronise 
• After WW2 we see more images of gendered nations= because how could you promote image of civilisation when WW1 represented complete savagery.

Colonialism as a gendered enterprise 

• Manly enterprise & test of manhood & ideals of a real man
• Colony as adventure playground 

• Martin Green (Book-Empire) says it was a place where adventures took place and men became heroes

Women and Colonialism

• European women were sent out to police men and stop the 'dilution of the race' (mixed race children) and 'going native'
• Teachers, nurses... (colonial woman must uphold dignity)
• women- literal embodiment of colonial nation

Colonised women

• subject of male gaze
• penetration of the closed environment of the Harem
• ******/alluring/welcoming e.g. famous exhibtion of Sarah Baartman (Hottentot Venus) large buttocks
• Marilyn French (Author)- compares colonised&coloniser relationship with men and women inequalities. 

Post- Colonialism and Gender

• Theorist- Spivak coined a new study 'Sub-altern' (Sub-under and altern-other) argues that Western Feminism has a tendency to speak for others 

Masculinity, Adventure and Soldiering

• Cultural Historian- McClintock- 'master of all he surveys', looks at commodity racism e.g. adverts and the use of colonised man/woman to sell a product

Centre (GB/FR) & Periphery (Empire)

Masculinity- Self-control, managment, idea of masculinity comes is called 'muscular christianity'

Masculinity as History

• Anthony Trollope's travel writing gives insight into how white Europeans viewed others
• Top- white settlers Between-South African 'Kaffirs', New Zealand 'Maoirs' Bottom'- Jamaican 'Negroes'.

Violence and Colonialism 

• Frantz Fanon (1925-61)- Martinique psychologist
• Saw colonial societies as strictly violent, books (The Wretched of the Earth, Black Sin, White masks)
• 'Colonialism is violence in its natural state' - 1) War, conquest, pacification- coercrion, destruction. 2) Structural violence- colonised society, economic inequality. 3) Psychological violence- language, indoctrination, self-hood, identity, masks
• E.g. Mau Mau Rebellion (Kenya) British responded by driving up to 320,000 into concentration camps,Thiaroye Massacre 1944, Paris Massacre 17th Oct 1961.

French Foreign Legion- A 'Colonial army'

• Recruited non-French people to the regime
• Served as colonial army in 1831 after Algeria was conquested

Algeria- A homeland - When they dont want French men dying they send in the legion

A book- Martial Races discovered that people were biologically pre disposed to better war efforts & Heather Streets comments on the book saying that it is essentialising the natives and scientific racism, a strategic set of beliefs born out of recruiting needs.

International Scandal by Germany because the French were allowing Algerians to police the Rhineland border