The Age of European Imperialism
Edward C. Bohling Jr.
His 104
Kenneth Adderley
April 05, 2010
The Age of European Imperialism
History is requite with negative
observations of Imperialism, are there any positive aspects associated with
that era? I shall endeavor to point out positive aspects while not defending
the negative.
In researching this paper I thought
it would only be helpful to explore the roots of our country’s foundation since
our being is the result of European imperialism. Our own experience was
dominated by the explorations of the British. Doubtless, we as students of
history should know of the planting of settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth
Bay which in turn led to the accidental discovery of Bermuda. Perhaps some have
forgotten the role that the Dutch played in the formation of our colonies. New
York was not always New York , it was a trade war with
the rival Dutch that brought New Amsterdam into the British colonial fold,
which then transferred Stuyvesant’s New Amsterdam into New York. (History of Holland.Com 2004-2010)
The formation of colonies by the
British in the Western Hemisphere differed in many aspects than those
established in Africa or Asia. In the establishment of American colonies it
should be clear that the goal was to transplant population and to have a source
of arable land which would be suitable to grow crops that Britain lacked the
acreage for or could not grow itself. The end result in the Bahamas and Jamaica
however would be dominated over the issue of Sugar and would not be populated
with English transfers. Until slavery was outlawed these colonies would be
populated by African laborers imported via the slave trade. Eventually, as in
the case of Bermuda, the slave populations would surpass the numbers of plantation
owners, these colonies despite their racial makeup would essentially maintain
the core of British values. Bermuda still employs a picture of the reigning
British monarch on its currency.(Bermuda Online
Multi-National 2010)
According to Piers Brendon the
rebellion of the American Colonies was both a harbinger of decline within the
British Empire and the impetus of its expansion elsewhere (Brendon 2007 pp3-9). The loss of what would become the United
States did not however engender a total negative for the crown, trade would
still occur with the former colonies with access to cotton, tobacco and other
American products not available in the old world, the difference would be that
the crown could not tax the exports or have a say in Americas development.
Further if the crown taxed the imported goods there would be economic fallout
within Britain itself. Therefore Britain had to seek out new lands within which
to practice mercantilism. Mercantilism is where I forbid you to take your raw
materials for manufacture of your own consumer goods and make those goods
myself and ship them back to you as finished consumer products. This is the arrangement which we have with
Puerto Rican tuna and with which the British exercised with our cotton (Online
Highways 2001-2010) . In another example we should
look at the production of Rum. Rum is made by distilling Molasses which itself
is a byproduct of refining sugar. One of the products that the British Navy
relied upon for the maintenance of morale was the daily rum ration. So if we
take the mercantilism route, molasses as well as refined sugar would be
exported from the Bahamas to Britain. Britain would repackage the raw sugar
into consumer quantities and refine the molasses to make rum,
these end products would then be shipped back to the Bahamas with Britain attaching
a duty on them at the same time. We have an American example in which the
California-Hawaii Sugar Company brings raw product from Oahu, refines it in Crockett,
California and ships back the finished consumer product (C&H Sugar Company
2007).
The British Empire not only provided
a source of materials for industry but also a major source for tourism and
sunshine. In the 1987 production of Zulu which starred Edward Fox ( A Bridge to Far, James Bond’s Never Say Never Again) Cape
town which the British had displaced Dutch rule for was under threat by the
Zulu’s. Shaka the greatest Zulu warrior in history was seeking to be master of
all he surveyed. The British colonial secretary was concerned that the Cape may be lost if a conflict ensued. The matter was brought
before the reigning Monarch, King George IV to which the monarch reminded the
colonial secretary that the colonies represented Britain’s sunshine. Perhaps
the information was a little bit off subject but it does portray one of the
imperial entanglements that the British Empire found itself in. One of the most
profound positive attributes of English imperialism was the installation of a
new Lingua Franca, the student may
either relate the Latin term to coin language or a common tongue. Why is this
important? Well, it becomes clear that in studying the colonial independence
movements that most of the former colonies, chose to keep English as an
official language. When we are dealing
with a multi-ethnic population such as Singapore a common language spoken by
all cultures becomes extremely important. Bear in mind that the dominant culture
within Singapore is Chinese, still Lee Kwan Yew the ardent PM since separating
from the Malaysian Federation was wise to maintain the English Language as the official
language of government. We find the same issue at hand in Kenya and the Gulf
States. This is an interesting study in looking at Arab states such as Dubai,
Qatar and Abu Dhabi, these are Arab states that were
under British control after the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and what is
certainly evident are the ties that still exist to British culture. These
states could have chosen any Roman based language system but they chose the
Queens English in the running of everyday affairs. I am personally aware of the
area of Dubai and have been there many times, the one thing that becomes
evident is that despite the country of origin of the ex-patriots living and
doing business there, English is the language of communication. There is no
pre-requisite for instance for foreign workers to speak Arabic, they are
however required to speak and understand the English language. Even the Russians
who came to vacation in Dubai had to speak English to get along. On one other
note the governments in the UAE chose to develop their interstate highway
system using the British Style traffic circle, versus our standard clover leaf
design when handling traffic entering or departing the highway system.
One great positive aspect of the
British Empire is that in its waning years, it would come to rely upon the
United States to be a somewhat agent of
its foreign or colonial policy. At the close of the World War II Sir
Anthony Eden saw it as crucial that the Empire maintain a strong presence in
the Middle East (the oil equation). Churchill was then tasked to approach the
United States to take on the issue of communist expansions into Greece and
Turkey, the resulting conference ended with the Truman Doctrine that we have so
glibly called the policy of communist containment. (Brendon 2007 p466)
Many Americans who would not dabble
in the world of foreign policy would of course see our intervening on behalf of
British interests as somewhat putting our noses into situations that were none
of our bloody business to use the Queens vernacular. However, students should
endeavor to understand, that because of our manufacturing and economic might it
would fall to us to fill the power vacuum left by the decline of Downing
Street’s influence. Some may make the connection that in that pursuit we landed
ourselves into the role of Radical Islam’s Great Satan. This however is not the
case. Our negative image if at all comes from America’s entertainment industry
that not only portrays America as an immoral and disgraceful country but
blatantly promotes the image within our own country as something to be sought
after. However Britain’s decline has been a positive in the projection of our
own power, as a result the United States Navy in the Pacific enjoys regular
port visits to Hong Kong, ( The Peoples Republic has
been true to their word to not communize the former colony) Singapore, Phataya Beach and Ko Phuket Beach in Thailand and of course
ports in Australia. We do not however,
or at least do not to my knowledge, call on ports in India. Rumor had it that
the USS ORISKANY CVA-34 once called
at Bombay, India and several fellows died of supposed sexually transmitted
diseases within 24 hours, that was the explanation given us when I was in the
Navy for why we did not call on Indian ports.
Hong Kong itself would not be there
had it not been for the expulsion of the British from the mainland of Canton
due to the Opium Wars. It was really quite a nasty affair but in the words of
the British the bloody Chinese would not part with any of their bloody tea
plants. The price of tea was of course held as a monopoly by the Chinese and
they would only take silver for its purchase. The novel, but stupid idea, then
developed was to take Indian Opium for which the British could trade something
else and get the local Chinese addicted to the product for which they would
handsomely pay a fortune in Silver. The secondary effort of this plot was to
hoard the silver and thereby drive down its value. This in turn resulted in the
price of tea going down and eventually the celestial kingdom had its fill of
opium addiction , at this point the British were given
plants which they then could cultivate on plantations in India. Although this
nonsense of Imperialism started out on the wrong foot it eventually led to
India having a large cash crop (tea) which the British still heavily rely upon
and Hong Kong becoming a large Capitalist economic
powerhouse. (Brendon 2007 pp97-112) Much of foundation of Hong Kong was alluded
to in the production of the movie Tai-pan. Brendon does not exactly follow this
reasoning, however the novel from which the movie was based, does an excellent job of
filling the reader in on the expulsion from Canton and the founding of Victoria
on the main Island of Hong Kong. (Clavell
1966) The Hong Kong of today is not the
Hong Kong of the 19th century, what we see today is the
result of continual movements of people from Canton escaping various wars and
famines which required Hong Kong to acquire additional lands for
settlement. Up until
the hand off to the PRC Hong Kong had a very serious immigration problem. In 1897 a burgeoning population required more
land to house people, this is what led to Great
Britain signing a 100 year lease which would eventually transfer the entire
colony to the PRC. The main island Victoria was the seat of the colony and
housed the government buildings . Today’s Victoria
skyline stands out with the Bank Of China ,the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, and of course looking across
the bay you will see the Kowloon area complete with its Peninsula Hotel. But
there are also the New Territories and Shatin which most Americans never see . According to
Brendon’s work, the returning of Hong Kong marked the end of the British
Empire. (Brendon 2007 pp633-662)
Unlike
the Spaniards and their conquests it would seem that Britain had been less
responsible for leaving behind a Third
World propagation. Part of that image would have to do with the inherent
values of the peoples that found themselves under British tutelage. India has a values
problem that prevents it from surpassing its third world image, in other words
its own people fight the idea of progress. I personally wonder what would the
Philippines look like today if the British had not given Manila back to the
Spanish. Even though the United States
spent a great deal of time trying to instill its values in the Philippines it
could not compete with the 400 years of Spanish values that ruled the peoples
spiritual and thought lives. It may
offend some but I think from the standpoint of history we can see a difference
in the economic values which are transmitted from a protestant work ethic to
those which are taught under a Roman Catholic ethic. Just for a moment look at
the ethic transmitted by the conquistadors to all of the Spanish colonies, then
look at that Protestant ethic transmitted by the British. Suffice it to say
that very few people ever converted to Christ in Hong Kong or Singapore yet the
ethic transmitted via the British colonial system brought these former colonies
into the 21st century with higher standards of living than any
former Spanish colony. Tragically we see some of the Spanish ethic in Miami
where buildings are started but never finished.
As a world traveler I think it wise to inform you that the disparity
between British Hong Kong and Portuguese Macau was like night and day and frankly
I just do not see what Ian Fleming saw in Macau when he wrote Man with the
Golden Gun.
I have also been to Mombasa, Kenya
and I wonder how it would have looked had it still been a Portuguese possession
when I visited. But the case is that Britain brought Kenya under its tutelage.
No one speaks a Latin dialect in Mombasa today, everyone I came across spoke
English, nor did I see the racial hostility in Mombasa that I normally felt in
Oakland, California. If the local Africans had a problem with Americans it was
directed toward the disrespect that they heard in American Blacks street
language. It had been true that whenever an American vessel called upon Mombasa
in the early 1970’s and 1960’s that some Black crew members never made it back
aboard. According to a Black Navy Career Counselor who had been on the USS
Kilauea with me in my active duty days and whom I saw again in Subic aboard the
USS San Jose in 1979, the Skipper of the USS Kitty Hawk feared for his black
crew members when the ship put into Mombasa in that fateful year of the race
riot, and forbade them to go ashore while the white crew members were allowed.
There is no allusion to a historical riot stemming from a visit to Mombasa in
the official Naval record, rather the official record insists the racial
problems developed into Riots in conjunction with port visits to Subic Bay.That notwithstanding the gentleman that I knew claims
that it was policy to prevent black crew members from going ashore while in
ports like Mombasa. This racial component then could be viewed as one of the
negative aspects of imperialism, the forced enslavement and transfer of African
populations to the New World and specifically to Britain’s North American colonies,
resulted in a cultural disconnect. There
have been centuries of cultural separation where in American’s of African
heritage are just that, meaning that they are Americans and share nothing in
common with their African cousins except for skin color. The current trend of black youth wearing
their pants hanging off their underwear below the waistline would be laughed at
in current Kenyan culture likewise modern Africans in Kenya find the American
Black street language very offensive. This is not something that the reader
will find in text books, these are observations from
my ports of call and from conversations with African people in Kenya and from
casual conversations with recent African immigrants to Florida. Perhaps this
ventures into the territory of anthropology, however
the issue is raised as one of the consequences of Imperialism.
According to the historical
beginning of the Bolshevik revolution ,Lenin’s
explanation for the revolution was the systematic attack on the world
imperialistic system, in fact if the source is to be trusted Lenin invented the
term Imperialist. If this is the case what in the world are we doing using it
in our western lexicon to describe or investigate elements of colonialism, that
is after all what we have been looking at in the research is the consequences
and benefits of colonial policy (Foster, 2007) ? It would take a book to delve into the
reasons why we now use terms borrowed from the pages of Leninism
, suffice it to say that for many years academia has had a love affair
with Marxism. It makes me wonder how the conscience can accept an endowment
from a corporate donor whom these folks despise on the surface.
So was imperialism or colonial
policy responsible for the Bolshevik revolution? I am going to say hogwash. The
Bolsheviks rode in on the power vacuum already created by a civil war in Russia
which had caused the Romanov Monarchs to abdicate. It was not colonial
adventures which had caused the peasant uprising, it
was the increased taxation and conscription of men to fight a war which the
people themselves did not wish to fight. Germany would not have acted toward
Russia if Russia would have stayed clear of the punitive actions toward the
Serbs who had sponsored the assassination of the Habsburg monarchs.
Germany itself seemed primarily
content in the beginning to confine itself with uniting the various German
speaking states into one country. We English speakers like to refer to this
political unification as the German Empire but it actually began its history as
the Prussian Empire. That empire began on January 18th 1871 and
Wilhelm I was crowned as king much to the objection of many states including Prussia
itself. Germany’s colonial ventures were
limited compared to that of Spain or Great Britain. The German Empire
entertained colonies in Africa. Those colonies were,
Togo, Namibia, and Tanzania. There were also limited excursions into the
Pacific (Adolf, The German Empire). Saipan, an Island in the Northern Mariana’s
was a German possession until the end of the Great War at which time the League
of Nations transferred it to Japan. During World War II the United States
captured Saipan from the Japanese and built airfields to reach the Japanese
homeland with the B-29 bomber. Today Saipan is a territory of the United States
and is known as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana’s Islands (CMNI).
People of the common wealth are American citizens and the US Dollar is the
currency. The study of the German Empire would not be complete without making
mention of trade delegations in Brazil and Argentina. After the end of fighting
in World War II many Germans fled to Argentina and Brazil. Perhaps one positive
consequence of so called German Imperialism is the migration of ethnic Germans
to the United States from the 1850’s to the 1920’s .
These migrations brought significant talent to the United States.
Notwithstanding much of our Naval top brass during World War II depended upon individuals
whose forbears came over in the 1850’s . Admiral Richmond Kelley Turner,
Admiral Nimitz and Admiral King were 2nd generation German
immigrants. For you beer drinkers where
would we be without Coor’s , Budweiser, Schlitz, Miller and other manufacturers? One of my own forbears came over as an
engineer working on one of the many New York City bridges. These Germanic
peoples were fleeing the constant conflicts that they found themselves in
during the unification of the Empire. It should be noticed that Kaiser Wilhelm never
had the grandiose schemes for world domination that would be revealed in Adolf
Hitler’s wicked persona. There had not been a concept of Deutschland Uber Alles in
Wilhelm’s or Otto
Von Bismarck’s Empire, this was a concept created for Hitler’s propaganda
films.
Like the other Colonial
powers the German Empire had a trade mission in Shanghai. I have never seen a
report of open hostility toward other delegations in Shanghai. Each delegation
had its own military detachment to protect embassy compounds. During the Boxer
Rebellion it would fall upon these detachments to cooperate for mutual
protection which eventually led to the rescue of and protection of ethnic
Chinese Christians and the rescue of Embassies in Peking. A contributing factor
to the rebellion was the seizure of the cities of Kiaochow and Tsingtao by
Imperial Germany in 1897.
( The Boxer Rebellion
and the U.S. Navy, 1900-1901, 2000)
Essentially
the Boxer Rebellion brought the Chinese Empire to collapse there are three
films which have dealt with the subject. The Sand Pebbles, The Last Emperor,55 Days At Peking that stand out in the mind. Although
these films are considered historical fiction they are important in that they
contain researched elements of truth, in most cases only dramatic personalities
are false while the events they portray are correct.
The
Boxer Rebellion also became a defense of maintaining a presence in the
Philippines, it was because of Naval Assets stationed at Subic Bay that the
United States was able to respond with a rescue attempt so quickly. This of
course would justify our one and only colonial acquisition which had been
gained in the Spanish American war just two years prior.
In
the current form the United States cannot be said to be an Empire although it
does have possessions worldwide, the bulk of those peoples are attached to
Uncle Sam as a matter of choice. How about that great Samoan pro-wrestler that
we call the Rock? If American Samoa did not have that territorial link with the
United States, his father may not have ever been able to come to the mainland. Many
of these far flung possessions serve as alternate runways and fueling stops for
commercial and military aircraft. Some of these locations served as stops for
the Pan American Clipper such as the facility in Apra Harbor, Guam. That
facility was destroyed by Japanese attacks during World War II and was located
within the current Naval Station.
Continental Airlines now flies those original routes from the mainland.
Guam of course has the motto, ‘Where Americas Day Begins’. Guam itself has
become increasingly important to a forward deployed Pacific Strategy since
basing arrangements were lost in the Philippines, this has brought some discord
among those Chamorro’s who would like to see a return of ancestral lands that
have been considered military property since the US retook the Island from the
Japanese (Talmadge, The Associated Press,2009).
If
the United States ever had a true colonial experience it rested with the
Philippine Island’s . According to Stanley Karnow, our
time with the Philippines as a colony was 100 years which would be 1898 until
1998 but in truth we cannot say this, the official severance of ties with the
Philippines occurred on their independence day, July 4th 1946.
Congress conceded only because it did not wish to expend a large portion of the
treasury on what would be a growing welfare state. (Karnow, 1989) However we
did sign treaties for a basing agreement. At this point I should alert the
reader that at one time the Naval Base at Subic included much of the city of
Olongapo within its gates. In 1959 the main gate was relocated to the point at
which it still stands and Olongapo became self governing under the province of
Zambales. My reference to this is the historical sign at the main gate which I
used to pass on my way out to the city. Knowing the dislike of Wikipedia as
source I could not list it here.
In
conclusion the world in general benefitted from European colonial practices, however the primary source of rule was Great
Britain. Great Britain’s ultimate loss of Empire propelled the United States
into the role of a Super Power. The negative aspects were the forced
enslavement of Africans to work on plantations in the New World and the ensuing
cultural disconnect. The student has also learned that governments at one time
created drug dependencies in cultures in order to achieve financing goals for
other products. Those governments now seek to destroy the drug trade due to the
impact on their own societies.
References
1. Adolf, G.M., The German Empire Retrieved from http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=german_empire , April 3,2010
2. Bermuda Online multi-national , 2010 The Royal Gazette Ltd Retrieved from http://www.bermuda-online.org/history.htm March 25,2010
3. Brendon,P., 2007 The Decline And Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997, Vintage-Random House, New York
4. Clavell,J. 1966, Tai-Pan , Dell-Random House, New York
5. Department of The Navy –Naval Historical Center ,March 14,2000,The Boxer Rebellion and the U.S. Navy, 1900-1901 Retrieved From http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq86-1.htm , April 5,2010
6. Foster,J.B., 2007,The Monthly Review, On The History of Imperialism Theory; The Bolsheviks’ Conception of Imperialism, Retrieved from http://www.monthlyreview.org/1207rupe.htm March 27,2010
7. Karnow,S., 1989, In Our Image- Americas Empire in The Philippines Random House New York
8. Online Highways 2001-2010, Mercantilism , Retrieved from http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h622.html March 27,2010
9. Our History, Retrieved from http://www.chsugar.com/Consumer/history.html March 27,2010
10. Retrieved from http://www.historyofholland.com/new-amsterdam-history-(new-york).html March 27,2010
11. Talmadge, E., January 12,2009 Guam, focus of new U.S. strategy, faces hurdles The Associated Press, Retrieved from http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/01/ap_guam_strategy_010409/ April 5,2010