European colonization took place over many centuries and for varied reasons, but some reasons were more important than others. Here, Parthika Sharma and Aarushi Anand look at the three key reasons that led to the growth of European empires.
Rudyard Kipling in Calcutta, India, 1892.
Take up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
-Rudyard Kipling, White Man’s Burden
Since the beginning of time, humans have sought to dominate their counterparts. The Assyrian empire was superseded by the Persian empire, preparing the way for Greek expansion, which peaked under Alexander the Great, with its borders threatening to spill out of the Indus. The easternmost expansion was accomplished with the conquest of Bengal and the founding of the Delhi Sultanate under Muhammad Ghori. The urge for expansion is in human nature.
In its simplest form, imperialism can be defined as the process by which one state expands its dominance over another through conflict, conquest, and exploitation. In the long histories of the USSR, Japan, the USA, and Europe, two distinct phases of imperialism can be recognized, when it reached unprecedented extent and ferocity.
During the Age of Discovery, following the footsteps of the Portuguese; Britain, Spain, and France, colonized lands throughout North and South America in pursuit of the 3Gs- Gold, God and Glory. However, the so-called "New World" of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci was in fact not at all new: People had been living in the Americas for centuries; people, who would eventually become slaves in their own land.
This was however not the end. After a short period of calm, there was an explosion of imperialism yet again that had long lasting repercussions and has been seen by certain scholars as one of the leading causes of the war to end all wars- World War 1, changing the world forever. In 1885, only 10% of Africa was colonized by European powers, by 1905, only 10% was not colonized. Britain and France were the first nations to embark on colonial missions in the 19th and 20th centuries and they were after the 3Cs- Christianisation, commerce, and civilisation as mentioned by Livingstone.
But why was the need for 3Cs suddenly so important that it transformed different polities, cultures and economies and why now? Over the years, historians have offered a variety of hypotheses and justifications to make sense of the issue.
Economic Reasons
The answer to this question for liberals and Marxists is economy. Liberals such as J.A. Hobson argued that capitalism rising at this time led to the masses having less and less and capitalists having large surpluses which could not be invested internally as there was little purchasing power. This underconsumption of masses and oversaving of capitalists made foreign investment "the taproot of imperialism," with government intervention to safeguard the investments that followed.
For Marxist scholar R. Hilferding imperialism was the final and most advanced phase of capitalism. Monopoly capitalists like Germany and Britain looked to imperialist expansion as a way to ensure reliable supplies of raw materials, markets for industrial goods, and avenues for investment. VI Lenin described imperialism as the pinnacle of capitalist progress, which could only be overthrown by revolution. He highlighted the necessity of seeking out new investment opportunities, and the need of preventing others from acquiring a monopoly. Imperialism and war were therefore necessary since it is a fundamental aspect of capitalism that wealth will eventually end up in fewer and fewer hands.
However, was the economy really the answer? Certain avenues go against the argument. Governments like Britain made investments in places like Argentina that weren't colonies. Because of a lack of finance, industrialization in France during the 19th century was extremely sluggish. In the end, it invested more money in Russia than it did in itself. At the end of the 19th century, northern nations like Norway, Denmark, and Finland had industrialized but had no interest in colonizing. Thus it seems like the imperialists wanted more than just resources.
Karl Kautsky postulated that imperialism results from the persistent desire of industrialized capitalist nations to enlarge the agricultural regions dependent on them. Only when the hinterland builds its own industrial capability and uses the tool of protective tariffs to break free from its economic dependence does sovereignty become important.
Social Reasons
According to Joseph Schumpeter, the older pre-capitalist class whose riches depended on expansionist strategies were motivated by economic considerations. Only Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia were truly imperialist nations because imperialism flourished where absolutism had the strongest hold. According to this argument, when modern industries developed, the Yukur class felt as though the entrepreneurial elite was pushing them out of the way. They could only keep their position by putting the military at the center, which was crucial in colonialism.
Few others believe that imperialism was all about balancing and unbalancing power relations. The conservative argument states that imperialism was required to uphold the current social order and prevent social revolution in the more industrialized nations. On a similar note, political theorists argue that imperialism was simply a manifestation of the balance of power and through this a nation tried to achieve favorable change in the status quo. The notion of prestige and power was advanced by D.K. Fieldhouse. The desire to establish national prestige meant gaining "places in the sun" for the French and the Germans.
Cultural Reasons
But the most popular arguments are probably the racist ones. Charles Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest was applied to social conditions by Herbert Spencer, resulting in the argument of Social Darwinism, which claimed that White European conquerors were more biologically adapted to the struggle for survival than the colonized. The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling suggested that they had the "burden" of conveying the blessings to the native people. The ‘best race’, the whites had taken up the responsibility of ‘taming’ the “fluttered folk” and “wild”, the “half devil, half child”, without actually consulting if the natives wanted their ‘superior culture.’
This is expanded into the favor argument. It is argued that imperialism also had a humanitarian achievement of abolishing slavery. However, it is imperative to point out that these countries were the ones who started it. Establishment of Indian universities, introduction of technologies like steamships, canals and railways were turned to beneficial ends. However, the technologies were first introduced only to aid British functioning. It was argued that the Western medicine benefited indigenous people by eradicating epidemics- cholera, yellow fever, malaria, dysentery and plague. But it spread more diseases than it eradicated.
As pointed out by Edward Said, the formation of imperial culture has major roots in Orientalism, illustrated by disparaging and unflattering assertions and stereotypes. In terms of popular culture, Victorian era novels such as Jane Eyre (which contrasts Indianness with the true Christian British self) and adventures of Sherlock Holmes, (associating the East with wealth, mystery, and criminality), are classic instances of panoptical delusion.
Perceptions rooted in culture govern acculturation of ideas and goods: cross culturalization was also marked by exotica. Claude Monet’s water lilies and Japanese bridge displays an Asian-influenced water garden with a shade of spirituality in Giverny, France. Paul Gaugin painted the locals of the Pacific island of Tahiti with an intense focus on /through the prism of sexuality.Maile Arvin notably observes that a logic of possession through whiteness animates colonial subject, transforming both the land and its people into exotic, feminine objects owned by the whites. Thus the mimetic response to defend the tyranny of "the other" and boost imperial self-esteem was to create a cultural contrast between Europeans and Non-Europeans.
What do you think were the key drivers of European colonialism? Let us know below.
Bibliography
Joll, James. "Europe since 1870: an international history." (No Title) (1973).
Gallagher, John, and Ronald Robinson. "The imperialism of free trade." The Economic History Review 6.1 (1953): 1-15.
Brewer, Tony. Marxist theories of imperialism: A critical survey. Routledge, 2002.
Etherington, Norman. "Reconsidering theories of imperialism." History and Theory 21.1 (1982): 1-36.
Porter, Andrew. "European Imperialism, 1860-1914." (2016).
Pugh, Martin, ed. A companion to modern European history: 1871-1945. John Wiley & Sons, 1997.
Author Bio
Aarushi is a graduate in History honors from Miranda House, University of Delhi. Her areas of interest include Medieval history and Art history. She likes watching movies and writing blog reviews. She is also interested in sketching, origami and semantics.
Parthika is a graduate in History honors from Miranda House, University of Delhi. Her interest lies in Mughal History, Art Restoration and linguistics. She loves painting, clicking photographs, engaging in impromptu choreography and learning new strings on her guitar.
