Imperialism and global transformation - class-VIII

The English East India Company established its first factory in India at Surat in 1612, following permission granted by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir.

The original thirteen British colonies in North America were established along the Atlantic coast, which is the eastern seaboard of the continent.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to establish a maritime empire in the Indian Ocean, focusing on controlling key trade routes and ports after Vasco da Gama reached India.

Brazil was colonized by Portugal, which is why Portuguese is the official language of Brazil today.

The people of the Netherlands are known as the Dutch, and their language is Dutch.

The Dutch East India Company established a significant colonial presence in the East Indies, which is modern-day Indonesia.

Italy brought the dreadful disease of Rinderpest to Africa. There was a large scale infection in Africa that caused major changes to animal life. Rinderpest entered in 1887 at Massawa from Indian cattle for the Italian army. Rinderpest swept from the Horn of Africa west to the Atlantic and south to the Cape of Good Hope. Ethiopia lost 95% of their cattle and most of the human population starved to death.

Big European countries met in 1885 at Berlin to complete the process of carving up of Africa among them. Major European powers negotiated and formalized claims to territory in Africa and this was also called the Berlin West Africa Conference.

Territories of Europe did not experience colonial rule by another country in their early history. The era of European colonialism lasted from the 16th century to the mid-20th century and involved European powers vastly extending their reach around the globe by establishing colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The dismantling of European empires following World War II saw the process of decolonization begin in earnest

Mineral resources, fertile agricultural lands and unskilled manpower were abundant in Africa. But skilled labour needed for industries was scarce in Africa.

The Caribbean islands, a group of many islands situated in the Caribbean Sea was formerly known as West Indies. East Indies was the erstwhile name of the Indonesian islands. 

Indentured labour migrated to Caribbean Islands. The Indian indenture system was a system of Indentured servitude, by which 2 million Indians were transported to labour in European colonies, as a substitute for slave labour, following the abolition of the trade in the early 19th century.

Mineral resources, fertile agricultural lands and unskilled manpower were abundant in Africa. But skilled labour needed for industries was scarce in Africa.

The continent of Africa was divided mercilessly amongst major European powers. In 1885 European leaders met at the infamous Berlin Conference to divide Africa and arbitrarily draw up borders that exist to this day.  With the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, all the states that make up present day Africa were parceled out among the colonial powers within a few years after the meeting.

Poland and Denmark did not have colonial control on any of the territories of Africa.Poland never
formally had any colonial territories, however over its history the acquisition of such territories was at
times contemplated, but never attempted. The closest Poland came to acquiring
such territories was indirectly through the actions of the Duchy
of Courland and Semigallia, a fief of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Apartheid was a political and social system in South Africa while it was under white minority rule. This was in use in the 20th century, from 1948 to 1994. Racial segregation had been used for centuries but the new policy started in 1948 was stricter and more systematic. In the system, the people of South Africa were divided by their race and the races were forced to live apart from each other. There were laws that kept up the racial separation. The system of apartheid in South Africa was banned in 1994. The last president under apartheid was Frederik Willem de Klerk. After this, Nelson Mandela became the first black president. Both were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Today, the term apartheid is sometimes used to speak about similar systems in other countries.

During the World War II era, China was embroiled in a complex conflict involving the Second Sino-Japanese War and an ongoing civil war between the Nationalist government (Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party.

Under the Ottoman Empire, non-Muslims were (A) permitted to practice, but had lesser political rights: for instance, they were subject to special taxes. Non-Muslims were not (B) persecuted into conversion-the empire maintained large Christian and Jewish populations throughout its existence- but they were also not (D) permitted total equality regardless of religion. There was no plan to (C) forcibly remove non-Muslims for expansion purposes-the Armenian genocide was not primarily a land grab-nor were non-Muslims permitted religious equality as a result of military service (E) ; Mamluks were actually kidnapped non-Muslims, usually from outside the empire proper, raised as soldiers with loyalty only to the Sultan, and usually wound up converting to Islam because of their removal from their original faiths and large exposure to Islam.

Losses in war with foreign powers.

While the Tanzimat reforms modernized many aspects of Ottoman law and administration, they largely failed to fundamentally alter the patriarchal structure of society or grant significant social equality to women.

The discovery of the Witwatersrand Gold Reef and diamond mines in Kimberley led to a massive economic boom and influx of foreign interest in South Africa during the late 19th century.

The Siege of Vienna in 1529 was a major military campaign led by Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire against the Hapsburg-controlled city of Vienna.

Latin America became dependent on the production of a small number of natural resources or cash crops for export to global markets.

• Once covered in dense forest, much of the Indonesian landscape has been gradually cleared for permanent fields and settlements as rice cultivation developed over the last hundreds of years.
  
• Java is now famous as a rice-producing island in Indonesia.
  
• The colonial power in Indonesia were the Dutch. 

The Battle of Plassey in 1757 is widely considered the turning point that established British political control over Bengal.

The Monroe Doctrine, issued in 1823, stated that further efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

Simon Bolivar, known as 'El Libertador', played a central role in the independence movements of several South American countries, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

The Portuguese were early leaders in the transatlantic slave trade, establishing forts and trading networks along the African coast to capture and export enslaved people.

Aurangzeb was the last of the 'Great Mughal' emperors. After his death in 1707, the Mughal Empire began a rapid decline, allowing European powers to expand their influence.

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain.

The English had established an outpost in the Cape of Good Hope to help the passing ships to rest and replenish food supplies. Some Dutch farmers had settled in this area to cultivate and sell the produce to the passing ships. They came into conflict with the local African people whom they tried to drive away from their lands. They were called Boers. 

The English had established an outpost in the Cape of Good Hope to help the passing ships to rest and replenish food supplies. 

Under the Apartheid system in South Africa, the white minority government enforced land laws that reserved the vast majority of the land for the white population, often cited as approximately 87-90%.

The British fought two Boer wars to gain control over much of what is today called South Africa. These wars ended in 1902 and the British consolidated all the regions of South Africa into the 'Union of South Africa. 

During the middle of the 19th century, Africa was referred to as the "Dark Continent," because little was known about the mysterious land itself. Africa had dense forests, perennial lakes, and large tracts of deserts. 

King Leopold II presented himself as a philanthropist eager to bring the benefits of Christianity, Western civilisation, and commerce to African natives. It was the world’s only private colony, and Leopold referred to himself as its “proprietor.” Initially, he was most interested in ivory, a material that was greatly valued in the days before plastics. Another thing that attracted Leopold was rubber. One lucrative source of wild rubber was the Landolphia vines in the great Central African rainforest, and no one owned more of that area than Leopold. His private army would march into a village and hold the women hostage, forcing the men to scatter into the rainforest and gather a monthly quota of wild rubber. The effects were devastating. Many of the women hostages starved, and many of the male rubber gatherers were worked to death.

The "Scramble for Africa" was the invasion, occupation, division, colonisation and annexation of African territory by European powers during the period of New Imperialism, between 1881 and 1914. In 1870, only 10 percent of Africa was under European control; by 1914 it had increased to 90 percent of the continent, with only Ethiopia (Abyssinia), the Dervish state (present-day Somalia) and Liberia still being independent.

Ethiopia was able to decisively defeat Italy in a war and thus became the only traditional non-European empire to defeat a European army. 

China was having its own culture with strong tilt towards communism. Though  European powers established parts of coastal cities or trade ports as "concessions," which they occupied and controlled. Some, such as Shanghai, were divided into multiple European concessions. Others, like British-controlled Hong Kong, were fully absorbed into the European empires. This is why China is labelled as partially dominated by Europe.

In the late Nineteenth century King Leopold II of Belgium attempted to influence the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. The rulers showed a sheer ambivalence and hence Leopold was successful in establishing a colony there.

In the period of great mobility there were great changes in economic, social, political and culture. Groups of people traveled long distances in search of opportunity. The subcontinent held immense wealth and the possibilities for people to carve a fortune.

The European nations transformed due to the Renaissance Movement, developing a crave for modern imperialism. By 1914, this caving brought the entire Asian and African regions under the imperial rule.

Fort William in Calcutta served as the primary headquarters for the British East India Company in Bengal.

The East India Company was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600.

During the 17th century, the East India Company operated under a Royal Charter granted by the British Crown, which defined its powers and privileges.

The East India Company was established in 1600, which was during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar.

The original charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I gave the company the exclusive right to trade with all countries between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan.

The East India Company was a joint-stock company, and its governor and directors were elected by the shareholders (the members of the company).

Farrukh-Siyar was the Mughal emperor of India between 1713 and 1719. In 1717, the British East India Company purchased duty-free trading rights in all of Bengal from him. He issued a farman giving the British East India Company the right to reside and trade in the Mughal kingdom. 

Rinderpest was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic buffalo, and some other species of even-toed ungulates, including buffaloes, large antelope and deer, giraffes, wildebeests, and warthogs. The virus is thought to have been introduced into Eritrea in 1887 by Indian cattle brought by the Italians for their campaign against Somalia. It spread throughout the Horn of Africa, and crossed the Zambezi in March of 1896

King Charles II of England received Bombay as part of his dowry when he married Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess, in 1661. He subsequently leased the island to the East India Company in 1668.

Fort St. George in Madras was the first major fortification built by the British East India Company in India, established in 1644. While Surat was an early trading post, it was not fortified in the same manner initially.

Both Abbasid Caliphs and Ottoman Sultans avoided naming successors while alive, out of fear of an overthrow by the newly named heirs. Both empires were persecutory of Muslim religious minorities, in particular Shi'ism. Both the Abbasids and Ottomans, began to rely, to their detriment, on foreign mercenaries and even slave armies who grew powerful enough to influence politics with their military might. For the Abbasids these were Mamluks and for the Ottomans the Janissaries. Peasants revolt plagued both empires and often stemmed from the heavy tax burden levied on them by the landed aristocracies.

Jose de San Martin was the primary leader responsible for the liberation of Argentina, Chile, and Peru from Spanish rule. Simon Bolivar is also a famous liberator, but he is primarily associated with northern South America.

Francisco Pizarro led the Spanish expedition that conquered the Inca Empire in Peru in the 1530s. Cortez is known for the conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico.

Haciendas were large landed estates in Spanish colonial America that functioned as self-sufficient economic units, often including agriculture, mining, and manufacturing.

The Spanish conquistadors and colonial administrators were the primary force responsible for the widespread enslavement and plunder of native populations in the Americas during the colonial period.

Simon Bolivar led the revolutionary movements across much of northern South America, often mobilizing diverse social groups, including slaves and farmers, to fight against Spanish rule.

Brazil declared its independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822, led by Dom Pedro I.

Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain, arrived in the Caribbean islands in 1492, which he famously referred to as the West Indies.

The Latin American wars of independence generally began in 1810, triggered by the Napoleonic invasion of Spain which weakened the Spanish monarchy's control over its colonies.

Portugal established and maintained colonial control over Mozambique and Angola in Africa for centuries.

The English East India Company was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600.

The Congo Free State was a large state in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908, which was in personal union with the Kingdom of Belgium under Leopold II. Leopold II was able to procure the region by convincing the international community that he was involved in humanitarian and philanthropic work and would not tax trade.Via the Association Internationale Africaine he was able to lay claim to most of the Congo basin. 

King Leopold II of Belgium is historically cited for his personal colonization of the Congo Free State, which initiated the 'Scramble for Africa' and set off a wave of European colonial expansion.

The first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, led by Cornelis de Houtman, returned in 1597 with a cargo of spices that yielded a profit of approximately 400 percent.

From the 1490s to early 20th Century, Europeans and White Americans were engaged in unbroken killings of Native Peoples of Americas. they were killed, tortured, sexually abused, were forcefully involved in military occupations and in the slave trade.

The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 regulated European colonization and trade in Africa, effectively formalizing the Scramble for Africa.

David Livingstone was a Scottish missionary and explorer . He was one of the greatest European explorers of Africa. He reached to new peoples in the interior of Africa and introduce them to Christianity, as well as freeing them from slavery.

As noted previously, the East India Company was established in 1600.

In 1800, the Dutch Government disbanded the Company and established direct rule over Indonesia. Since the government was in deep financial crises, it wanted to use Indonesia as a source of revenue. The Dutch forced the native people to deliver products like coffee, sugar and spices as taxes. This was sold in international markets by the government which earned huge profits.

The Africa continent was known as the unknown continent till the 18th century.

The Dutch capitalists started investing in Indonesia to set up plantations in which a single crop like rubber, pepper or sugarcane was extensively planted. These were managed by the Dutch planters. Many of the crops were even brought from distant countries like India. Thus, the Dutch Indonesia produced most of the worlds supply of quinine and pepper, over a third of its rubber, a quarter of its coconut products, and a fifth of its tea, sugar, coffee, and oil.

The East India Company faced significant opposition from 'interlopers', who were independent British merchants trading in the East without the Company's authorization.