History Honors DBQ Essay

Imperialism DBQ “Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life. ” This quote by Cecil Rhodes clearly shows how the Englishmen viewed themselves compared to the rest of the world. England used Imperialism, the creation and/or maintenance of a country’s power and influence through military force, and the ideology of Social Darwinism, to their advantage. This helped them acquire colonies throughout the world, mainly in Africa in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Other European powers, such as France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Italy, nd Portugal, also competed against one another to gain land in Africa, which is known today as the Scramble For Africa. These Documents aid to support that Imperialism had a positive and negative affect on Africa and Asia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These documents can be split up into three main categories, which include political, economics, and social. Documents 1, 2, 5 and 10 work best for political.

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Documents 4, 5, 6, and 8 can best support economics. Lastly, documents 1, 3, 7, and 9 will be best to help support social. Industrialization rained Europe of their own natural resources, so, in order to survive, they had to acquire their resources from other countries. As one can see in Documents 5 and 10, the Scramble For Africa and Asia led to political unrest between these European Powers, such as France, Great Britain, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Holland.

Cecil Rhodes states in Document 1, “It is our duty to seize ever opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes… ” This quote shows how Cecil Rhodes, a famous English Imperialist, elieves that he is here on earth to conquer land and do what ever is necessary to achieve this. On the other hand, in the next document (2), Dadabhai Nairobi, an Indian, says that the European political presence has its positives and negatives. For example, he argues that the British rule has been “Politically peace and order on one hand… n the other, materially, impoverishment… ” This, coming from the point of view of an Indian, shows that even though the colony of India has been impoverished, the natives of India still cherish the political peace and order that the British have iven them. Imperialism throughout Africa and Asia had a positive and negative impact politically. Edward Morel, a British Journalist who worked in Africa, drew attention to the abuses of Imperialism. In his “The Black Man’s Burden” (Document 4), Edward states that it is impossible for the African’s to oppose what the European Powers are doing to them.

This is because of the perfection of military weapons used by the Europeans. This shows how the European Powers are spending so much money into revolutionizing their military Just to show off to the other countries, ecause there is no possible way for the Africans to fght back. To better support this, a graph of the military spending of the major European Powers in the late 19th and early 20th century could have been included in the documents. Also, Document 5 shows how there are so many countries competing for power in the Scramble For Africa.

They all want the plethora of resources throughout the continent of Africa, and want to gain not only an economic advantage, but a political advantage as well. “The Devilfish”, is setting up colonies around the world and are having a negative influence on their colonies. Finally, in Document 8, Jawaharlal Nehru clearly states that the British are negatively influencing India economically. For example, Nehru says “Thus the economic development of India was stopped and the growth of a new industry was prevented…

The destruction of industry led to unemployment on a vast scale… The poverty of the country grew. ” The quote from his “The Discovery of India”, shows that when the British colonized India they demolished and stunted the growth of their economy. It is perfectly clear that Imperialism had a negative impact economically on the colonies of Africa and Asia. Imperialism in Africa and Asia had a positive and negative influence socially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. First, in Document 1, Cecil Rhodes says that “… ore territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race, more of the best, the most human, and most honourable race the world possesses. ” This quote from his “Confession of Faith”, shows how ignorant, cocky, and proud the Englishmen were because of their race. They wanted to spread their “amazing race” around the world so that their race (Anglo-Saxon) can be represented in many different regions of the world. This had a negative impact because the Englishmen believed they were the best, and treated all of the other races with no respect.

In addition to a quote from “Confession of Faith”, my opinion could be supported even better with a Journal from one of the natives in a British colony detailing what their life was like and how they were treated. Also, Documents three and seven help to support my opinion that imperialism had a negative impact on the colonies of Africa and Asia. These cartoons illustrate the hardships of the natives. In Document three, we can see that the exhausted slaves are working hard or their master, who looks like an army general.

This shows the social class of the colonies, with the natives on the bottom, and the European Power on the top. Another cartoon (Document 7), paints the picture of workers pumping out natural resources from a native. This cartoon is published by Germany and is poking fun of the harsh way that Britain colonizes its colonies. In addition, there is a native reading the bible, which shows how the British are trying to expand their religion (Christianity) around the world. Lastly, Document 9 also supports the theory that the European Powers ere trying to spread their religion.

It states that before they were colonized by the Europeans, “we had the land and they had the Bible”, but after they colonized, “now we have the Bible and they have the land”. This suggests that the natives were negatively influenced by imperialism because they lost their land and dropped their native religion to follow their mother countries religion of Catholicism. Many countries around the globe, mainly in Africa and Asia, are still impacted, positively and negatively, today from being colonized by a European Power in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries.

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