Throughout history, countless countries have wanted to be on top. Whether culturally superior, or monetarily superior, or even having an extensive empire, every country wants most or all of these in their arsenal of advantages.
Countries who strive to be the cream of the crop tend to turn towards imperialism. Imperialism, being the domination of cultural, economic, or political life of another country, is a very attractive course to take for the forming imperialist power.While some may argue that the controlling power could aid the development and prosperity of both the controlled country and itself, it may, in some cases, be detrimental to the controlled country. Many European powers and Japan during the late 1800s to the early 1900s became imperialistic nations to seize control of developing African Nations, India, and Asian countries and territories, and not all of these nations were agreeable about foreign control. In Great Britain, Joseph Chamberlain felt that colonizing Africa and maintaining India would be a symbiotic relationship.
He says that the relationships they will have with their colonies will open up commerce and trade and increase more demand for products from both countries and that India may be one of their most valuable trade partners (Doc 1). Frederick D. Lugard believed that Africa specifically would benefit from British rule, since they are eager to advance their agricultural techniques and tools, irrigation, and blacksmithing. This would bring the Africans a more civilized and advanced society so they could become fruitful trading partners (Doc 2).He also admitted to the fact that in the beginning, Britain had their own personal gain in mind, but now, they would change that.
They had added transportation, ended slave trade and tribal warfare, and got rid of many diseases with medical advancements (Doc. 3) . Along with all of these advancements Lugard stated, British rule had also united South Africa, which was marred by tribal conflict. Ethiopia, a nation on the Horn of Africa, became very advanced due to trade with Great Britain.
It allowed them to acquire better weaponry to strengthen their nation and improve peace. While all these advancements to lesser nations led to prosperity, some of these nation's citizens did not feel this was the right course for their national development to take. Jawaharlal Nehru, a citizen of India during the British rajj, was one of these people. He said that Britain monopolized the textile business of India, leaving the thriving hand weaving businesses of India to die out.
Britain took India's spices, but nothing else, and no other Indian products were to be bought according to the British Parliament (Doc 5). In 1850, Africa had more free nations than European possessed nations, but by 1914, the statistics were flipped, leaving even less free nations than the controlled in 1850 (Doc. 6). According to Kwame Nkrumah, European Imperialism was out of hand.
Britain had now expanded into Africa even more and was creating spheres of influence as well as many monopolies.They also limited the rights of Africans in their own countries and became greedy, taking natural resources for themselves (Doc 7). Japan also became an imperialistic nation, and took control of Korea. Radio Korea stated that the Japanese changed their religion in order to get rid of their culture, forced citizens to work in their industrial factories and serve in their army, and even went as far to make them change their names to Japanese names in order to erase their culture (Doc. 8).Cruelty wasn't uncommon for this Imperialistic time period.
For example, after the Berlin Conference, which was organized to split Africa up into sections for each European power to avoid war, Luxembourg's King Leopold II aquired the Congo in central Africa. They had tricked the Conference into thinking they had effectively occupied it and banned the slave trade, when really they turned the Congo's inhabitants into slaves and worked for barely any pay in order to harvest natural resources to sate Luxembourg's lack of them.There are always two arguments about a certain belief or way of living, which goes the same for methods of a countries growth and development. Imperialism had many positive effects, but also many negative. Whether detrimental, or prosperous, a country will develop no matter what.
No method of running a country is perfect, but everyone has a chance to improve their lives by making the appropriate decisions for their country and the well being of future generations. Even world powers can make very poor decisions, but what's important is to learn as we all continue to develop as citizens and as a country.
