Unit 6 · Consequences of Industrialization, c. 1750–1900

Imperialism ● (core concept) — The policy or practice of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, military force, or economic control. From 1750 to 1900, industrialized states built vast overseas empires and justified them with new cultural, religious, and racial ideologies.

Social Darwinism ● (core concept) — An ideology that misapplied Charles Darwin's ideas of natural selection to human societies, claiming that stronger nations or races were destined to dominate weaker ones. Imperialists used it to argue that European conquest of other peoples was natural and inevitable.

Nationalism ● (core concept) — Pride in one's nation and the drive to advance its interests and prestige. In the 1800s, rivalries between nations pushed European states to compete for colonies as symbols of national power.

Civilizing mission ● (core concept) — The belief — claimed by European imperialists — that they had a duty to bring their 'superior' civilization, education, and institutions to colonized peoples. It framed imperialism as a benevolent project rather than conquest.

Religious conversion as imperialist rationale ● (core concept) — The desire by Christian churches and missionaries to convert indigenous populations, which was used to justify imperial expansion as spreading the faith. Missionaries often preceded or accompanied colonial rule.

Shift from non-state to direct state colonial control ● (core concept) — Some states with existing colonies strengthened their control and in some cases assumed direct government control over colonies previously held by non-state entities. For example, the Congo passed from the private ownership of Belgium's King Leopold II to the Belgian government, and Dutch holdings in Indonesia shifted from the Dutch East India Company to the Dutch government.

Settler colonies ● (core concept) — Colonies where Europeans permanently settled and built communities — such as New Zealand — displacing indigenous peoples and taking control of the land. Unlike colonies run mainly for resource extraction, settler colonies involved large-scale European migration.

Land-based imperial expansion (U.S., Russia, Japan) ● (core concept) — The United States, Russia, and Japan expanded their land holdings by conquering and settling neighboring territories. This overland expansion mirrored the overseas empire-building of European states.

European empire-building in Africa ● (core concept) — Many European states used both warfare and diplomacy to expand their empires in Africa. This competition — often called the 'Scramble for Africa' — carved nearly the entire continent into European colonies such as Britain's holdings in West Africa, the French in West Africa, and Belgium in the Congo.

Leopold II's Congo (Belgian Congo) ○ — The Congo began as the private possession of Belgium's King Leopold II, whose brutal rubber-extraction regime was notorious for violence against Congolese people, before control passed to the Belgian government. It is a leading example of the shift from non-state to state colonial control.

European, U.S., and Japanese acquisitions in Asia and the Pacific ● (core concept) — European states, the United States, and Japan seized territories across Asia and the Pacific — e.g., French Indochina, British Burma, the U.S. Philippines, and Japanese Taiwan — while Spanish and Portuguese influence declined.

Anticolonial movements ● (core concept) — Movements resisting imperial rule, fueled by growing questions about political authority and by rising nationalism. They challenged the legitimacy of foreign domination from within and around empires.

Direct resistance to imperialism ● (core concept) — Anti-imperial resistance that took the form of armed conflict or open defiance within empires. Indigenous peoples fought back against colonial armies and officials rather than cooperating with them.

New states on the peripheries of empires ● (core concept) — Some peoples responded to imperial pressure by creating new states on the edges of empires — for example, independent states in the Balkans, the Sokoto Caliphate in modern-day Nigeria, and the Zulu Kingdom. These new polities asserted political independence.

Religious anti-imperial rebellions ● (core concept) — Rebellions against imperial rule influenced by religious ideas, such as the Ghost Dance movement in the United States, the Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement in Southern Africa, and the Mahdist wars in Sudan. Faith gave these movements organization and a vision of liberation.

1857 rebellion in India (Sepoy Rebellion) ○ — The 1857 uprising of Indian soldiers against British East India Company rule, a major direct-resistance rebellion against imperialism. After it was suppressed, Company rule ended and India passed under direct British Crown control.

Export economies ● (core concept) — Economies around the world that specialized in producing raw materials or food for export to industrialized nations. The profits from these raw materials were used to purchase finished goods from the industrial powers.

Commercial extraction of natural resources ● (core concept) — The large-scale extraction of resources such as rubber, guano, and diamonds for sale on world markets. Industrial demand drove the commercial exploitation of these resources in places like the Amazon, the Congo basin, and Peru.

Industrial crops ● (core concept) — Crops grown for use in industry rather than as food — for example, cotton grown in Egypt for textile factories. Export regions specialized in producing industrial crops for the factories of industrialized nations.

Rising urban food demand ● (core concept) — The growing populations of industrial urban centers needed increased food supplies, which pulled food and resources from around the world. Feeding these cities reshaped agriculture on other continents — for example, meat exported from Argentina and Uruguay.

Economic imperialism ● (core concept) — Control exercised by industrialized states and the businesses within them over other regions' economies, without necessarily ruling them politically. From 1750 to 1900 it was practiced primarily in Asia and Latin America.

Unequal commodity trade ● (core concept) — Trade in some commodities was organized in a way that gave merchants and companies based in Europe and the United States a distinct economic advantage. Examples include cotton from South Asia and Egypt sent to Britain, palm oil from sub-Saharan Africa sent to Europe, and copper from Chile.

Opium trade with China ○ — Opium grown in South Asia and the Middle East was exported to China, where European merchants sold it for enormous profits. This trade gave European companies an economic advantage while fueling addiction and crisis in China.

Opium Wars ○ — Mid-19th-century wars in which Britain (and later France) used military force against China after China tried to stop the opium trade, expanding Western economic influence in China. They are the CED's lead example of industrialized states practicing economic imperialism in Asia.

Demographic change as a migration driver ● (core concept) — Shifts in population — in both industrialized and unindustrialized societies — that presented varied challenges to existing patterns of living and influenced people to migrate.

New modes of transportation ● (core concept) — Faster, cheaper transport such as steamships and railroads let more people move farther, both within countries and across borders. These new methods also allowed many migrants to return home, periodically or permanently.

19th-century urbanization ● (core concept) — Because of new modes of transportation, both internal and external migrants increasingly relocated to cities. This pattern contributed to the significant global urbanization of the 19th century.

Voluntary migration ● (core concept) — Migration in which individuals freely chose to relocate, often in search of work. Examples include Irish migrants to the United States and Italian industrial workers to Argentina.

Coerced labor migration ● (core concept) — Forced movement of workers — including enslavement — on which the new global capitalist economy continued to rely. People were moved against their will to work in plantations, mines, and colonies.

Semicoerced labor migration ● (core concept) — Labor migration that was technically voluntary but practically forced by poverty or pressure. Examples include Chinese and Indian indentured servitude and convict labor — workers signed contracts or served sentences but had little real freedom.

Indentured servitude (Chinese and Indian) ● (core concept) — A system in which Chinese and Indian workers contracted to labor for a fixed number of years, often on plantations or in colonies. Though legally voluntary, conditions were harsh and workers had few rights — a semicoerced form of labor migration.

Convict labor ● (core concept) — A form of coerced labor migration in which prisoners were sent to colonies and forced to work. Convicts were moved against their will and labored under harsh conditions.

Return migration ● (core concept) — The pattern in which new transportation methods allowed many migrants to return, periodically or permanently, to their home societies — for example, Japanese agricultural workers in the Pacific or Lebanese merchants in the Americas returning home.

Shifting gender roles in migration ● (core concept) — Migrants tended to be male, leaving women in the home society to take on new roles formerly occupied by men. Migration thus reshaped gender roles both for those who left and those who stayed.

Ethnic enclaves ● (core concept) — Communities that migrants created in different parts of the world — such as Chinese, Indian, Irish, and Italian communities abroad — that helped transplant their culture into new environments.

Ethnic and racial prejudice against immigrants ● (core concept) — Receiving societies did not always embrace immigrants; hostility toward newcomers appeared in various degrees of ethnic and racial prejudice, from social discrimination to violence.

State regulation of immigration ● (core concept) — Attempts by states to regulate the increased flow of people across their borders. Governments created laws and policies to restrict or control who could enter and settle.

Chinese Exclusion Act ○ — An 1882 U.S. law that barred Chinese workers from entering the country, driven by racial prejudice against Chinese immigrants. It was the first major U.S. law restricting immigration by nationality.

White Australia policy ○ — Australia's policy of restricting non-white immigration, aimed at keeping the country predominantly British and white. It is a leading example of a state regulating migration through racial prejudice.