7.6 New Imperialism: Motivations and Methods

Europeans had built empires since the 1500s (Unit 1), but before 1870 they controlled mostly coastal trading posts in Africa, plus India, parts of Southeast Asia and settler colonies. After 1870 the pace changed dramatically. In 1870 Europeans controlled only a small share of Africa, mostly near the coasts; by 1914 only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent. Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain all joined in, and in Asia, Britain, France, Russia and the Netherlands expanded while several powers carved out spheres of influence in China.

The table sums up the five main motives. Social Darwinism (7.4) gave them a pseudo-scientific justification. Notice the timing: Europeans built new empires in Africa and Asia just decades after most of Spain's and Portugal's American colonies had won independence (1810s–1820s), though the new Latin American nations stayed economically tied to European trade and investment. Historians still debate which motive mattered most. Economic historians point out that many colonies cost more than they earned, which suggests that rivalry and prestige were often as important as profit. A strong essay weighs these motives rather than naming just one.

The Second Industrial Revolution (6.3) gave Europeans an enormous technological advantage.

• Weapons: the Minié ball, a bullet that made rifles accurate at long range; breech-loading rifles, loaded quickly from the rear; and the Maxim gun (1884), an early machine gun. At Omdurman in Sudan (1898), British-led forces killed about 10,000 or more Sudanese soldiers while losing fewer than 50 of their own.
• Steamships and gunboats: steam-powered boats could travel upriver against the current into the interior of Africa and China.
• Railroads, telegraph and photography: railways moved troops and goods inland, undersea telegraph cables let London or Paris give orders in hours rather than months, and photographs brought images of empire to audiences at home.
• Medicine: quinine, taken from cinchona bark, protected Europeans from malaria, which had made much of tropical Africa deadly to them. Louis Pasteur's germ theory, anesthesia, antiseptics and public health projects in colonial towns also raised survival rates.

• Direct rule: European officials governed the colony themselves, as France did in much of West Africa.
• Indirect rule: Europeans governed through local rulers and elites who kept some authority, as Britain did in northern Nigeria and the Indian princely states.
• Protectorates: local governments kept nominal rule while a European power controlled foreign affairs and defense.
• Spheres of influence: zones where one power had special trading and investment rights, as in China.
• Company rule: King Leopold II of Belgium ran the Congo Free State (1885–1908) as his personal possession. Forced labor for rubber, enforced by mutilation and violence, led to the deaths of millions, and international outrage forced Belgium to take it over in 1908.

Empire was popular in many European countries. Cheap newspapers, adventure stories, exhibitions displaying colonized peoples, and advertisements for tea, cocoa and soap made empire part of everyday life. Jingoism, a loud, aggressive patriotism, celebrated colonial victories. This popular support pushed governments to compete harder for territory.