Source Collection: State Expansion and Economic Imperialism
Document 1
|
Author |
James Augustus St. John (1795–1875), British journalist, writer and traveler |
|
Date and location |
1834, Egypt |
|
Source type |
Primary source—travel memoir |
|
Description |
British journalist James Augustus St. John traveled extensively through Egypt, often by foot, and recorded his observations. This excerpt is from his report about the efforts of Muhammad Ali, Egypt’s ruler at the time, to industrialize the Egyptian economy. |
|
Citation |
St. John, James Augustus. Egypt and Mohammed Ali: Or, Travels in the Valley of the Nile. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1834. |
Not content with imparting to his people a knowledge of the sciences, and the arts of war, Mohammad Ali, in 1819, was led by the advice of Europeans to attempt the introduction of the manufacturing system…Being persuaded that…it was possible to render Cairo a second Manchester, he commenced operations with his usual rapidity…manufacturers and artisans were employed…a district of miserable houses and narrow streets, in the center of the metropolis…was cleared of its inhabitants… [and] converted…into factories. No expense was spared in procuring…machinery from Europe.
The cultivation of the cotton-plant…promised…revenue. He [was]…determined to manufacture from the raw material, and [converted the factory into] a cotton-mill … [and]…erected [cotton mills] at…Mansoura, and in the southern parts of the metropolis.…
[N]o cotton-spinning apparatus has been imported into the country. The store-houses were furnished with tools…purchased in England and France at an enormous cost…
The fellahs [laborers] employed…dislike…the business; being pressed into the mills, they labor only because they are compelled. Though they generally arrive at the factories in good health, the [unhealthy] nature of the employment, imprisonment,…scanty wages, the insufficiency of their food, and the vices which…they…learn to commit…render them diseased and despicable … Of the twenty-three or twenty-four cotton-mills existing in Egypt…not one…has not…been…set on fire…
|
Glossary Apparatus: Tools and equipment, machinery. |
Document 2
|
Author |
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) |
|
Date and location |
Chile, 1835 |
|
Source type |
Primary source—diary |
|
Description |
The El Indio Gold Belt is a mineral-rich area across Chile and Argentina that has great quantities of gold, silver, and copper. In the 1830s, Charles Darwin traveled this region as part of his famed voyage on the Beagle. In this excerpt from his diary, we read Darwin’s observations of the copper and gold mines, many of which were owned by American and European businessmen. |
|
Citation |
Keynes, R.D., ed. Charles Darwin’s Beagle Diary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://darwin-online.org.uk/ |
CHILI SEPTEMBER 1834
We slept at the gold mines…When we arrived…I was struck by the pale appearance of many of the men, & enquired from Mr. Nixon respecting their state. The mine is altogether 450 feet deep, each man brings up on his back…104 lbs…of stone…Even [young men]…carry this great load from nearly the same depth…they are allowed only beans & bread…Their pay is 25 or 30 shillings per month…They only leave the mine once in three weeks…[and] remain with their families two days…This treatment…is…accepted; the state of the laboring agriculturist is…worse, many…eat nothing but beans & have…less money…This must be chiefly owing to the miserable feudal-like system by which the land is tilled…poverty is…common with all the laboring classes. …
VALPARAISO — COQUIMBO MAY 1835
Capt. Head has described the wonderful load which the [workers]…carry up from deep mines…I confess I thought the account exaggerated; so that I was glad to take the opportunity of weighing one of the loads…[which] was 197 pounds…The [workers] had carried this up 80 perpendicular yards, by a very steep road, & by climbing up a zigzag nearly vertical notched pole…He is not allowed to halt to breathe, excepting the mine is more than 600 ft deep…The average weight is rather more than 200 pounds. …
|
Glossary Enquired: Asked. |
Document 3
|
Author |
Alexander Gardner (1821–1882) |
|
Date and location |
1865, Peru |
|
Source type |
Primary source—photography book |
|
Description |
Guano (Spanish from Quechua: wanu) is the excrement of seabirds and bats. It is very useful as a fertilizer and in the production of explosive materials due to its high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium. The guano trade began on three Pacific Peruvian islands in the early nineteenth century, when hundreds of British, German, and American ships flocked to the Chincha Islands, often waiting for several months for guano. Over time, the guano trade expanded to other islands in the region, with countries claiming land in order to profit off of the trade. Mining guano required a great deal of labor, much of which was carried out by indigenous and migrant populations, notably Chinese migrants. Alexander Gardner, a Scottish-American famous for his photographs of the American Civil War and US president Abraham Lincoln, traveled to South America, recording his travels through photography. |
|
Citation |
Gardner, Alexander, and Henry De Witt Moulton. Rays of Sunlight from South America. Washington, DC: Philp & Solomons, 1865. https://www.loc.gov/item/44013000/ |
Images of Guano mines in Peru found in the photography book of Scottish-American photographer Alexander Garner, 1865. In Gardner, Alexander, and Henry De Witt Moulton. Rays of Sunlight from South America. Washington, DC: Philp & Solomons, 1865. https://www.loc.gov/item/44013000/
|
Glossary Panorama: A wide, unbroken view. |
Document 4
|
Author |
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) |
|
Date and location |
1878, Cape Town, South Africa |
|
Source type |
Primary source—travelogue |
|
Description |
This excerpt from Trollope’s travel writings describes his time in South Africa, which he toured in the 1870s. Trollope focuses on the diamond mines near Kimberly, describing mining exploration by European geologists and businessmen, mining operations, and African labor in the mines. As a British observer, Trollope had a biased view of his country’s role in South Africa and how the Indigenous Africans should respond to it. Because of this bias, Trollope believed Indigenous Africans to be inferior to Europeans. We do not agree with or approve of these views, but we feature them here because they offer important evidence about imperialist narratives. |
|
Citation |
Trollope, Anthony. South Africa, Volume 1. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1878. |
The commencement of diamond-digging as a settled industry was in 1872…[when]… dry-digging was commenced…from which have come the real wealth of the country.
The English came [in 1871]…At each place there is a little village…consisting of hotels or drinking-bars, and the small shops of the diamond dealers. Everything is made of corrugated iron…
At Du Toit’s Pan there are 1441 mining claims…possessed by 214 claimholders…This gives a revenue to the Griqualand Government of [more than £2000 British pounds every three months]. About 1700 [Black Africans] are employed in the mine…at wages of 10s. [shillings] a week and their diet—which, at the exceptionally high price of provisions prevailing…costs about 10s. a week more. The wages paid to white men can hardly be estimated, as they are only employed in…superintending work. They may perhaps be given as ranging from three to six pounds a week. The interesting feature in the labor question is the [Black African laborer]. This black man, whose body is only partially and most grotesquely clad, and who is what we mean when we speak of a Savage, earns more than the average rural laborer in England. Over and beyond his board and lodging he carries away with him every Saturday night 10s. a week in hard money, with which he had nothing to do but to amuse himself…
|
Glossary Board: Regular meals provided as part of payment. |
Document 5
|
Author |
Leopold II (1835–1909) |
|
Date and location |
1890, Belgium |
|
Source type |
Primary source—letter |
|
Description |
The Congo Free State was a large state in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908 that was privately owned by Belgian King Leopold II. Through forced labor of Indigenous Africans working under the threat of violence, it became the site of a lucrative ivory, rubber, and mineral market, one in which multiple international companies participated. When King Leopold failed to make a profit, he took a large loan from the Belgian government to support his colony. Upon his death, the area became known as the Belgian Congo until it gained independence in 1960. |
|
Citation |
Rutz, Michael A. King Leopold’s Congo and the “Scramble for Africa”: A Short History with Documents. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2018. http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11454195. |
Dear Minister,
I…draw…attention [to] the need…[of] overseas territories…countries with small territories have a moral and material interest in extending their influence beyond their narrow borders…in this service to the cause of humanity and progress that subordinated peoples appear as useful members to the great family of nations.
…a trading and manufacturing nation like ours must do its best to secure opportunities for its workers, whether intellectual, capitalist, or manual…[this has] caused…the African effort...Belgians administer it, while other compatriots…are already making a profit on their capital. The vast river system of the Congo opens the way for rapid and economical channels of communication that will allow us to penetrate directly into the center of Africa. The construction of the railroad…will significantly increase the ease of access…a great fortune is reserved for the Congo…
I thought it my duty…to make it easy for Belgium to profit from my work…I insisted upon bearing the costs.…The wealth of a sovereign consists of public prosperity. That alone can appear to his eyes as an enviable treasure, which he should try to constantly build up.
…I think that I am right in saying that Belgium will gain genuine advantages and will see opening before her, on a new continent, happy and wide perspectives.
Your very devoted,
Leopold
|
Glossary Compatriots: People from the same country. |
Document 6
|
Author |
Mary Henrietta Kingsley (1862–1900) |
|
Date and location |
London, 1897 |
|
Source type |
Primary source—travelogue |
|
Description |
Mary Kingsley was an English ethnographer, scientific writer, and explorer who wrote about her travels throughout West Africa. Her published travelogues influenced Western perceptions of the region. She mentions the rubber and palm oil trade, which were important resources for industrial production. Palm oil was used as a lubricant in early European factories, and rubber was also needed for industrial machinery, among other things. The global demand for palm oil created a local monocrop economy in West Africa, in regions such as the “Oil Rivers” Kingsley describes. |
|
Citation |
Kingsley, Mary Henrietta. Travels in West Africa: Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons. Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1897. |
…philanthropists…say that it is not advisable to spread white trade in Africa, that the native…should be allowed to live his simple life, and not…work for the white man’s gain. I have a…sympathy with these good people, because I like the African in his bush state best…the African does not die off as do those weaker races under white control, but increases…The condition of the African native will be…dreadful…if this trade is not maintained…if it is not increased proportionately to the increase of white government control—for this government control does…good...It prevents the export slave trade; it suppresses human sacrifice; it stops [deadly] war…it suppress[es] the terrible infant mortality…to increase the native population….
It may be said there is no fear of the trade, which keeps the native disappearing from the West Coast…this trade is dependent on [what is] brought into the traders’ factory by the native…uncultivated, merely collected and roughly prepared, and…wastefully collected by the native that it cannot last indefinitely.
…The development of trade is a necessary condition for the existence of the natives.
…[Trade] will give him a safer future than…abolition…or trial by jury…If white control advances and plantations are not made and trade with the interior is not expanded, the condition of the West African will be…far worse than it was before the export slave-trade was suppressed…the Coast native will sink, via vice and degradation, to extinction, and most likely have this process made all the more rapid and unpleasant for him by incursions of the wild tribes…
|
Glossary Degradation: Being treated with disrespect or reducing in size or value. |
Document 7
|
Author |
Albert J. Beveridge (1862–1927) |
|
Date and location |
1900, United States |
|
Source type |
Primary source—political document |
|
Description |
This excerpt is from a speech by Indiana senator Albert Beveridge, who was also a respected historian, intellectual leader, and political biographer known as a leading Progressive. This speech is from the Congressional Record of the 56th Congress, 1st session, January 9, 1900. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American war, fierce debates about America’s imperial future had some critics calling for imperial expansion to slow down. Whether America had become an empire by that time was not a matter of debate, but whether it should continue to expand was a hot issue. |
|
Citation |
Beveridge, Albert. “In Support of an American Empire.” In The Proceedings and Debates of the Fifty-Sixth Congress, First Session, Volume XXXIII, 704-12. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900. |
The Philippines are “territory belonging to the United States,” as the Constitution calls them. And just beyond the Philippines are China’s illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either…[or] repudiate our duty in the archipelago…[or] abandon our opportunity in the Orient…[or] renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world.…
… Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. China is our natural customer. She is nearer to us than to England, Germany, or Russia…They have moved nearer to China by securing permanent bases on her borders. The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East. …
Most future wars will be conflicts for commerce. The power that rules the Pacific…is the power that rules the world…with the Philippines, that power is and will forever be the American Republic.…
…this question is deeper than any question of party politics…[or]…of the isolated policy of our country even…[or]…question of constitutional power. It is elemental…[and]…racial. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing…He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. …
Shall [history] say that we renounced that holy trust, left the savage to his base condition, the wilderness to…waste, deserted duty, abandoned glory, forgot…profit…because we feared our strength and read the charter of our powers with the doubter’s eye and the quibbler’s mind?
|
Glossary Base: Low or lacking good qualities. |