Motives for Imperialism in the 19th Century

Anglo-Saxonism, Christian Missions, and Commerce Fueled the Scramble

Nov 8, 2009

By 1900 few areas of Africa and Asia remained independent of European and U.S. control and influence as the motives for imperialism compelled the exploitation of nations.

At the start of the 19th Century, Imperial China, under the Qing dynasty, represented a stable and prosperous nation. There was no reason to believe that the next hundred years would change that. Yet at the start of the next century, the dynasty had been rendered powerless, the nation was hopelessly fractured, and the armies of various western powers were descending on Peking to end the Boxer Rebellion. The overriding reason for these changes resulted from western imperialism, a movement within the industrialized nations fueled by several important motives.

We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations - Nichol

H. Ernest Nichol’s Sunday School hymn was written in the 1890s and expresses in simple lyrics the purpose of Christian missions. During the latter part of the 19th Century, both Protestant and Catholic mission societies supported thousands of missionaries in Asia and Africa. Organizations like the China Inland Mission sought to convert the “heathen” by establishing local missions that often included schools and medical clinics.

Although Christian missions justified their actions by actively fulfilling the “Great Commission” of the New Testament to “go and make disciples of all nations...,” there existed an element of racial superiority. Josiah Strong, whose views were influenced by the Social Darwinist principle of survival of the fittest, wrote that “God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is training the Anglo-Saxons for an hour sure to come in the world’s future…”

There were Christians with good motives, however, such as the efforts of the early missionary activities in China by the Jesuits, who not only respected Chinese culture and philosophy, but embraced it. In too many other cases, Christians reflected the message of Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem, White Man’s Burden. The poem was written as a response to the United States’ decision to annex the Philippines after winning the Spanish-American War.

Commerce Follows the Flag

In an 1895 U.S. Senate speech, Henry Cabot Lodge uttered the phrase, “Commerce follows the flag…,” a theme later elaborated on by Albert Beveridge in his “March of the Flag” speech promoting imperialism. Commerce and the flag were interdependent. Although British presence in India – the “jewel in the crown,” dated to 1600, by the mid-19th Century the British Crown took control over India following a bloody uprising against the East India Company.

Under the “British Raj,” which lasted until 1947, India was transformed into a colonial economy. The industrialization of India was based on models that most supported British world-wide commercial interests. The same occurred in China. By 1898, after a series of wars and internal conflicts, the “scramble for concessions” divested China of commercial independence, prompting the U.S. “Open Door Notes,” designed to level the playing field for imperialistic late bloomers like the U.S.

In 1916, V. I. Lenin defined imperialism as the “highest stage of capitalism.” Writing in the midst of the Great War, Lenin’s argument was partially supported when, in 1917, the October Revolution published the secret treaties dividing colonial possessions among the allied victors. If capitalism represented the exploitation of the toiling masses, then imperialism represented a worldwide extension of that goal. This explains why Gandhi’s India Congress Party received financial support from Soviet Russia, although Gandhi was probably not aware of this himself.

Varied Motives of Imperialism

The motives of imperialism varied greatly, from Anglo-Saxonism to commercial exploitation. In the “scramble for Africa,” Belgian king Leopold II acquired the Congo purely as a personal fiefdom to enrich himself while committing genocide in the process, his ruthlessness captured in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Kipling recommended sending forth the “best and brightest” in order to civilize the “sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.” This was a conclusion not embraced, however, by colonial peoples.

Sources:

The copyright of the article Motives for Imperialism in the 19th Century in W European History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Motives for Imperialism in the 19th Century in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.