The document summarizes European colonial expansion between 1850-1914. The main colonial powers were European nations like Great Britain, France, Germany, and others. They colonized areas in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America. There were several factors driving this colonial expansion, including economic overproduction and need for new markets, high population growth in Europe encouraging emigration, and ideological beliefs in cultural and racial superiority that justified imposing European control over other regions. The colonial powers established different models of rule, including settler colonies, trading companies that exploited resources, and protectorates with nominal local control. The consequences globally included political boundaries that divided peoples, cultural changes through acculturation, and economic exploitation of lands and peoples for the

1. THE COLONIAL EXPANSION
1850-1914
What is it? The political exercised
dominance
and economical
Who? the Capitalistic states:
by
Europe: Great Britain, France, Germany,
Italy, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal
and Russia.
BUT also USA and Japan
Where? Mainly over all Africa, Oceania
a large part of Asia and North
America.
When? From the first half of the XIX
Century to the first half of the
XX century.
But… Why?

2. 1898- The March of the Flag Speech. By senator
CAUSES o FACTORS the USA).
Beveridge (future President of
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

3. REASONS or FACTORS
Industrialization Increase in production
A) ECONOMICALS and and in productivity
Mechanization
Overproduction Crisis
Companies needed
new markets
- Where to sell their products
- and where to find raw
Materials for the factories
X 10
For this
reason
They “encouraged” states and governments
to conquer new colonies
to impose a commercial monopoly

4. 1849- Northampton Herald Advertisment
CAUSES o FACTORS
“Urgent. Whoever wishes to come to the wealthy and
prosperous lands of Australia, either as a peasant, servant
or as a miner, will be provided with a first class free
ticket (Immigrant Commission for the Colonies)”
Carta de Cecil Rhodes (empresari i aventurer anglès)
1895.
“Yesterday I went for a walk to the East End (a working
class neighborhood) and attended a meeting of
unemployeds.
What I saw there convinced me more than ever of the
importance of Imperialism (…) We must conquer new
colonies to allocate the excess of population that we suffer.
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

5. REASONS OR FACTORS
High increase of
B) DEMOGRAPHIC population in Europe
encourage
Millions of European citizens
A period of overproduction, to leave to the colonies.
unemployment, and misery 1850-1914: + than 50 millions)
British 17
Population Italians 10
Any 1800 180 millions Germans 5
Any 1900 430 “ Balkans 4’5
Spanish 4’4
Others 13
Emigration to other countries
(USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, North Africa, South America, etc.)
was an opportunity for Europe‘s poorest.

6. Speech to the Parliament by J.Ferry, French Prime Minister ,1884
CAUSES o FACTORS
“Gentlemen, in Europe such as it is today, in this competition of the many rivals we
see rising up around us, some by military or naval improvements, others by the
prodigious development of a constantly growing population; in a Europe, or rather in
a universe thus constituted, a policy of withdrawal or abstention is simply the high
road to decadence! In our time nations are great only through the activity they
deploy; it is not by spreading the peaceable light of their institutions ... that they are
great, in the present day.
Spreading light without acting (…) and seeing as a trap (…), all expansion into
Africa or the Orient-for a great nation to live this way, (…) is to abdicate and (…) to
sink from the first rank to the third and fourth.”
Speech by Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, 1895.
“I venture to claim two qualifications for the great office which I hold, which to my
mind, without making invidious distinctions, is one of the most important that can be
held by any Englishman; and those qualifications are that in the first place I believe
in the British Empire, and in the second place I believe in the British race. I believe
that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever
seen. ”
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

7. REASONS OR FACTORS
AND STRATEGIC
C) POLITICAL, IDEOLOGICAL…
To protect the country’s trading routes
and
Governments and military men their companies’ policies
from foreign competitors.
Encourage colonization
because
It strengthened the nationalist They got medals
spirit of the country and promotions
and its prestige.

8. D) OTHER REASONS
FOR COLONIALISM THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE...
1841-1871- Expeditions across
Africa by Livingstone,
Stanley,...
1871- Darwin publishes “On the
Origin of Species”
1878- Discovery of a passage
between Asia and America
1895-1908- Expeditions across
Central Asia
1909- Expeditions to the North Pole
1910- Expeditions to the South Pole

9. From “The Conquest of Civilization” p.114
By James Henry Breasted
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1926
On the south of the Northwest Quadrant lay the teeming
black world of Africa, separated from the Great White
Race by an impassable desert barrier and unfitted by
ages of tropical life for any effective intrusion among the
White Race, the negro and negroid peoples remained
without any influence on the development of early
civilization. We may then exclude both of these external
races from any share in the origins or subsequent
development of civilization.
.
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

10. E) Other reasons for
Colonialism…
or....
...maybe...
JUSTIFICATIONS?
E.1) THE CIVILIZING E.2) RACISM
MISSION
Europeans believed that their The belief that one’s own race
civilization was superior and that was superior to the other races.
they had the duty to impose it A belief that could only be proved
to the barbarians. exerting some kind of political
influence over other peoples

11. TYPES OF COLONIES
Settler Colonies Trading Companies Protectorates
The states granted private
companies large territories In theory this type of
to administer who were only colonies consisted on
Europeans settled interested in exploiting and
themselves in the country independent native
plundering the natural governments who
permanently. resources of the territories.
voluntarily demanded
They took control of military protection to a
The natives worked merely as
the territory. slaves for this companies who
colonial power.
employed racist and
In time they became draconian policies. In fact, most of these
independence. protectorates became so
The army and a military subordinate to the
Canada governor used to rule the protecting powers that
Australia colony and kept the natives they lost their
New Zealand under control. independent statehood.
South Africa India
Algeria African Colonies Morocco
Indo-China Egypt

12. 1.- POLITICAL
Creation of artificial
boundaries
4.- CONSEQUENCES
3.- ECONOMICAL
2.- CULTURALS
Exploitation of men and women
Acculturation and of their territories for the
benefit of the metropolis.
Land expropriation and destruction
of traditional agriculture.
Colonies were forced to trade with
the metropolis with the consequent
destruction of craftsmanship.
The natives had to pay taxes and
had to work in the mines or in the
plantations

13. 5.- CONSEQUENCES
ACROSS THE WORLD
Increase in
International Conflicts
Cuba
Morocco
Crises in the Balkans…

14. Crises in The Ottoman Empire Ottoman Empire until 1878
the Balkans fell into Independent territories 1878-1908
decline since 1878. Territory occupied by Austria 1878
Areas of expansion
Rússia
and tension 908-14
Majority of Serbs Romania
Majority of Romanian Sèrbia
Many minorities Bulgària
The Balkans became a
very politically
unstable region because
many nationalist and
imperialist interest
concluded there.

15. The colonial powers also wanted a piece
of the cake, specially Austria and Russia. Peace
Russia Austria Great Britain France Germany
Balkan peoples Turkish The crises in the Balkans will drag Europe
to the First World War..

16. The Crises in the Balkans (1908-1914): (summary)
The Ottoman Empire was falling into decline and
the Balkans became a politically unstable region.
The Balkan peoples (Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks, Romanians,...)
began to fight against each other to control the region.
Meanwhile, conflicts between the colonial powers
(specially between Austria and Russia among others) erupted
for the dominance of the new Balkan states.
These crises will finally drag the World
towards the Great War of 1914.
For more information
(http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1871-1914/section9.rhtml )

17. What was colonialism?
Colonial Empires before 1914

18. Colonies in 1914
America
What countries were
involved in
imperialism in
America?
Canal de Panamà

19. Colonies between
1914-19
Asia
What countries
were involved
in colonialism?

20. Finally remember that
Colonialism was:
The political and economical dominance
exercised by the capitalistic states
over all Africa, Oceania, a large part of
Asia and North America, from the first
half of the XIX century to the first half
of the XX century.

21. END