Motivation for Expansion
During the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution gave certain countries in Western Europe a big boost of economic power. France, Britain, Italy, and Germany emerged as industrialized powers, with high population and high production. During a time when Social Darwinism was popular, it was only natural that these nations compete with each other for survival. The most important motivation for Europeans to colonize during the 19th and 20th centuries was to strengthen their own countries in order to compete with the other European powers.
One of the major ways a colony can strengthen a nation is by providing it with another economic market. As a result of Industrialization, production was too high for
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This is one reason why the main motivation in obtaining these colonies was to compete with other imperialist nations.
Another reason why a colony could strengthen a nation is because of the raw materials a colony could produce. These colonies could be used to grow mass quantities of cotton for textile factories, or other cash crops like sugar and tobacco. In his speech, Joseph Chamberlain was trying to convince the public that Britain should colonize Uganda. One of his main reasons was because of the potential Uganda had for producing raw materials. He said, "It (Uganda) contains every variety of climate; in a large portion of it European colonization is perfectly feasible; the products are of the utmost richness; there is hardly anything which is of value or use to us in our commerce which cannot be grown there" (pg.261 source4). This means that any kind of crop that the British need or want, can be grown in Uganda because there is rich soil and lots of land. By colonizing a country like Uganda, Europeans would bring more raw materials for the factories, and more goods for the market; this would strengthen the economy and give one nation an advantage over another.
One of the strongest reasons why countries competed for colonies was Nationalism. This was a popular notion among Europeans at the time. Nationalists felt a strong pride in their country and
1. The political motivations for English imperialism were made on country that is craving to succeed in power, to increase their land, to have an armed force, to achieve respect by captivating colonies, and increase pride and security countrywide. The Pilgrims left England to North America because they were seeking freedom from religious oppression from King James I. Even though most of them died during the cross over, the few that made it settle very quickly with the help of the Native Americans. These groups of people were very religious and wanted to keep their faith alive. Their leaders in England did not tolerate it so they decide to leave England to a place where can freely express their religion. (U.S History, 2008-2016)
There were many reasons for the European countries to be competing against each other to gain colonies in Africa. One of the main reasons may be that Europeans believed that the
The problem was that labor was too expensive. So the colonists "implemented forced labor for economic gain." (Citation 15, 123helpme.com)
Due to the growing economic activity in the colonies both locally and amongst each other as well as all of the external trade, the local and colonial
The biggest motivation for colonists was economic opportunity. In order to become a landowner in Europe, you had to be born into a wealthy family. There were many problems that would make the poor even poorer and the
What were some of the political, economic, social, intellectual, and military factors that explained the sudden increase in the pace and importance of European imperialism in the late 19c? The essential impetus was the Industrial Revolution which led to a search for (and control of) sources of raw materials and captive markets to sell manufactured goods, and become a world power with the most colonies and most money.
This period provided motives for American commercial expansions. The great American Businessmen began, at this time, to look overseas to expand their businesses and for profit. New colonies also provided captive markets for manufactured good. All these reasons pushed for the rise of Imperialism.
These countries wanted their most worthy citizens to be part of their imperial desires, which lead to a philosophy of their ideals, religion and morals being developed. They meant that they could justify the colonies and labor based on the superiority of their culture, and the need to spread it to other cultures. When doing this, local cultures often destroyed, and people lost a sense of their identity. (Doc
From the start, there were many beneficial reasons for a European nation to imperialize, and by far, one of the most appealing reasons to imperialize other nations was access to raw materials. By the late 1800s, many European nations were seeing rapid growth in industry and manufacturing, but did not have the resources within their continental borders
Industrialization added to Britain’s desire for raw materials and new markets and the British were motivated by this desire and looked for colonies to obtain. Adopting the policy of imperialism was economically beneficial for Britain, since it helped supply Britain with raw materials for industrial development, along with cheap food for Britain’s developing population. Britain chose to become imperialistic, because it would bring them prudent and economic benefits.
Imperialism is defined in the dictionary as being a " The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by establishing economic and political hegemony over other nations" (p 681 American Heritage college Dictionary). Usually people associate imperialism as being the domination of a small country by a larger, more powerful country, usually to the advantage of the larger country. At the beginning of the nineteenth century most of the countries in Europe were involved in imperialism. Each country had it's own motives for wanting to gain an empire and some of the reason were Economic, Political, Religious and Exploitation.
Spain was bathing in profits from what the New World had to offer. So in 1606the Virginia Company of London was organized and sponsored the Virginia Colony. Organizers of the company wanted to expand English trade and obtain a wider market for English manufactured goods. They naturally hoped for financial profit from their investment in shares of company stock. Queen Elizabeth played an enormous role in motivating the English peoples. She herself was secretly a financial backer to Sir Francis Drake. The defeat of the Spanish Armada was a significant event. Not only did England gain control of the Atlantic sea lanes but it also sparked a sense of patriotism. Spanish expansions in the New World were actions that needed to be limited. In a way, many also attempted to colonize out of spite; to establish England's greatness.
Imperialists suggested that the colonies could be used to the advantage of mother nations due to the fact that they could possibly provide raw resources that are rare or unavailable in Europe’s area of residence. Thus, they started to expand, rapidly making colonies to gain more resources and places of trade, this formed a system called a global economy. Study.com under the video of “The 19th Century World Economy: Major Changes & Their Impact”, defined a global economy as one that integrates trade goods, services, and money. This makes the world more intertwined and the imperialists used this to form their next point that colonies would take in manufactured goods and give off raw resources, benefiting the colony and the mother nation in the
Imperialism made countries want to aspire to increase wealth and power by making other territories be under their rule. Countries competed for overseas territories in search of raw materials and market for their goods. It created rivalry in
On the positive side which led to development of industries in Asia and Africa. The various imperialist powers such as France set up industries in their colonies to make profits and thus paved the way for the industrialization of the colonies. The colonial powers established long lines of railways, built banking houses etc. in the colonies to fully exploit their resources. They also set up certain industries in these colonies to make quick profits and fully exploited the resources available there.this proved to be a huge business for the colonies and led to their industrialization. On the negative side, the imperialist powers exploited the colonies by importing raw materials at the cheapest possible rates and exported the finished products at very high