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Motivation For Imperialism

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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 …show more content…

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

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