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The Age of Imperialism PromptWriting SituationThe period from 1850 to 1914 has been called The Age of Imperialism. During this time European powers claimed most of Africa, Southeast Asia, India, and parts of the Pacific for their empires. We have studied the motives of the colonizers and lives of the colonized. We are aware of the conflicts that imperialism created. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, we read about the personal effects of imperialism on fictional characters that belonged to the Ibo culture. Through characters like Okonkwo and Nwoye, Chinua Achebe presents differing attitudes towards the British Government and British missionaries in Umuofia and surrounding villages.Writing PromptUsing the novel, Things Fall Apart, and historical sources, analyze various European motives for African imperialism and show its impact on the African society. Consider both the European and indigenous perspectives. Final Draft not to exceed 4 pagesHistorical and Literary Documents Document 1?Excerpt: A Short Description of the Nativesof the Niger Coast Protectorate By Charles Napoleon de Cardi,?The following selection, written in 1899 by the French traveler and explorer de Cardi after a visit to West Africa, tells the story of JaJa, of the Anna Pepple clan in Bonny, an area on the Niger delta in modern Nigeria that for centuries had been a place where Africans sold slaves to European agents. After abolition of the slave trade, palm oil, used in Europe for lubrication, soap making, and various industrial processes, became the major item of trade. As had been true with slaves, palm oil was collected away from the coast and transported to African middlemen who sold it to Europeans. Would I like to have the old days back? Well, the white men have brought some good things. For a start, they brought us European implements -- plows; we can buy European clothes, which are an advance. The Government has arranged for education and through that, when our children grow up, they may rise in status. We want them to be educated and civilized and make better citizens. Even in our own time there were troubles, there was much fighting and many innocent people were killed. It is infinitely better to have peace instead of war, and our treatment generally by the officials is better than it was at first. But, under the white people we still have our troubles. Economic conditions are telling on us very severely. We are on land where the rainfall is scanty, and things will not grow well. In our own time we could pick our own country, but now all the best land has been taken by the white people. We get hardly any price for our cattle; we find it hard to meet our money obligations. If we have crops to spare we get very little for them; we find it difficult to make ends meet and wages are very low. When I view the position, I see that our rainfall has diminished, we have suffered drought and have poor crops and we do not see any hope of improvement, but all the same our taxes do not diminish. We see no prosperous days ahead of us. There is one thing we think an injustice. When we have plenty of grain the prices are very low, but the moment we are short of grain and we have to buy from Europeans at once the price is high. If when we have hard times and find it difficult to meet our obligations some of these burdens were taken off us it would gladden our hearts. As it is, if we do raise anything, it is never our own all, or most of it, goes back in taxation. We can never save any money. If we could, we could help ourselves: we could build ourselves better houses we could buy modern means of traveling about a cart, or donkeys or mules. There are five schools in our district. Quite a number of people are Christians, but I am too old to change my ways. In our religion we believe that when anybody dies the spirit remains and we often make offerings to the spirits to keep them good-tempered. But now the making of offerings is dying out rapidly, for every member of the family should be present, but the children are Christians and refuse to come, so the spirit-worship is dying out. A good many of our children go to the mines in the Union, for the wages are better there. Unfortunately a large number do not come back at all. And some send money to their people -- others do not. Some men have even deserted their families, their wives, and children. Document 2Excerpt: The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1926) by Lord Frederick John Dealty Lugard. As Governor-General of Nigeria form 1914-1919, Lord Lugard helped the British unify Nigeria’s distinct Northern and Southern protectorates under one colonial rule. In his book, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, Lugard offers advice on how Britain should maintain control of its colonies, and consequently preserve an economic and political advantage over its European rivals. "In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. Lacking in self control, discipline, and foresight. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural" “He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility ....he will work hard with a less incentive than most races. He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue...... In brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy.......Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his lack of ability to visualize the future." pg.70 “The object which education in Africa must have in view, must be to fit the ordinary individual to fill a useful part in his environment… and to ensure that the exceptional individual shall use his abilities for the advancement of the community and not to its detriment, or to the subversion of constituted authority.” pp.570-8Document 3The following quotes are from Cecil Rhodes’ book Confessions of Faith (1877). Rhodes was an English businessman, magnate, politician, and ardent believer in imperialism. (1853-1902) “We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.” “I contend that we (Britons) are the finest race in the World, and that the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race…It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race, more of the best, the most human, most honorable race the world possesses.” Document 4Rudyard Kipling, English author and poet, considered by many to be the “prophet of British imperialism”. (1865-1936) “Take up the White Man's burden--Send forth the best ye breed--Go bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives' need;To wait in heavy harness,On fluttered folk and wild--Your new-caught, sullen peoples,Half-devil and half-child.” Document 5Edward Morel, The Black Man’s Burden (1920). Morel, a British journalist, was a fervent anti-imperialist who exposed slavery and inhumane conditions in the Congo. “Nor is violent physical opposition to abuse and injustice henceforth possible for the African in any part of Africa. His chances of effective resistance have been steadily dwindling with the increasing perfectibility in the killing power of modern armament.” “Thus the African is really helpless against the material gods of the white man, as embodied in the trinity of imperialism, capitalistic exploitation, and militarism.”Document 6The following excerpt is from Foreign Office Historical Section, Partition of Africa, British Possessions (London, 1920), p.8“European culture has inevitably made little progress in West Africa generally; in the capitals there is a small body of men who have assimilated in varying degrees of European ideals, but who in doing so have rendered themselves less able to interpret the aspirations of their fellow-countrymen. In these circumstances the essential duty of the Government towards the native population lies in the maintenance of effective and just government, the protection of the natives in person and property, and the provision of gradual means of developing a higher form of civilization.Works CitedAchebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Doubleday, 1959.De Cardi,?Charles Napoleon. A Short Description of the Natives of the Niger Coast Protectorate in Mary H. Kingsley, West African Studies. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited. 1899Foreign Office, Historical Section, Partition of Africa, British Possessions. London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1920. Kipling, Rudyard. The White Man's Burden. McClures Magazine, 1899.Lugard, Lord Frederick. The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. London, William Blackwood and Sons, 1922. Morel, E. D. The Black Man's Burden, in Louis L. Snyder, The Imperialism Reader. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1962. Rhodes, Cecil. Confessions of Faith. 1877 ................
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