Dbq Essay On Imperialism

Imperialism is a policy of expanding a country’s power by using diplomacy and military force. Imperialism is usually against with weak or undeveloped countries by another country which is more developed. Many people think that the imperialism helps the nation to develop. The people of the nation who impose imperialism to other nation will most likely see imperialism as a positive way, however people of the weaker think see it as negative. Thus, imperialism is sometimes positive or sometimes negative, it depends on where you are from and your beliefs. Even though imperialism can help both nations, stronger nations would have more benefits from imperialism than the weak nations. So while it helps the stronger on, it can hinder the lives of the people of the weaker nation. I believe that the imperialism has negative effects more than the positive ones.

To begin with, one of the reasons why I think imperialism is bad is because of “Discrimination”. Even though exchanging of culture and traditions is a really good reason, it this should happen by forces. Unfortunately, some colonies had to experience this kind of discrimination; they were forced to learn foreign cultures and change their religion or thoughts like the foreigners. For example, in the 19th century, the Africans were forced to work for the Europeans. In document 2, it shows that one African and one Asian pulling a cart for a Western man. From this document, we can see that the Asian and African people had to do a hard

work for their dominant country and forced to labor. Based on Document 3 the Africans had to become a Christian and offer their tropical land to the Europeans. African children were had to go to school and in this school the African children had to learn a new language which dominant countries used.
On the other hand, there is a positive effect of imperialism. There is two positive effect of imperialism. Technological advancement, and cultural ideologies. First, about the cultural ideologies; Most of the times, Imperialism resulted in sharing cultural ideas, traditions, customs, etc. Both the nation could understand more about their varied cultures and out As a result, the exchange of cultural ideas helped promote the exchange of language, food, attire, religion, etc., making way for the nations to broaden their horizons and keep an open mind. Next, about the technological advancement, Myriad technological advancements were brought about due to imperialism. Even though many nations gained the higher pedestal long after imperialism dissolved the concept did bring about strategic changes to the colonies. Increased transportation, excellent infrastructure, buildings, roads, institutes, etc. Innovations in healthcare, science, and information technology revolutionized the world, leading the nations to go ahead towards globalization. Trade increased significantly, with competition between domestic and international markets. In document 1 also kind of talks about technological advancements. It says that the dominant countries developed their territory by building road, canals, railways, and telegraphs. Also, those dominant countries established schools and newspapers for their colonies. When Europeans arrived in Africa, Europeans established a school for their colonies to learn and taught Africans about how to build an architecture.
Document 4 talks about what influenced the strong countries to imperialize or colonize another country.

Based on document 4, the natural resources like cotton and iron goods, encouraged dominant countries to become interested in imperialism. When I was researching about African imperialism. One of the biggest reason that influenced Europeans to imperialize Africa was because of the natural resources. Africa in the 19th century had a very tropical land which is very good for

farming.
Document 5 is a poem wrote in 1957 by David Diop. This poem explains one person’s life after the Whites came down to Africa. In this poem the main character had to see his family dyeing from the Whites and from this poem it showed that Whites was not feeling any guilty after killing people. It says that after Whites killed main characters family they turned to him and said “A chair, napkin, and a drink”. There are many people died because of African Imperialism and there would be dozens of people who experienced exactly same story like the poem. For example, The Italians under Mussolini killed 2,000,000 Ethiopians. The Germans killed 250,000 Africans in the Namibian Desert in the 1800s in the "world first concentration camp". And 200,000 were killed by the Nazi Germany. Besides Africa there are many people died during American imperialism. Not Africans died from imperialism, 300 years before the African imperialism, millions of people in Korea had to sacrifice themselves from Japan’s invasion. In 1592 the first invasion started and it ended in 1598 for 6 years 185,738 or more were killed including civilians and 50,000-60,000 were captured. The purpose of Japanese invaded Korea was only quite similar with the Europeans imperialized in Africa. One of the biggest reason was that Japan wanted to take over Korean’s culture where Europeans imperialized Africans to take over their natural resources.
Document 6 more talks about industrialization of colonized countries. It basically says that the mother country could help Africans to develop their industrialization with their raw materials and the potential source of power. The document 7 is a picture named “Thus colonize the English”. This picture is basically representing of how colonized Africans’ resources were used and exploited. Also, the main point of this cartoon is to show how British were acting that they are kind. This cartoon shows that the British believed that they were acting nice to those Africans but this was only their thought. British were actually just exploiting and damage people’s life for money and to get more resources.
As a conclusion, imperialism can be good sometimes or it can become a disaster to each mother country and the colonized country. Imperialism usually cause people to death and I think no civilians should die because of war between countries.