,
246
\
Part Twu Modern Europe
bloodshed, there has been loss of life among the
native populatiom, loss of still more precious lives
among those who have been sent out to bring these
countries into some kind of disciplined order, but
it must be remembered that this is the condition of
the mission we have to fulfil. . . .
. . . You cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs; you cannot destroy the practices of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition, which for
centuries have desolated the interior of Africa,
without the use of force; but if you will fairly
contrast the gain to humanity with the price
which we are bound to pay for it, I think you
may well tejoice in the result ofsuch expeditions
as those which have recently been conducted
with such signal success--(cheerstin Nyarsaland. Ashanti, Benin, and Nu+ [regions in
Africakxpeditions which may have, and indeed have, cost valuable lives, but as to which we
may rest assured that for one life Imt a hundred
will be gained, and the c a w of civilisation and
the prosperity of the p p l e will in the long run
be eminently advanced. (Cheers.) But no doubt
such a state of things, such a mission as I have described, involve heavy responsibility.. . . and it
is a gigantic task that we have undertaken when
we have determined to wield the sceptre of empire. Great is the task, great is the responsibility,
but great is the honour--(cheers); and I am convinced that the conscience and the spirit of the
country will rise to the height of its obligations,
and that we shall have the strength to fulfil the
mrssion which our history and our national character have imposed upon us. (Cheers.)
Karl Pearson
SOCIAL DARWINISM: IMPERIALISM
JUSTIFIED BY NATURE
In the last part of the nineteenth century, the spirit of expansionism was buttressed by application of Darwin's theory of evolution to human society. Theorists
called Social Darwinists argued that nations and races, like the species of animals,
were locked in a struggle for existence in which only the fittest survived and deserved to survive. British and American imperialists employed the language of SOcial Darwinism to promote and justify Anglo-Saxon expansion and domination of
other peoples. Social Darwinist ideas spread to Gerrnahy, which w y inspired by
the examples of British and American expansion. I n a 1ecrui-e given in 1900and titled "National Life from the Standpoint of Science: Karl Pearson (1857-1936), a
British professor of mathematics, expressed the beliefs of Social Darwinists.
What 1 have said about bad stock seems to me
to hold for the lower races of man. How many
centuries, how many thousands of years, have
the Kaffir [a tribe in southern Africa] or the
negro held large districts in Africa undisturbed by the white man? Yet their intertribal
struggles have not yet produced a civilization
in the least comparable with the Aryan' [west-
'Most European langu~gcsderive from the Aryan languagcspokcn by people who lived thousands of ycnrs ago
ern European]. Educate and nurture them as
you will, I do not believe that you will succeed
in modifying the stock. History shows me one
way, and one way only, i~ which a high state of
civilization has been produced, namely, the
struggle of race with race, and the S U N ~ V of~
the physically and mentally fitter race. . . .
in the region from the '&pian Sn to the Hindu Kluh
Mountains. Around 2000 S.C.. some Aryan-spnking pew
ple migrptcd to Europe nnd Indin. Ninerrrnrh-cenrury
racialist rhinkeu held thnt Eumpnnr. daccndanu of the
ancicnt Aryans, were rpcinllr superior to other ptoples.
Chapter 9 European lmperiali~m
. . . Let us suppose we could prevent the
uhice man, if we liked, from going to lands of
which the agricultural and mineral resources
Ire not worked to the full; then I should say a
thousand times bettet for him that he should
not go than that he should settle down and live
alongside the inferior race. The only healthy
alternative is that he should go and completely
drive out the inferior race. That is practically what the white man has done in Norrh
America. . . . But1 venture to say that no man
calmly judging will Wish either that the whites
had never gone to America, or would desire
that whites and Red Indians were to-day living
alongside each other as negro and white in the
Southern States, as Kaffrr and European in
South Africa, still less chac they had mixed
their blood as Spaniard and Indian in South
America. . . . I venture to assert, then, that the
struggle for existence between white and red
man, painful and even terrible as it was in its
details, hasgiven us agood far outbalancing its
immediate evil. In place of the red man, contributing practically nothing 'to the work and
thought of the world, we have a great nation,
mistress ofmany arts, and able, with its youthful imagination and fresh, untmmelled impulses, to contribute much to the common
stock of civilized man. . . .
But America is but one case in which we
have to mark a masterful human progress following an inter-racial struggle. The Australian
nation is another case of great civilization supplanting a lower race unable to wosk to the full
the land and its resources. . . . The struggle
means suffering, intense suffering, while it is
in progress; but that struggle and-that suffering have been the stages by which the white
man has reached his present stage of dwelopment, and they account for the fact that he no
longer lives in caves and feeds on roots and
uts. This dependence of progress on the sur~valof the fitter race, terribly black as it may
0.
247
You may hope for a time when the sword shall
be turned into the ploughshate, when American and German and English traders shall no
longer compete in the markets of the world for
their raw material and for their food supply,
when the white man and the dark shall share
the soil between them, and each till it as he
lists [pleases]. But, believe me, when chac day
comes mankind will no longer progress; there
will be nothing to check the fertility of inferior
stock; the relentless law of heredity will not be
controlled and guided by natural selection.
Man will stagnate. . . .
The . . . great function of science in national
life. . . is toshow us what national life means, and
how the nation is a vast organism subject. . . to
the great forces of evolution. . . . There is a
struggle of race against race and of nation
against nation. In the early days of that struggle it was a blind, unconscious struggle of barbaric tribes. At the present day, in the.case of
the civilized white man, it has become mote
and more the conscious, catefully directed attempt of the nation to fit itself to a continuously changing environment. The nation has
to foresee how and where the struggle will be
carried on; the maintenance of national position is becoming more and more a conscious
preparation for changing conditions, an insight
into the needs of coming environments. . . .
. . . If a nation is to maintain its position in
this struggle, it must be fully provided with
trained brains in wery department of national
activity, from the government to the factory,
and have, if possible, a rucrve of brain a n d
physiqru to fall back upon in times of national
crisis. . . .
You will see that my v i e w a n d I think it
may be called the scientific view of a nationis that of an organized whole, kept up to a high
pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that its
numbers are substantially recruited from the
better stocks. and k e ~ UD
t to a high itch of
.
.
contest for trade-routes and for free markets But while the statesman has to watch this exand for waste lands, we indirectly give up our ternal struggle.. . . he must be very cautious
food-supply? Is it not a fact that our strength that the nation is not silently rotting at its
depends on these and upon our colonies, and core. He must insure that the fertility of the
that our colonies have been won by the ejection inferior stocks is checked, and that of the supeof infetior races, and are maintained against rior stocks encouraged; he must regard with
equal races only by respect for the present suspicion anything that tempts the physically
power of out empire?
and mentally fitter men and women to remain
. . . We find that the law of the survival of childless. .
the fitter is true of mankind, but that the
. . . The path of progress is strewn with the
struggle is that of the gregarious animal. A wrecks of nations; traces are everywhere to be
community not knit together by strong social seen of the hecatombs [slaughtered remains] of
instincts, by sympathy between man and man. inferior races, and of victims who found not
and class and class, cannot face the external the narrow way to perfection. Yet these dead
contest, the competition with other nations, people are, in very truth, the stepping stones
by peace or by war, for the raw material of on which mankind has arisen to the higher inproduction and for its food supply. This strug- tellectual and deeper emotional life of today.
...
. .
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What nationalistic views were expressed in Cecil Rhodes' "Confession of Faith"?
2. What role did the concept of race-the English or Anglo-Saxon-play in the
arguments of Rhodes? Compare his views with those advanced by Hermann
Ahlwardt on page 231.
3. How did Chamberlain define the national mission of the "great governing race"?
What were the economic benefits of that mission?
4. How did Karl Pearson define the differencebetween inferior and superior races?
5. What mearures did Peanon advocate for keeping a nation such as Britain at its
highest potential?
-
2 German Imperialism: "A Place in the Sun"
The unification of Germany in 1871 created a powerful state in the heart of Europe. Aware of their country's new political significance, ambitious Germans
soon expanded their designs from Europe to the world at large. Impressed by
British imperialism, they suggested that Germany establish its own colonial
empire, and claimed that Germany, like Britain, had a civilizing mission. While
Otto von Bismarck was in power, he discouraged such global ambitions, preoc-
cupied as he was with Germany's security within Europe. Under popular pressure, however, he took part at the Congress of Berlin (1884) in the partition of
Africa, from which Germany gained several African colonies.
Agitation for more colonies and for a global role for Germany advanced during the reign of Kaiser William I1 (1888-1918). Following the British example,
Germany built up its navy and demanded its rightful "place in the sun." This
competition with England contributed to the tensions that led to World War I.
Friedrich Fabri
DOES GERMANY NEED COLONIES?
The following reading comes from a popularly written book, Does Gemany
Need Colonies? published in Germany in 1879 by Friedrich Fabri (182L1891).
Fabri, who had seen long service as a colonial administrator in Southwest
Africa, supported colonization as a force for both national growth and the
spread of German culture.
Above all we need to regain ample, rewarding,
and reliable sources of employment; we need
new and reliable export markets; in short we
need a well-designed and firmly implemented
commerical and labor policy. Any far-teaching
and perceptive attempt to execute such a policy
will necessarily lead to the irrefutable conclusion that the German State needs colonial possessions. . . .
Fot us, the colonial question is not at all a
question of political powet. Whoever is guided
by the desire for expanding German power has
a poor understanding of it. It is rather a question of culture. Economic needs linked to
broad national perspectives point to practical
action. In looking for colonial possessions Ger-
spect than has been assumed since antiquity.
Should not Germany in its need for colonies
participate energetically in the competition for
this massive territory?
Germany has no need to strengthen its political powet in the Otient. The otiental question is
in no way a political one, but rather a cultural
one. And fot the final solution of the oriental
question we claim wen now the prominent participation of Germany. . . .
A German colonial policy naturally can
take shape only gradually. . . . In any case, we
would do well to follow the English model in
regard to colonial administration.
What matters above all is to raise our undentanding about the significance and neces-
250
Part T w M d m Europe
are convinced that the colonial question has
become now a question of life and death for
Germany, the fewer doubts we have. Wellplanned and powerfully handled, it will have
the most beneficial consequences for our economic situation, and for our entire national development. The very fact that we face a new
challenge, whose complex consequences are
truly virgin territory for the German people,
may in many ways prove a benefit. There is
much bitterness, much poisonous partisanship
in our newly united Germany; to open a
promising new course of national development
might have a liberating effect, and move the
national spirit in a new direction.
Even more important is the consideration
that a people at the height of their political
power can successfully mainrain their historic
position only as long as they recognize and
prove themselves as. the bearers of a cultural
mission. That is the only way which guarantees the stability and growth of national prosperity, which is the necessary basis for an
enduring source of power. In past years Germany has contributed only its intellectual and
literary work to this century; now we have
turned to politics and become powerful. But if
the goal of political power becomes an end in
itself, it leads to hardness, even to barbarism,
unless that nation is willing to undertake the
inspirational, moral, and economic leadership
of the times. The French economist Leroy-
Beaulieu concludes his book on colonization
with these words: "that nation is the greatest
in the world which leads in colonization. If it
does not do so today, it will do so tomorrow."
Nobody can deny that in this respect England
is far superior to all other states. Admittedly,
during the past century we have often been
told, especially Germany, about "the declining
might of England.". . . But that kind of talk is
petty-bourgeois nonsense, as we look around
the globe and assess the ever increasing colonial possessions of Great Britain, the strength
which it draws from them, the skills of its administration, and the dominant position which
the Anglo-Saxon stock occupies in all overseas
countries. England maintains its worldwide
possessions and its maritime ascendancy with
barely a quarter of the armed forces supporting
our continental states; they are not only an economic asset but also the most convincing proof
of its solid power and its cultural energy.
It would be well if we Germans began to
learn from the colonial destiny of our AngloSaxon cousins and emulate them in peaceful
competition. When, centuries ago, the German empire stood at the head of the European
states, it was the foremost commercial and maritime power. If the new Germany wants to restore and preserve its traditional powerful
position in future, it will conceive of it as a
cultural mission and no longer hesitate to practice its colonizing vocatiqn.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why did Priedrich Pabri view the colonial question as a matter of life or death
for Germany?
2. What did Fabri see as the benefits of colonial expansion for Germany?
3. What qualities did Fabri say England possessed that the Germans still needed
to learn?
4. What was seen as Germany's "cultural mission" in the world?
Chapter 9 Europun Impc~ialism
-European Rule i.n Africa
3
Africa. the world's second largest continent after Asia, posed a special challenge to
European imperialists who penetrated its tropical depths. While its territories
north of the Sahara desert had long been integrated into Mediterranean and
Mideastern life, in sub-Saharan Africa the Europeans encountered harrowing condirions as nowhere else in the world. They were repelled by the debilitating climate, impenetrable rainforests, deadly diseases, the great variety of black-skinned
peoples and their strange customs. Seen through European eyes, Africans were illiterate heathen barbarians, still trading in helpless slaves among themselves and
with Arabs, decades after Western countries had banned slave trading in Africa.
Culrural differences conditioned by Afiican geography and climate constituted
an immense divide between Europeans and Africans. The profound inequality in
military and political power provided the sharpest contrart. Africans lived mostly
in small communities divided by over one thousand languages; a few large states
like Mali and Songai had grown u p under Muslim influence but had collapsed by
the sixteenth century. Cut off from developments in the par East and western
Europe that had loog stimulated science, technology,'and political power, subSaharan Africans, divided among themselves, helplessly faced the Europeans, who
were equipped with superior weapons and backed u p by powerful states. Inevitably, they fell victim to European imperialism. By the late nineteenth century
Europeans had acquired sufficient resources, including medicines against tropical
diseases, to explore the interior and establish their rule. Sub-Saharan Africa now
became the focus of rivaky among England, France, and Germany; even the king
of Belgium claimed a share in the much publicized "scramble for Africa."
At times the European conquerors proceeded with unrestrained brutality,
proclaiming in the language of Social Darwinism that the "inferior" races of
Africa had to be sacrificed to "progress."
Cecil Rhodes and Lo Bengula
"I HAD SIGNED AWAY THE MINERAL
RIGHTS OF MY WHOLE C O U N T R Y
A good example of how colonial expansion in Africa proceeded is furnished by
Cecil Rhodes's dealings with Lo Bengula, king of Matabeleland, Mashonaland,
and adjacent territories (now Zimbabwe). In his "Confession of Faith" of 1877
Rhodes had included hope for poor Africans: "just fancy those parts [of the
world] that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of
human beings, what an alternative there would be if they were brought under
Anglo-Saxon influence." Eleven years later, eager to expand his business, he
arranged through three of his agents a contract with Lo Bengula, giving his
agents "the complete and inclusive charge" of all the metals and minerals in the
ions.
king's lands. In return, he pledged a financial subsidy and delivery c
T h e illiterate Lo Bengula put his mark to the contract that follows.
25 1
25 2
Part T w o M o d m Europe
Know all men by these presents, that whereas
Charles Dunell Rudd, of Kimberley; Rochfort
Maguire, of London; and Francis Robert
Thompson, of Kimberley, have covenanted and
agreed. . . to pay me . . . the sum of one hundred pounds sterling, British currency, on the
first day of every lunar month: and further, to deliver at my royal kraal [village) one thousand
Martini-Henry breech-loading rifles, together
with one hundred thousand rounds of suitable
ball cartridges . . . and futther to deliver on the
Zambesi River a steamboat with guns suitable
for defensive purposes, or in lieu of the said
steamboat, should I [so] elect, to pay to me the
sum of five hundred pounds sterling, British
currency. On the execution of these presents, I,
Lo Bengula. King of Matabeleland, Mashonaland, and other adjoining territories . . . do
hereby grant and assign unto the said gcantees
. . . the complete and exclusive charge over all
metals and minerals situated and contained in
my kingdoms . . . together with full power to
do all things that they may deem necessary to
win and procure the same, and to hold, collect,
and enjoy the profits and revenues, if any, derivable from the said metals and minerals, subject to the aforesaid payment; and whereas I have
been much molested of late by divers persons
seeking and desiring to obtain grants and
concessions of land and mining rights in my
territories, I do hereby authorize the ?id
grantees . . . to exclude from my kingdom . . . all
persons seeking land, metals, minerals, or rnining rights therein, and I do hereby undertake to
render them all such needful assistance as they
may from time to time require for the exclusion
of such persons, and to grant no concessions of
land or mining rights ., . without their consent
and concurrence. . . . This given under my hand
this thirtieth day of October, in the year of our
Lord 1888,at my royal kraal.
Lo Bengula X his mark
C. D. Rudd
Rochfott Maguite
F. R. Thompson
1889. This pathetic appeal from the untutored African ruler had no effect on the
course of events. He was told by the
Queen's Advisor that it was "impossible for
him to exclude white men." The Advisor
said that the Queen had made inquiries as
to the persons concerned and was satisfied
that they "may be trusted to carry out the
working for gold in the chief's country without molesting his people, or in any way
Interfering with their kraals, gardens Icultivated fields], or cattle." Thus Rhodes made
Lo Bengula's territories his personal domain
and oar1 of the British Emoire.
~dllowin~
is Lo Bengula's futile appeal to
Queen Victoria.
Chapter 9 European ImpcridIism
25 7
~.
Some time ago a party of men came to my
country, the principal one appearing to be a
man called Rudd. They asked me for a place to
dig for gold, and said they would give me certain things for the right to do so. I told them
to bring what they could give and I would
show them what I would give. A document
was written and presented to me for signature.
I asked what it contained, and was told that in
it were my wordsand th; words of those men. I
put my hand to it. About three months afterwards I heard from other sources that I had
given by that document the right to all the
minerals of my country. I called a meeting of
my Indunar [counsellors], and also of the white
men and demanded a copy of the document. It
was proved to me that I had signed away the
mineral rights of my whole country to Rudd
and his friends. I have since had a meeting of my
Indunlu and they will not recognise the paper,
as it contains neither my words nor the words
of those who got it. . . . 1 write to you that you
may know the truth about this thing.
The Casement Report
"WE ARE KILLED BY THE WORK YOU
MAKE US DO"
The Congress of Berlin, 1884-1885, granted King Leopold I of Belgium the
Congo as his private possession. The rubber exported from the Congo provided
Leopold with huge profits, which he used for his personal pleasure and for
beautifying Belgium. Reports from missionarica b d travelers describing the
brutalization of Africans by officials of the Congo Free State reached Britain
and the United States with increasing frequency, arousing a storm of protest.
In 1903 Roger Casement (1864-1916). British consul in the Congo, investigated
the treatment of Africans by Leopold's agents. Casement described how villagers were forced to do killing work in the forest in order to pay the rubber tax
imposed on them by these agents. Based on interviews with brutalized fugitives from the rubber tax, the Casement Report, excerpted below, created an
international furor, and in 1905 the Belgium Commission of Inquiry was established to investigate conditions in the Congo. In 1908 Leopold was forced to
turn over his colonial domain to the Belgian government, which initiated more
humane policies.
I asked, f i s t , why they had left their homes,
and had come to live in a strange far-off country among the K*, where they owned nothing.
and were little better than servitors. All, when
this question was put, women as well, shouted
out. "On account of the rubber tax levied bv
0 0 and P P. all of us Y**.From out country
each village had to take twenty loads of rubber. These loads were big: they were as big as
this. . . ." (Producing an empty basket which
came nearly up to the handle of my walkingstick.) "That was the first size. We had to fill
and further into the forest to find the rubber
vines, to go without food, and our women had
to give up cultivating the fields and gardens.
Then we starved. Wild beasts-the leopardskilled some of us when we were working away
in the forest, and others gor lost or died from
exposure and starvation, and we begged the
white man to leave us alone, saying we could
get no more rubber, but the white men and
their soldiers said: 'Go! You are only beasts
yourselves, you are nyama (meat).' We cried,
always going further into the forest, and when
we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiets
came to our towns and killed us. Many were
shot, some had their ears cut off; others were
tied up with ropes around rheir necks and bodies and taken away. The white men sometimes
at the posts did not know of the bad things the
soldiers did ro us, but it was the white men
who sent the soldiers to punish us for not
bringing in enough rubber."
Here P P took up the tale from N N:"We said to the white men, 'We are not
enough people now to do what you want us.
Our country has not many people in it and we
are dying fast. We are killed by the work you
make us do, by the stoppage ofour plantations,
and the breaking up of our homes.' The white
man looked at us and said: 'There are lots of
people in Mputu"' (Europe, the white man's
country). "'If there are lots of people in the
white man's country there must be many propie in the black man's country.' The white man
who said this was rhe chief white man at F F*,
his name was A B, he was a very bad man.
Other white men of Bula Matadi who had been
bad and wicked were B C, C D , and D E."
"These had killed us often, and killed us by
their own hands as well as by their soldiers,
Some white men were good. These were E F,
FG.GH,HI,IK,KL."
These ones told them to stay in rheir homes
country where there was no rubber.
Q. "How long is it since you left your
homes, stnce rhe big trouble you speak of?"
A. "It lasted for three full seasons, and it is
now four seasons since we fled and came into
the K* country."
Q. "How many days is it from N* to your
own country?"
A . "Six days of quick marching. We fled
because we could not endure the things done
to us. Our Chiefs were hanged, and we were
killed and starved and worked beyond endurance to get rubber."
Q. "How do you know it was the white men
themselves who ordered these cruel things to
be done to you? These things must have been
done without the white man's knowledge by
the black soldiers."
A. (P P): "The white men told their soldiers: 'You kill only women; you cannot kill
men. You must prove that you kill men.' So
then the soldiers when they killed us'' (here
he stopped and hesitated, and then pointing
to the private parts of my bulldog-it
was
lying asleep at my feet), he said: "then they
cut off those things and took them to the
white men. who said: !t' is true, you have
killed men.'"
Q. "You mean to tell me chat any white
man ordered your bodies to be mutilated like
that, and those p m s of you carried to him?"
P P, 0 0 , and all (shouting): "Yes! many
white men. D E did it."
Q. "You say this is true? Were many of you
so treated after being shot?"
All (shouting out): "Nkoto! Nkoto!" (Very
many! Very many!)
There was no doubt that these people were
not inventing. Their vehemence, their flashing
eyes, their excitement, was not simulated.
Doubtless they exaggerated the numbers, but
they were clearly telling what they knew and
Chapter 9 Europtan Imperialism
loathed. I was told that they often became so
furious at the recollection of what had been
done to them that they lost control over rhemselves. One of the men before me was getting
into this state now.
I asked whether L* tribes were still running
from their country, or whether they now stayed
at home and worked voluntarily.
N N answered: "They cannot run away
now-not easily; there are sentries in the country there between the Lake and this; besides.
there are few people hft."
P P said: "We heard that letters came to the
whire men to say rhar the people were to be
well treated. We h a r d that these letters had
been sent by the big white men in 'Mputu'
(Europe); but our white men tore up these letten, laughing, saying: 'We are the "basango"
and "banyanga" (fathers and mothers, i.e., elders). Those who write to us are only "bana"
(children).' Since we left our homes the white
men have asked us to go home again. We have
heard that they want us ro go back, but we will
not go. We are not warriors, and do not want
to fight. We only want to live in pace with
our wives and children, and so we stay here
among the K*, who are kind to us, and will
not return to our homes."
Q. "Would you nor like to go back to your
homes? Would you not, in your hearts, all wish
to return?"
A. (By many.) "We loved our country, but
we will not trust ourselves to go back."
P P: "Go, you white men, with the steamer
to I*, and see what we have told you is true.
Perhaps if other white men, who do not hate
us, go there, Bula Matadi may stop from hating us, and we may be able ro go home again."
I asked to be pointed out any refugees from
other tribes, if rhere were such, and they
brought forward a lad who was a X**,and a
man of the Z**. These two, answering me, said
there were many with them from their tribes
who had fled from their country.
\
I
\
259
Went on about fifteen minutes to another
L* group of houses in the midst of the K*
town. Found here mostly W**, an old Chief
sitting in the open village Council-house with
a Z** man and two lads. An old woman soon
came and joined, and another man. The
woman began talking with much earnestness.
She said the Government had worked them so
hard they had had no time to tend their fields
and gardens, and they had starved to death.
Her children had died; het sons had been
killed. The rwo men, as she spoke, muttered
murmurs of assent.
The old Chief said: "We used to hunt elephants long ago, there were plenty in our
forests, and we got much meat; but Bula
Matadi killed the elephant hunters because
they could nor get rubber, and so we starved.
We were sent out to get rubber, and when we
came back with little rubber we were shot."
Q. "Who shot you?"
A. "The white men . . . sent rheir soldiers
out to kill us."
Q. "How;do you know it was the white man
who sent the soldiets? It might be only these
savage soldiets themselves."
A. "No, no. Sometimes we btought rubber
into the white man's stations. We rook rubber to
D E's station, E E*, and to F F* and to . . . 's
station. When it was not enough rubber the
white man would put some of us in lines, one
behind the other, and would shoot through all
our bodies. Sometimes he would shoot us like
that with his own hand; somerimes his soldiers
would do it."
Q. "You mean to say you were killed in
the Government posts themselves by the Government
their eyes?"
white men themselves, or under
A. (Emphatically.) "We were killed in the
srarions of the white men themselves. We were
killed by the white man himself. We were shot
before his eyes."
the twentieth century. In the first part of this selection, a leader of German settlers explicitly reveals his racist attitude, shared by most of the settlers, toward
the Herero.
ing me lower and lower to the level of a sav-
climate
March 20, 1906
power. My love of home and
dread of being eventually over
Africa, the horror of losing one'
western civilisation and cutting adri
one holds good-these are the forces
help me to fight the temptation to drift
to the temporary luxury of the civilis
the savage.
s and hold still
ack mind. Their
are all based on
trivial and unno-
My 5 years are up this year, a
regiment, and that 1 know 1 would in the end
regret. But 1 admit I am a bit tired of this sort
of life. It is too solitary for any length of time.
Niggets are rather getting on my nerves, the
o essentially differless one is master of
understands them. By doing so one arrives at
wrong conclusions, which is wont than having
an empty mind on the subject.
The decision to colonize in South Africa means
nothing else than that rhe Native tribes must
withdraw from the lands on which they have
pastured rhcir cattle and so let the White m n
pasture hir cattle on these self-same lands. If
the moral right of this standpoint is questioned, the answer is that for people of the culture standard of the South African Natives, the
loss of their free national barbarism and the development of a clars of workers in the service of
and dependent on the Whites is primarily a
law of existence in the highest degree. For a
people, as for an individual, an existence appears to be justified in the degree that it is useful in the progress of general development. By
no argument in the world can it be shown that
the preservation of any degree of national independence, national prosperity and political organisation by the races of South West Africa
would be of greater or even of equal advantage
for the development of mankind in general or
the German people in particular than that'
these races should be made serviceable in the
enjoyment of their former territories by the
White races.
-
GERMAN BRUTALITY IN
SOUTHWEST AFRICA:
EXTERMINATING THE HERERO
In the 1880s Germany gained control over what became German Southwest
Africa (modern day Namibia). Hoping to profit from farming, cattle raising,
and mining, Germans settled the new colony. The German settlers brutalized
the native ~ e r e r opeople, exploiting their Labor and flogging, murdering, and
raping with impunity. "The missionary says that we are children of God like
our white brothers," said a Herero to a German settler. "but just look at us.
- --
-
-
-
p~
German officer described the results of
von Trotha's policy.
A
. . . I followed their [trail] and found numerous wells which presented a terrifying sight.
Cattle which had died of thirst lay scattered
around the wells. These cattle had reached the
wells but there had not been enough time to
water rhem. The Herero fled ahead of us into
the Sandveld. Again and, again this terrible
scene kept repeating itself. With feverish energy the men had worked at opening the wells,
however the water became ever sparser, and
wells evermore rare. They fled from one well to
the next and lost virtually all their cattle and a
large number of their people. The people
shrunk into small temnants who continually
fell into our hands, sections of the people escaped now and later through the Sandveld into
English tetritory [present-day Botswana]. It
was a policy which was equally gruesome as
senseless, to hammer the people so much, we
could have still saved many of them and their
rich herds, if we had pardoned and taken them
up again, they had been punished enough. I
suggested this to General von Trotha but he
wanted their total extermination.
Following is. ttie proclamation that von
Trotha read to'his officers in October 1904
calling for the annihilation of the Herero.
I the great General of the German troops
send this letter m the Herero people.
The Herero are no longer German subjects.
The have murdered and stolen. they have cut
off the ears, noses and other body parts of
wounded soldiers, now out of cowardice they
no longer wish to fight. 1 say to the people anyone who delivers a captain will receive 1000
Mark, whoever delivers Samuel will receive
5000 Mark. The Herero people must however
leave the land. If the populace does not do this
I will force them with the Groot Rohr [cannon].
Within the German borders every Herero,
with or without a gun, with or without cattle,
will be shot. I will no longer accept women
266
..
Part Tua Modnn Europe
.-"
4. Describe Richard Meinertzhagen's attitude toward the Africans he encountered.
5. What was Meinertzhagen's attitude toward colonial service in East Africa? Did he
change his attitude during his four years there?
6. How did German settlers regard the Herero?
7. What was General von Trotha's policy toward the Hereros? How did he justify
the policy?
Chaptn 9 European lmpnialirm
and children, I will drive them back to their
people or I will ler them be shot at.
These are my words to the Herero people.
The great General of the mighty German
Kaiser.
265
side. They have to perish in the Sandveld or try
to cross the Bechuanaland border.
German missionary described the brutalization of Herero prisoners of war.
A
The following day von Trotha revealed fur.
ther the implications of his proclamation.
"When [ . . . I [I] arrived i n Swakopmund in
1905 there were very few Herero present.
Shortly thereafter vast transports of prisoners of
Now 1 have to ask,myself hmu to end the war war arrived. They were placed behind double
with the Hereros. The views of the Governor rows of barbed wire fencing, which surrounded
and also a few old Africa hands on the one hand, all the buildings of the harbour department
and my views on the other, differ completely. quarters, and housed in miserable structures
The first wanred ro negotiate for some time al- constructed out of simple sacking and planks, in
ready and re'gard the Herero nation ar necessary such a manner that in one structure 30-50 peolabour material for the furure development of ple were forced to stay without distinction as to
the country. I believe that the nation as such age and sex. From early morning until late at
should be annihilated, or, if this was nor possi- night, on weekdays as well as on Sundays and
ble by tactical measures, have to be expelled holidays, rhey had to work under the clubs of
from rhe country by operative means and fur- brutal overseers until they broke down. Added
ther detailed treatment. This will be possible if to this the food was extremely scarce: the rice
the water-holes from Grootfontein to Gobabis without any necessary additions war not enough
are occupied. The constant movement of our to supporr their bodies, already weakened by
troops will enable us to find the small groups of life in the field [as refugees] and used to the hot
the nation who have moved back westwards sun of the interior, from the cold and the exertion without rest of all their powers in the
and destroy them gradually. . . .
My intimate knowledge of many central prison conditions of Swakopmund. Like cattle
African tribes (Bantu and'others) has every- hundreds were driven to death and like cattle
where convinced me of the necessity that the they were buried. This opinion may appear hard
Negro does nor respect treaties but only or exaggerated, lots changed and became milder
during the course of the imprisonment . . I
brute force. . . .
I find ir mosr appropriate that the nation but the chronicles are not permitted to suppress
perishes instead of infecting our soldiers and that such a remorseless brutdicy, randy sensualdiminishing their supplies of water and food. ity. and brutish overlordship was to be found
Apart from that, mildness on my side would amongst the troops and civilians here that a full
only be ~nterprecedas weakness by the other description is hardly possible."
.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How did Cecil Rhodes gain control over the riches in Lo Bengula's land? Did his
method match rhe good intenrions expressed in his "Confession of Faith" (see
page 242)'
2 . According to Churchill, why did the Muslim tribesmen believe they were going to
':d he view the bartle as a conflict between medievalism and
triumph? '.
modernicy
3. Why did th, _-,ernent Rcport crearc such an inrernarional furor?
4
Imperialism Debated
lmperialist ventures aroused considerable debate. Advocates o f overseas empires often argued in moral terrns-Europeans were bringing the advantages of
a higher civilization to African and Asian lands, many of which were steeped in
barbarism. Rejecting this position, opponents of imperialism maintained that
colonial ventures were motivated by capitalist greed and resulted in exploitation and bloodshed.
The Edinburgh Review
" W E . . . CAN RESTORE ORDER WHERE
THERE IS CHAOS, AND FERTILITY
WHERE THERE IS STERILITY"
T h e author of the following article published in 1907 in Tbe Edinburgh Review
praises imperialist powers for serving as "the missionaries of civilization."
[Llet us in the first place say boldly that the
modern European movement of expansion i i
nor purely, nor even primarily, a colonising
movement. I t is nor a movement merely in
favour of annexing territory, of opening up new
countries, of settling on the soil and bringing
backwoods and prairies under cultivation. It is
much more a movement towards organising,
directing and conrrolling where organisation,
direction and control are needed and are lacking. W h a t pushes us on in Egypt, and France
on in Morocco, is not so much the lust of dominion and desire for acquiring fresh possessions, as the sense that we, England or France,
can restore order where there is chaos, and fertility where there is sterility. O u r Cromers and
Willcockses and Garstins* act not from narrowly selfish motives of personal or even na-
tional aggrandisemenr. They act because rhey
are charged with certain ideas and capacities
which, in the sphere wpere they are called
upon to work, are precisely the ideas and capacities of which there is most urgent need.
The triumph of Lord Cromer has been the triumph of certain principles ofgood government
and administration, the triumph of continuity,
consistency, strength of purpose and honesty,
in a land where society was falling to pieces for
the lack of these things. The triumph of Sir
'Evelyn Baring. 1st Earl ofCromer (1814-1917), British
Consul-Genenl in Egypt from 1883 to 1907. Sir William
Willcocks (1852-1932) and Sir William Garstin
(1849-1921) were instrwnental in the design and construction of the First Anuan Dsm in Qypt. Built between
1898 and 1902, the dam was valuable for flood control
and irrigation.
Chapter 9 European lmperialirm
W, willcocks and sir W. Garstin has been the
science and skill in a retriumph of
gion where
existed wonderful opportuni[ies for [heir display, and where they were
ignored. B~~ at the same time these
ideas of government and these applications of
science nor only are not the especial property of
our cromers
and Willcockses and Garstins,
but [hey are nor [he especial property of the
~ ~ ~ l i They
~ hare not individual, and
national; but neither are they uni[hey are
versal or world-wide.' The idea of a Governand administration honestly devoted to
[he welfare of society, which has proved such a
blessing to the Egyptian people, the idea of a
knowledge and skill applied to the
of life, which has so marvelthe productivity of the Nile
lously
valley, are in truth European ideas. They are
ideas which the Western races have spent centuries in testing, analysing and perfecting, and
the main elements in
(hey in fact
what we call in [he lump European civilisation.
and sciE~~~~~ had absorbed these
she was full to bursting with
enrificideas
[hem when [he greatly increased facilities in
~ocomotionresulting from her own practical
science broughr her into contact with regions
where these ideas had never been heard of, and
where life in consequence was lived under conditions ofanarchy,with none of its possibilities
realised and rFsources developed. The result of
has been a lively recognition on
[his
[he part of Europe of the field for effective action rhus opened to her, and an overmastering
desire to bring her Political and scientific ideas
to bear on these new scenes of social anarchy
and wasted opportunity. Nothing is easier
than, in [he way this desire has been carried
out, to see only shallow and selfish motives at
work; but [here could be no more infallible
proof of intellectual inferiority and secondthan is implied in . . . such explana[ions. Under the selfish rivalries and jealousies
are apt to distort and,colour a national
appl,carion of European ideas there has always
been [he deeper morive at work, the conscious-
267
ness of possessing the powers and the knowledge most needed and which could be r1-10~~
favourably exercised. This deeper
motive has been stronger than the selfish national motive. We have profited by the
we have done in India, and shall profit perhaps
by the work we are doing in Egypt. emcehas
on the whole profited by the workshehas done
in Algeria and Tunisia, and will probably
profit some day by the work that awaits her in
Morocco. But the work was not done for the
profit, nevertheless. It war done on the same
and
impulse as prompts any man of firm
strong purpose to intervene on the side
amidst anarchy, or as prompts a man
knows how a thing should be done to instruct
those who do not know and are making a bungle of it. It was done, in a word, because those
who did it, no matter what others may have
thought, or what they may have
themselves, were acting, not on behalf of
land or on behalf of France, but on behalf of
European ideas and European science. If [he
reader doubts this, let him ask himself with
what thoughts Englishmen receive the news of
barrages and dams built on the Nile. of deserts
fertilised and a peasantry emancipated. it
case that our thoughts turn primarily to
chances of national benefits and advantages; or
is it not rather true that we should still be
proud of our work in Egypt even if we were
out of pocket by it, and that no Part
Lord Cromer's policy has been mote generally
approved than that which was directed to
thwarting the selfish aims of those who saw in
the new improvements a Chance of moneymaking? . . .
Most of us, probably, are ready enough to admit our own disinterestedness. We are
greedy landgrabben, but the apostle of
idea, the missionaries of Westem civilisation.
We make that claim for ourselves, and we
it also for chose with whom we are in friendship
and sympathy. We make it for France. France.
introducing ordet into chaos, transforming a
pirates' den into a beautiful and Prosperous
city, and reviving by her wells and springs the
'
selfish and sordid motives, but by an appreciaof the great opportunities that have been
set before her for bringing European ideas and
science
bear upon regions which
need
influence. But will anyone
make this claim on behalf of England and France. but to deny its application to
Germany? Germany's share in European civilisacion is equal to England's share or France's.
as much as England or France. believes in and lives by the great political and
scientific ideals which have inspired that civilisation; and, this being SO, is it not evident
that if, or rather when, she builds her new railshe too will be actuated by the desire
which we have described as lying at the root of
' --
-rr-,.
in a word, Western ideas to [he conditions of
life where they are most needed? whether [he
new railway will ever profit her much it is impossible to say, but whether it does or nor, it
will not have been undertaken mainly for mere
profit. It will have been
mainly because the anarchy and ignorance of
~i~~~
and Mesopotamia am a
&,dlenge to
the ideas and capacities of which G~~~~~~ is
full. To deny this, to insist on seeing in
many? ~ ~ ~ policy
k i nothing
~ h bur an er.ibition of national selfishness, is
lay
palpably open to [hat very charge of intellect u d inferiority and second-rareness which we
recognise as [he basis of similar charges
brought against us.
John Atkinson Hobson
A N IMRLY CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM
One
the early English critics of imperialism was the social reformer and
economist John Atkinson Hobson (1858-1940). ~
~primary binterest~was
social reform, and he turned to economics to try s o solve [he problem of
Poverty. Like Rhodes, he was influenced by ~ u s k i b s i d e but
~ , his interprecation of them led him to a diametrically opposed view of colonialism.
an
economist, he argued that the unequal distribution of income made
and unstable. It could not maintain itself except through investing in less developed countries on an increasing scale, thus fostering colonial
Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution, later adopted [his thesis.
Hobson's stress upon the economic causes of imperialism has been disputed by
some historians who see the desire for national power and glory a far more
imponant cause. Hobson attacked imperialism in the following pmsages from
his book Imperialism (1902).
. . The decades of Imperialism have been prolific in wars; most of these wars have been dir e c t l ~motivated by aggression of white races
" k ~ ~ eraces,"
r
and have issued in the
forcible seizure of territory. Every one of the
steps of expansion in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific has been accompanied by bloodshed; each
~
imperialist power keeps an increasing
available for foreign service;
of
frontiers, punitive expeditions, and
euphemisms for war are in incessant progress,
The pax ~ ~ ; ralways
~ ~
an impudent
~ ; ~ false~ ,
hood, has become of recent
a grotesque monster of hypocrisy; along our ~
~
~
d
270
Part Two Modern Europe
. . . The presence of a scattering of white of-
Chapter 9 Europerm Impe*ialirm
'
frontiers, in West Afrtca, in the Soudan, in
Uganda, in Rhodes~afighting has been wellnigh incessant. Although the great imperialist
Powers have kept their hands off one another,
save where the rising empire of the United
States has found its opportunity in the falling
empire of Spain, the self-restraint has been
costly and ptecarious. Peace as a national policy is antagonised not merely by war, but by
militarism, an even graver injury. Apart from
the enmity of France and Germany, the main
causeof the vast arhamcnts which are draining
the resources of most European countries is
their conflicting interests in territorial and
commercial expansion. Where thirty years ago
there existed one sensitive spot in our relations
with France, or Germany, or Russia, there are a
dozen now; diplomatic strains are of almost
monthly occurrence between Powers with
African or Chinese interests, and the chiefly
business nature of the national antagonisms
renders them more dangerous, inasmuch as the
policy of Governments passes more under the
influence of distinctively financial juntos
[cliques]. . . .
Our economic analysis has disclosed the fact
that it is only the interests of competing
cliques of business men-investors, contractors, export manufacturers, and certain professional classes-that are antagonistic; that these
cliques, usurping the authority and voice of
the people, use the public resources to push
their private businesses, and spend the blood
and money of the people in this vast and disastrous military game, feigning national antagonisms which have no basis in reality. It is not
to the interest of the British people, either as
producers of wealth or as tax-payers, to risk a
war with Russia and France in order to join
Japan in preventing Russia from seizing
[Klorea; but it may serve the interests of a
group of commercial politicians to promote
this dangerous policy. The South African war
[the Boet War, 1899-19021, openly fomented
by gold speculators for rheir private purposes,
3 leading case of this
will rank in histor.
....
usurpation of natic
,
269
. . . So long as this competitive expansion
for territory and foreign markets is permitted
to misrepresent itself as "national policy" the
antagonism of interests seems real, and the
peoples must sweat and bleed and toil to
keep up an ever more expensive machinery of
war. . . .
. . . The industrial and financial forces of
Imperialism, operating through the party, the
press, the church, the school, mould public
opinion and public policy by the false idealisation of those primitive lusts of struggle.
domination, and acquisitiveness which have
survived throughout the eras of peaceful industrial order and whose stimulation is needed
once again for the work of imperial aggression.
expansion, and the forceful exploitation of
lower races. For these business politicians biology and sociology weave chin convenient
theories of a race struggle for the subjugation
of the inferior peoples, in order that we, the
Anglo-Saxon, may take their lands and live
upon their labours; while economics buttresses
the argument by representing our work in conquering and ruling them as our share in the division of labour among nations, and history
devises reasons why the lessons of past empire
do not apply to ours, while social ethics paints
the motive of "Imperialism" as the desire to
bear the "burden" of educating and elevating
races of "children." Thus are the "culmred" or
semi-cultured classes indoctrinated with the
intellectual and moral grandeur of Imperialism. For the masses there is a cruder appeal to
hero-worship and sensational glory. adventure
and the sporting spirit: current history Falsified
in coarse flaring colours, for the direct stimulation of the combative instincts. But while various methods are employed, some delicate and
indirect, others coarse and flamboyant, the operation everywhere resolves itself into an incitation and direction of the brute lusts of
human domination which are everywhere latent in civilised humanity, for the pursuance of
a policy fraught with rnarerial gain to aminority of co-operative vested interests which usurp
the title of the commonwealth. . . .
ficials, missionaries, traders, mining or plantation overseers, a dominant male caste with
little knowledge of or symparby for the institutions of the people, is ill-calculated to give
to these lower races even such gains as Western
civilisation might be capable of giving.
The condition of the white rulers of these
lower races is distinctively parasitic; they live
upon these natives, their chief work being that
of organising native labour for their support.
The normal state of such a country is one in
which the most fertile lands and the mineral
resources are owned by white aliens and
worked by natives under their direction, primarily for their gain: they do not identify
themselves with the interests of the nation or
its people, but remain an alien body of sojourners, a "parasite" upon the carcass of its
"host," destined to extract wealth from the
country and retire to consume it at home. All
the hard manual or other severe routine work is
done by natives. . . .
Nowhere under such conditions is the the-
..
.*
ory of whire government as a trust for civilisation made valid; nowhere is there any provision to secure the predominance of the
interests, either of the world at large or of rhe
governed people, over those of the encroaching nation, or more commonly a section of
that nation. The relations subsisting between
the superior and the inferior nations, commonly established by pure force, and resting
on that basis, are such as preclude the genuine
sympathy essential to the operation of the
best civilising influences, and usually resolve
themselves into the maintenance of external
good order so as to forward the profitable
development of certain natural resources of the
land, under "forced" native labour, primarily
for the benefit of white traders and investors.
and secondarily for the benefit of the world of
white Western consumers.
This failure to justify by results the forcible
rule over alien peoples is attributable to no
special defect of the British or other modern
European nations. It is inherent in the nature
of such domination. . . .
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. According to the author of the article in The Edinburgh Revinu, what specific
benefits did Europeans bring to their overseas possessions?
2. Why, in Hobson's opinion, was thepax Britannica an "impudent falsehood"?
3. One ideal of imperialism was to spread civilizing influences am~ng'native
populations. How did Hobson interpret thik sense of mission?
,