WOH 2001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Scientific Racism
• How did colonial conquest vary?
o Colonial Conquest in India and Indonesia
▪ Grew out of earlier interaction with European trading firms
▪ India: The British East India Company, rather than the British
government directly, played the leading role in the colonial
takeover of South Asia
▪ Similar process took place in the Dutch acquisition of
Indonesia
▪ Neither the British nor the Dutch had a clear-cut plan for
conquest
o Colonial conquest in most of Africa, mainland Southeast Asia, and the
Pacific Islands
▪ Colonial conquest came later (2nd half of the 19th century)
▪ More abruptly and deliberately than in India or Indonesia
▪ The scramble for Africa pitted half a dozen European powers
against one another as they partitioned the entire continent
among themselves in about 25 years (1875-1900)
▪ Acquired huge territories of which they knew very little
▪ Village by village conquest
▪ Australia and New Zealand: Conquest was accompanied by
massive European settlement and disease (similar to North
America)
• What happened to the Phillippines?
o Acquired new colonial rulers when the United States took over from
Spain following the Spanish-American War of 1898
• Why might subject people choose to cooperate with colonial regime?
o Many men found employment, status, and security in European-led
forces
o European administrators often depended upon local intermediaries
for communicating across cultural boundaries
o Some could retain wealth by cooperating with the colonial power
o Example: French West Africa which had 385 French administrators
and more than 50,000 African chiefs
• What triggered the Indian rebellion? Causes?
o Triggered by the introduction into the colony’s military forces of a
new cartridge smeared with animal fat from cows and pigs
o Local rulers had lost power
o Landlords were deprived of their estates or rent
o Peasants were overtaxed
o Unemployed weavers were displaced by machine-manufactured
textiles made in Britain
o Religious leaders were exposed to missionary preaching
• What were the consequences of the Indian rebellion?
o Greatly widened the racial divide in colonial India
o Eroded British tolerance for natives that they thought were on their
side
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