The Means of Imperialism

EXPANSION IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE HIST 1301 | History The Means of Imperialism The desired territories had to be taken before the imperialists could fulfil their cultural or economic objectives. The physical challenges of physically entering the heartland of Asia and Africa were among the earliest obstacles. The hot, humid climate of Sub-Saharan Africa was home to bacteria that Europeans were unaware of and that made them and their draft animals sick. Many European explorers who ventured into the heart of the continent were thwarted by malaria. Another major issue in India, a British colony, was malaria. Plans to construct irrigation canals and clear land for railroads made it worse by increasing the amount of space where water could pool, which served as a breeding ground for the diseasecarrying mosquitoes. Quinine, derived from the cinchona tree's bark, has long been used to cure malaria. The British found in the 1840s that if taken before to exposure, it may shield a person from the illness. Cinchona trees could only be found in the Andes, and there weren't enough of them to satisfy the demand from Europe. While there had been several unsuccessful attempts to establish cinchona trees abroad, by the 1870s the Dutch were successfully cultivating them in their colony of Indonesia and yielding more quinine, a breakthrough that let Europeans explore the interior of Africa. In addition to sickness, rough terrain and thick undergrowth complicated military and exploratory expeditions throughout Europe. The easiest way to go inland was to follow the rivers. The invention of steamboats was necessary for exploration beyond the shore, as most rivers were too shallow for sailing ships. American explorers started using steamboats in the 1810s to go deep into North America. In 1825, for instance, they explored the upper Mississippi River. The British also used steamboats to conquer Burma (now known as Myanmar) by sending them up the Irrawaddy River. In Africa, steamboats were also quite helpful. Rivers stream to the seacoast from a high plateau that forms the continent's core. There are waterfalls on every one of them, so big sailing ships can't follow them all the way. However, Europeans were often navigating African waterways during the second part of the nineteenth century with steamships that were far superior to the first ones. In addition to their strong iron hulls, the boats featured steel boilers that were less prone to burst than iron ones and propellers in place of the paddle wheels seen on the original boats. Upon arriving at a waterfall, African porters dismantled the boats, carried them around the falls, and then put them back together to continue down the river. Along with explorers, traders, and warriors, steamships also transported weapons into the interior of continents. Guns were one more kind of weaponry that provided Europeans a major edge in the nineteenth-century industrialised world. Weaponry had advanced quickly. Breech-loading, repeating rifles and pistols that could be loaded fast and discharged more accurately were the weapons carried by European and American soldiers. Smokeless powder made bullets more dangerous and increased their velocity, which in turn enhanced the severity of gunshot wounds. Dum dum bullets were flat or hollow projectiles that grew in size when they struck an object, thus the name (from the Indian arsenal town of Dumdum, where they were initially employed). Colonial warfare also made heavy use of machine guns. Three thousand rounds may be fired per minute by the American Gatling gun. The Maxim gun, another American design, was a single-barreled weapon with a muzzle velocity of eleven rounds per second, in contrast to the Gatling gun. Only developed countries could manufacture such weapons in significant quantities. Therefore, buying weapons was the only option available to individuals in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, and doing so came at an exorbitant cost. At the end of the nineteenth century, a resident of the Sudan wishing to buy a rifle produced in Europe or the United States had to pay at least five camels, or thirty-six enslaved individuals if a European was ready to conduct the sale. Until the eighteenth century, people in Central and South Africa battled with swords and spears rather than firearms.