BLOG 8: Chapter 18 - Colonial Encounters in Asia, Africa, and Oceania

Sam Pastol

Chapter 18: Colonial Encounters in Asia, Africa, and Oceania, 1750-1950

This chapter titled "Colonial Encounters in Asian, Africa, and Oceania" focused on Europe's economic and industrial technologies expansions. Europe's growing industry caused a need for more raw material such as: "wheat from the American Midwest and southern Russia; meat from Argentina; banana from Central American Midwest; rubber from Brazil; cocoa and palm oil from Wet Africa; tea, copra, and coconut oil from Ceylon; gold and diamond from South Africa; gutta-percha, a natural latex red to insulate underwater telegraph lines, from Southeast Asia. This demand radically changed pattern of economic and social life in the countered of their origin." (STRAYER, pg.788)

In class we talked about two different phase: the first phase was named "conquest" and the second phase named "colonialism". As well as 5 different pictures/drawings that had a lot of value and meaning to it.

The first picture on page 790 titled "An American View of British Imperialism" is an America cartoon dating around the year of 1882. It's a representation of the British Empire "attached" to other countries. In reality the empire is about to grasp/take over other colonies. A perfect representation showing that is comparing the British Empire as an octopus with 11 legs and/or arms.

The second picture on page 791 titled "European Racial Images" represents the progressive development of man from apes to modern Europeans. "Increasingly, Europeans view the culture and achievement of Asian and African peoples through the prism of a new kind of racism, expressed now in term of modern science." (STRAYER, pg.791)

The third picture on page 796 titled "Conquest and Resistance in Colonial Africa" is a map of Africa. Although there is more to it, the country was colonized by 7 different countries: British, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Belgian and Spanish. This is when the term "Scramble for Africa" comes in place. Scramble for Africa is the invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the period of New Imperialism, between 1881 and 1914.

The fourth picture on page 803 titled "Colonial Violence in the Congo" shows a picture of two young boys with their right hand chopped off because of their inability to supply the required amount of wild rubber. These two victim suffered and went through brutal conditions by looking at their cloths. "Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century commerce in rubber and ivory, made possible by the massive use of forced labor in both the Congo and the neighboring German colony of Cameroon, laid the foundation for the modern AIDS epidemic." (STRAYER pg.803)

Finally, the fifth picture on page 815 titled "The Educated Elite" is such a powerful image. Through out the Afro-Asian world, people used to embrace the culture and lifestyle of Europe. There are 11 young kids and the King Chulalongkorn of Siam wearing suit & ties. They were posing with both hands together and in a good manner.