Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western CIV. Episode five hundred. I'm
Speaker 1: twenty two the sun never since in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: Europe didn't simply expand outward, And I think that's the
Speaker 1: key takeaway from this episode. Accelerated like crazy. Steamships shrank oceans,
Speaker 1: railroads suddenly cut huge swaths through continents. Telegraph wires suddenly
Speaker 1: carried information and orders faster than armies could ever march.
Speaker 1: By mid century, European states as unprecedented power, and with
Speaker 1: it came a renewed and dangerous confidence, the belief that
Speaker 1: they had both the right and the duty to dominate
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. Look, imperialism wasn't new. I
Speaker 1: want to be clear about that, folks, whether we're talking
Speaker 1: about I don't even know that. The adventurisms of Alexander
Speaker 1: the Great, the expansion of the Roman Empire, European colonialism
Speaker 1: in the centuries before. Europeans had traded, conquered, and enslaved
Speaker 1: for centuries, but for millennium. Which changed after the year
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred was the scale, the speed, and the justification.
Speaker 1: Empires were no longer coastal trading networks or scattered colonies.
Speaker 1: They became vast centralized systems of control, political, economic, and cultural.
Speaker 1: Nowhere was this transformation more dramatic, or I suppose, more devastating,
Speaker 1: than in Africa. European imperialism rested on several overlapping foundations
Speaker 1: that we have to understand first. The one I want
Speaker 1: to talk about to begin with, was, of course, what
Speaker 1: I mentioned a couple episodes ago, industrial capitalism. The rise
Speaker 1: of industrialism changed the game for European states. Factories required
Speaker 1: raw materials rubber, cotton, palm, oil, copper, and of course
Speaker 1: also new markets in which to sell manufacture goods. Industrial
Speaker 1: economies created both surplus capital and surplus ambition. Colonies promised profits, resources,
Speaker 1: and strategic advantage. The second factor that you need to
Speaker 1: understand is state competition. After the defeat of Napoleon in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifteen, Europe entered a century of relatively uneasy peace,
Speaker 1: punctuated though by major rivalry. Empires quickly became symbols of
Speaker 1: national strength. A nation without colonies seemed weak, outdated, or irrelevant.
Speaker 1: As one French politician put it rather bluntly, a great
Speaker 1: nation is a colonizing nation. And the third issue was ideology.
Speaker 1: In the nineteenth century, European imperialism was not driven by
Speaker 1: power and profit alone. It was also sustained, arguably made respectable.
Speaker 1: There's differences of opinion here by a dense web of
Speaker 1: ideas that told Europeans who they were, what history demanded
Speaker 1: of them, that verbs important, and why domination could be
Speaker 1: recast as duty. Imperialism didn't just march behind armies and steamships,
Speaker 1: also behind sermons, school books, scientific treatises, and of course,
Speaker 1: patriotic speeches. To understand why the Europeans conquered so much
Speaker 1: of the world so quickly in this period, I think
Speaker 1: I have to explain the stories that Europeans told themselves.
Speaker 1: The first one of these stories is progress. Nineteenth century
Speaker 1: Europe lived in the shadow of the Enlightenment and in
Speaker 1: the glow of the Industrial Revolution. Railroads cut across continents,
Speaker 1: and factories reshaped cities. But most importantly, science now seemed
Speaker 1: to explain everything from disease to the origins of life itself.
Speaker 1: History was increasingly imagined as a ladder, one in which
Speaker 1: societies climbed from primitive to civilized. Of course, Europeans conveniently
Speaker 1: were already at the top of the latter, at least
Speaker 1: that's where they placed themselves. This worldview transformed imperial expansion
Speaker 1: from naked conquest into more of a historical inevitability. If
Speaker 1: Europe represented the most advanced stage of human developments, then
Speaker 1: expansion was not theft. It was transmission. Railways, schools, Christianity,
Speaker 1: modern medicine, and law were framed as gifts carried outward
Speaker 1: to stagnant societies. Empire became, in this telling, less about
Speaker 1: what Europe took and more about what it claimed to give.
Speaker 1: Now few ideas fused science and superiority more intrinsically and
Speaker 1: more powerfully than the idea of social Darwinism. Drawing loosely
Speaker 1: and generally incorrectly on Charles Darwin's theories of natural selection,
Speaker 1: social Darwinists argued that competition between races and nations mirrored
Speaker 1: the struggle for survive in nature. Strong peoples, they insisted,
Speaker 1: were simply meant and designed to dominate weak ones. By
Speaker 1: the way, that's an argument that would have made perfect
Speaker 1: sense to people who lived in classical Athens or people
Speaker 1: who lived in Imperial Rome. So sometimes, again the old
Speaker 1: adages history doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes,
Speaker 1: And here it's rhyming. Empires under this theory weren't moral failures.
Speaker 1: They were proof of biological and cultural fitness. Now, I
Speaker 1: want to be totally clear here, by the way, this
Speaker 1: was not fringe outside conspiratorial, crazy thinking. This was mainstream.
Speaker 1: These ideas were taught, they were published, and they were respected,
Speaker 1: and it reassured Europeans that conquest itself was not only
Speaker 1: justified but natural. To resist empire in this framework was
Speaker 1: to resist the laws of nature itself. When Africans, Agans,
Speaker 1: or indigenous peoples were conquered explained not as violence, but
Speaker 1: as evidence that they were destined to be ruled. These
Speaker 1: ideas blended easily with racial theories that classified humanity into
Speaker 1: hierarchies of worth, pseudoscientific measurements of skulls, skin colors, and
Speaker 1: even the angles of people's faces. They gave racism a
Speaker 1: veneer of objectivity. Europeans increasingly believed not only that they
Speaker 1: were just culturally different, but biologically that they were superior.
Speaker 1: Imperial rule thus became framed as necessary because quote unquote,
Speaker 1: lesser races were simply presumed incapable of self government. Evidently,
Speaker 1: this was a ladder that only some people could climb.
Speaker 1: Religion added another powerful layer to this ideology. Christian missionaries
Speaker 1: would fan out across Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, convinced
Speaker 1: that salvation and civilization traveled together. Now, conversion was rarely
Speaker 1: just about faith. It was about reshaping entire societies, family structures,
Speaker 1: gender roles, labor, habits, and morals. Missionaries often condemned local
Speaker 1: customs as barbaric, reinforcing the idea that European values were
Speaker 1: universal truths rather than cultural choices. The moral language of
Speaker 1: empire reached its most famous expression in Reared Kipling's in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine work The White Man's Burden. Kipling urged Europeans,
Speaker 1: especially Americans, to take up imperial rule as self sacrificing obligation. Empire,
Speaker 1: he would argue, was thankless work civilizing quote half devil,
Speaker 1: half child end quote peoples who would never fully appreciate
Speaker 1: the effort. Now, this poem captured a central imperial paradox.
Speaker 1: Europeans ruled brutally, but insisted that they did so reluctantly,
Speaker 1: perhaps altruistically. This idea that empire was a burden rather
Speaker 1: than a benefit, proved extraordinarily useful. It allowed imperial powers
Speaker 1: to deflect criticism and recast resistance as ingratitude as spoiled
Speaker 1: children not being able to understand the gifts they were
Speaker 1: being given. Anti colonial uprisings weren't cry for freedoms. They
Speaker 1: were signs that colonized people just weren't mature yet enough.
Speaker 1: They weren't high enough on that ladder to enjoy their
Speaker 1: own autonomy. Nationalism also fueled imperial ideology in an era
Speaker 1: of newly unified states like Italy and Germany. We will
Speaker 1: come back to those stories, don't worry. Empire became a
Speaker 1: measure of national greatness. Colonies were symbols of prestige, proof
Speaker 1: that a nation had arrived on the world stage if
Speaker 1: you lacked an empire that was humiliating. Imperial competition thus
Speaker 1: became intertwined with European rivalries, as I mentioned before, feeding
Speaker 1: the arms race and diplomatic tensions that's later eventually going
Speaker 1: to explode into World War One. Yet, even as imperial
Speaker 1: ideology dominated European culture, cracks appeared. Critics like Ja Hobson
Speaker 1: argued that empire primarily served the financiers and industrial elites,
Speaker 1: not the ordinary citizens. Hobson insisted that moral justification was
Speaker 1: just a mask for economic exploitation, that imperialism was a
Speaker 1: lot less about civilization and a lot more about markets,
Speaker 1: raw materials, and investment opportunities. His critiques, though marginal at
Speaker 1: the time, would later influence anti imperialists and socialist movements
Speaker 1: throughout Europe. Still, throughout most of the nineteenth century, in
Speaker 1: imperial ideology remained powerful, precisely because it blended morality, science, religion,
Speaker 1: and nationalism into one unified story. And that's really the key.
Speaker 1: It's not any of these one stories, any of these
Speaker 1: one justifications that make imperialism powerful and such a driving
Speaker 1: force for Europe and then eventually for America after the
Speaker 1: Civil War. It's how all of these ideas come together
Speaker 1: in one powerful narrative. Now, this story told Europeans that
Speaker 1: they were advanced, benevolent, and destined to rule. It reassured
Speaker 1: them that domination wasn't cruelty, it was responsibility. In the end,
Speaker 1: the ideological underpinnings of European imperialism mattered because they shaped
Speaker 1: actions on the ground. They justified violence, silence, doubt, and
Speaker 1: made empire feel not just profitable but righteous. And when
Speaker 1: those ideas finally started to unravel later in the twentieth
Speaker 1: century under the weight of course of world wars. They
Speaker 1: left behind empires that couldn't explain themselves, even to those
Speaker 1: who once believed in them the most. Now, contrary to
Speaker 1: imperial myth, Africa was not a blank space waiting to
Speaker 1: be discovered. Europeans had traded along its coast for centuries.
Speaker 1: As we know, African states the Ashanti, Ethiopia, Zulu Soukoto
Speaker 1: governed themselves. They fought wars, conducted diplomacy, and controlled commerce. Now, look, I,
Speaker 1: by the way, wish that I had some time to
Speaker 1: go into a lot of these indigenous cultures in a
Speaker 1: lot more detail, because some, especially West African kingdoms, were
Speaker 1: incredibly sophisticated and well connected. Some, especially if we go
Speaker 1: back to the Late Middle Ages, were much much wealthier
Speaker 1: and to some extent technologically advanced than some European states.
Speaker 1: But we don't have time. So as much as I
Speaker 1: would love to do that, I would push you elsewhere
Speaker 1: for that information. Now, what we want to understand is
Speaker 1: returning to our current age. What Europeans lacked before the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred wasn't necessarily knowledge of Africa, but access and power.
Speaker 1: Malaria difficult terrain and strong African resistance limited inland expansion.
Speaker 1: Now that changed with medical advances like quinine, new weapons
Speaker 1: like the Maxim gun, and steam powered transport. By the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, conquest was no longer dangerous. It was
Speaker 1: now efficient. The race for Africa, sometimes called the Scramble
Speaker 1: for Africa, accelerated rapidly after the year eighteen eighty. In
Speaker 1: just three decades, basically the entire continent almost was carved
Speaker 1: into European colonies. The turning point came the ambitions of
Speaker 1: King Leopold. Leopold was never interested in national glory. He
Speaker 1: wanted personal profit. Leopold was the ruler of Belgium, but
Speaker 1: wouldn't end up ruling a vast African territory, though not
Speaker 1: as a colony of Belgium, but as his personal property,
Speaker 1: where his reign there would cost millions of lives. Leopold
Speaker 1: was born in eighteen thirty five, heir to a young
Speaker 1: and modest European kingdom. Belgium had existed for barely five
Speaker 1: years when he arrived, and Leopold grew up obsessed with
Speaker 1: the one thing Belgium lacked, an empire. In the mid
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, Imperial possessions were the currency of prestige. Blocked
Speaker 1: repeatedly by the Belgian Parliament, which had little interest in
Speaker 1: funding imperial adventures, Leopold changed tactics. Instead of a acquiring
Speaker 1: a colony for Belgium, he would acquire one for himself.
Speaker 1: Through deception and diplomacy, he secured international recognition for his
Speaker 1: private control of the Congo basin. Under the guise of humanitarianism,
Speaker 1: he created the Congo Free State, a regime of forced labor,
Speaker 1: mutilation and terror. It will become the inspiration for Heart
Speaker 1: of Darkness. A British missionary would report, quote, the rubber
Speaker 1: has cost lives by the thousands, Villages swept away, families destroyed.
Speaker 1: Estimates suggest millions died under Leopold's rule. The scandal shocked Europe,
Speaker 1: but it did not stop imperialism. In fact, if anything,
Speaker 1: it normalized it. Between eighteen eighty four and eighteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: European power gathered at the Berlin Conference, hosted by Auto
Speaker 1: von Bismarck. No African representatives whatsoever were invited. The conference
Speaker 1: did not divide Africa outright, but it established rules effective occupation,
Speaker 1: justified ownership. Rivers were opened to trade, borders could be
Speaker 1: drawn by diplomats. It transformed conquest now into simple bureaucracy.
Speaker 1: As one delegate observed privately, quote, we are dividing a
Speaker 1: cake we have not yet baked. What followed was a
Speaker 1: frenzy of treaties, expeditions, and military campaigns. Flags were planted everywhere,
Speaker 1: Borders were drawn, often with rulers and straight lines, ignoring ethnic,
Speaker 1: linguistic and cultural realities. Britain saw a global empire that
Speaker 1: would be tied together by trade and naval supremacy. Its
Speaker 1: possessions stretching from Egypt to South Africa, India to Australia,
Speaker 1: and control of the Suez Canal made Egypt vital to
Speaker 1: this imperial strategy. France, on the other hand, built an
Speaker 1: empire across West and North Africa, driven by a mission
Speaker 1: to spread French culture and language. The French spoke of assimilation,
Speaker 1: though in practice, of course, power remained firmly European. Germany,
Speaker 1: who we haven't talked about much here, and we will.
Speaker 1: We'll get to German unification. But they had unified by
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one. Germany entered the imperial race late but aggressively,
Speaker 1: claiming territories in East and Southwest Africa, its rule was
Speaker 1: often brutal. The Herrero and Noma genocide in German Southwest
Speaker 1: Africa revealed how racial ideology could translate into extermination. Portugal meanwhile,
Speaker 1: clung to older colonies. Italy pursued empire to prove itself
Speaker 1: a great power, suffering humiliating defeat at Adwa in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, one of the rare African victories against European invasion.
Speaker 1: Only Ethiopia in Liberia remained independent. Ethiopia's victory over Italy
Speaker 1: demonstrated that imperialism was not inevitable, but it was relentless. Now.
Speaker 1: The race for Africa was a part of a broader
Speaker 1: imperial movement. Britain tightened control over India, France expanded into
Speaker 1: Indo China, the Dutch still ruled Indonesia, and Russia expanded
Speaker 1: ever eastward, as we'll talk about in future episodes. The
Speaker 1: United States would join the imperial club after eighteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: taking the Philippines and projecting power overseas, becoming then entangled
Speaker 1: in affairs far from home for the first time. Perialism
Speaker 1: quickly became global, and so did its consequences. Imperial rule
Speaker 1: was never uncontested. Africans resisted through diplomacy, rebellion, and war.
Speaker 1: Leaders like Samurai Torre fought prolonged campaigns against French forces.
Speaker 1: Samurai Torre was not born a king, a prince, or
Speaker 1: even a soldier. He was born in eighteen thirty or
Speaker 1: around then, in a small village in what is today
Speaker 1: southeastern Guinea. In West Africa, it was a world already
Speaker 1: trembling under the approach of European Empire. By the time
Speaker 1: he died in exile at the hands of the French
Speaker 1: in the year nineteen hundred, Samurai Torre had built one
Speaker 1: of the most powerful African states of the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: and fought one of the longest, most sophisticated wars of
Speaker 1: resistance against European imperialism anywhere. Samurai's early life was shaped
Speaker 1: by violent its instability. It's a really interesting tale because
Speaker 1: West Africa in the mid nineteenth century was a region
Speaker 1: of fractured states, long distance trade networks, Islamic reform movements,
Speaker 1: and endemic warfare. The Atlantic slave trade had officially ended,
Speaker 1: but internal slavery, rating and coercion remained central to political power.
Speaker 1: When Samurai was still a young man, his mother was
Speaker 1: captured by a rival group, and to secure her release,
Speaker 1: he entered their service as a warrior, and that moment
Speaker 1: changed his entire life. Samurai proved himself ruthless, disciplined, and
Speaker 1: intelligent on the battlefield. He learned how power worked not
Speaker 1: through lineage, but through force, loyalty, and specifically organization. After
Speaker 1: securing his mother's freedom, he did not return quietly to
Speaker 1: village life. Instead, he gathered followers, he armed them, and
Speaker 1: he began conquering territory of his own. The eighteen sixties
Speaker 1: and eighteen seventies, Samurai Torre was no longer just a
Speaker 1: simple local strongman. He was building a state. At the
Speaker 1: heart of Samurai's power was the Wassulu Empire, a centralized
Speaker 1: polity that stretched across parts of modern day Guinea, Mali,
Speaker 1: Cote Devor, and Burkina Fasso. Unlike many African states encountered
Speaker 1: by European imperialists, Wassolu was not loose or decentralized. Samurai
Speaker 1: imposed direct rule, appointed governors, standardized taxation, and crucially created
Speaker 1: a standing army. The army was Samurai's masterpiece. He drilled
Speaker 1: his soldiers relentlessly in four strict discipline and adapted military
Speaker 1: techniques from the Europeans. When firearms became essential to survival,
Speaker 1: Samurai always ensured that his men had them. He purchased
Speaker 1: rifles through coastal trade networks and eventually established workshops to
Speaker 1: repair and even manufacture weapons locally. His cavalry and infantry
Speaker 1: worked in coordinated set peace battles. Command structures were clear
Speaker 1: and orders were always obeyed, and religion became another tool
Speaker 1: of his state building. Samurai embraced Islam not only as
Speaker 1: a personal faith, but as a unifying ideology. He declared
Speaker 1: jihad against rivals, framed obedience to the state as a
Speaker 1: religious duty, and used Islamic law to legitimize his authority.
Speaker 1: Yet this was not purely a spiritual project. It was political, pragmatic,
Speaker 1: and often brutal. Resistance was crushed, populations were relocated, and
Speaker 1: entire regions were reorganized to serve the war effort. But
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, then came the French. By the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties, France was expanding aggressively inland from Senegal. Determined
Speaker 1: to link its West African possessions in a single imperial block.
Speaker 1: French officers expected African resistance to collapse quickly, as it
Speaker 1: had elsewhere, but Samurai Tori shattered that assumption. For nearly
Speaker 1: two decades. He fought the French with remarkable adaptability. When
Speaker 1: out gunned, he avoided direct confrontation. When cornered, he retreated eastward,
Speaker 1: burning crops and villages behind him to deny supplies to
Speaker 1: the enemy, a scorched earth strategy that horrified the French
Speaker 1: but slowed their advance. When diplomacy seemed useful, Samurai signed
Speaker 1: treaties he never intended to honor, buying time to arm
Speaker 1: and regroup. In other words, he followed just about every
Speaker 1: single one of Julius Caesar, Czar, Nicholas the First and
Speaker 1: also I guess Machiavelli's principles. French commanders complained that fighting
Speaker 1: Samurai was like fighting smoke. He appeared, then struck, and vanished,
Speaker 1: and reappeared hundreds of miles away. Columns marched for months
Speaker 1: through hostile terrain, only to find empty villages and poisoned
Speaker 1: wells in Paris. Samurai became a bit of an obsession,
Speaker 1: proof that African resistance actually could be organized, modern and dangerous.
Speaker 1: But resistance, of course had a cost Samurais wars, devastated
Speaker 1: civilian populations, forced conscription, famine, and mass displacement followed. His armies,
Speaker 1: allies defected. Firearms became harder to acquire as European powers
Speaker 1: closed ranks and refused to sell them. By the late
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, the French adapted, deploying larger forces, African auxiliaries
Speaker 1: and relentless pursuit, and so in eighteen ninety eight, Samurai
Speaker 1: Torre was finally captured in present day Cote Devor. There
Speaker 1: was no dramatic last stand, no battlefield death. He was
Speaker 1: taken alive, a symbolic victory for the French Empire. The
Speaker 1: French exiled him to Gabon, far from his homeland, and
Speaker 1: he died two years later in the year nineteen hundred,
Speaker 1: but still well. I think that his life is really
Speaker 1: emblematic of something that could have been. Africa, because of
Speaker 1: a variety of factors, was unable to stitch together in
Speaker 1: effective resistance to European imperialism. But it was never because
Speaker 1: they couldn't because of some I suppose biological reason. Torre
Speaker 1: proves that resistance was possible, and resistance by African leaders
Speaker 1: was possible, it was just difficult to put it together.
Speaker 1: Of course, there were many others, and others resisted through
Speaker 1: everyday acts. They could flee, they could sabotage, and they
Speaker 1: could also work to preserve their culture. European response was
Speaker 1: all often overwhelming violence. Superior firepower crushed resistance, Punitive expeditions
Speaker 1: destroyed villages. Imperial peace was enforced through fear. In the end,
Speaker 1: imperialism reshaped the world Economically, Colonies were reorganized to serve
Speaker 1: European needs. Cash crops replace subsistence farming. Infrastructure existed to
Speaker 1: extract resources, not to develop societies. Politically, artificial borders sowed
Speaker 1: future conflict. Traditional authorities were undermined or often co opted.
Speaker 1: Colonial states ruled through coercion rather than consent. Culturally, imperialism
Speaker 1: imposed languages, religions, and racial hierarchies whose effects endure still today.
Speaker 1: European superiority became embedded in global systems of power. In Europe,
Speaker 1: Imperialism fueled nationalism and rivalry. Colonial competition intensified tensions between
Speaker 1: great powers, tensions that would eventually explode in the Gray
Speaker 1: War of nineteen fourteen. Now, the Race for Africa wasn't
Speaker 1: a random accident of history. It was the logical outcome
Speaker 1: of industrial power, nationalist rivalry, and racial ideology. It enriched
Speaker 1: Europe while deva stating much of the colonized world. It
Speaker 1: claimed to civilize while it conquered. It promised progress while
Speaker 1: it delivered only suffering. One African intellectual would later write,
Speaker 1: they came with maps and guns and left us with
Speaker 1: borders and graves. Imperialism shaped the modern world, its inequalities,
Speaker 1: its conflicts, its ability now to connect because of technology.
Speaker 1: That it made the world so much small that it
Speaker 1: had been for millennium. But to understand European history in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century is to understand empire, not as a
Speaker 1: side story, as ideology, not as something that is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a castaway, but as a central chapter
Speaker 1: in everything that is to come. Next week, we have
Speaker 1: to turn our attentions, though, back to the United States.
Speaker 1: In the lead up to the Civil War, slavery dominated
Speaker 1: every single issue that was happening, and we'll see why
Speaker 1: the United States was so ineffective and unable to deal
Speaker 1: with the scourge that had been baked in to its
Speaker 1: very existence.