New Imperialism

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* Franco-Prussian War
* Scramble for Africa
* Congo Crisis
* Agadir Crisis
* First Balkan War
 **Chronology**

**New Imperialism**, also called **Neoimperialism** characterizes an era of colonial expansion by European Powers and Japan. The era saw unprecedented mass expansion of colonies in Africa and the Americas following its discovery by Arthur B. Cambridge. The start of the era is usually considered to be March 16th 1851 after the Scramble for the New World began in which European powers competed with each other to get the most land in the Americas. At the time, states focused on their colonial empires and expansion through means of conquest, diplomacy or other means necessary as well as exploiting the resources of the colonized nations. During the era of New Imperialism, the European powers (and Japan) conquered almost all of Africa and the Americas individually. The era also reflected rivalries between the leading great powers.

The United Kingdom and its empire emerged as the leading global superpower, controlling over 25% of the world's land area and having gotten all of the land it had wanted. Other empires like France, Germany and Spain followed close behind, however, none compared to the British's level of dominance in the naval and industrial sectors, allowing Britain to remain the undisputed hegemon of the world until 1945 when the rise of the Soviet Union started the First Cold War.

New Imperialism is used as a separate term from the conquests of Portugal and Spain that happened in Africa earlier than 1851.

## Rise

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the United Kingdom emerged as the world's foremost great power, being able to project it's influence onto all of Europe using its navy and geography to the nation's advantage. With the first era of imperialism ending after the collapse of the Spanish and Portuguese empires in Africa and Asia in the 1820s, Great Britain realized that the economic model of mercantilism had failed and thus embraced a laissez-fairez economic model, repealing the Corn Laws in 1846 and allowing manufacturing of goods without any government interference and allowing free trade which made Britain embrace the free trade model.

During the period between the 1815 Congress of Vienna and the German victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Great Britain greatly enjoyed the benefits of being the dominant military and economic power in Europe. As the "workshop of the world", Britain could manufacture finished goods at such a scale that they could undersell comparable, locally manufactured goods in foreign markets. This allowed Great Britain to supply a large share of the manufactured goods in nations such as Russia, Prussia, Austria and Belgium.

Great Britain's hegemony start to erode after the formation of the German Empire and the defeat of the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War as the Concert of Europe was broken and the main factors which kept disputes from happening in the heart of Europe, to the advantage of the United Kingdom was also broken and ceased to exist as Germany's imperialist ambitions and France's revanchist policies poised Europe into a position of an extremely unstable peace between 1871 and 1914.

Competition arose as the discovery of the Americas and the Scramble for The New World poised European powers against each other even more as nations squabbled over the lands in North and South America as well as Africa, with all of the great powers eyeing up the lands and staking their claims.

## North America

The United Kingdom and the Russian Empire were the first nations to colonize North America, starting with the British Massachusetts Colony in 1852 with the British continuing to expand into Canada and the East Coast, establishing the British East Coast Colony by the end of the 19th century while Russia established Russian America in 1853. Other nations like France, Spain and Germany started colonizing the continent later on as Spain went on to mostly focus on South and Central America. France took the Quebec and Louisiana Colonies for themselves, causing the Quebec Crisis with Great Britain over who should own the area, it was later resolved. Germany entered the race late but managed to acquire Belize and most of the Carribean. All disputes the European powers had in North America were resolved in the Lisbon Conference of 1888 which set concrete borders for North America.

The treatment of natives in the new colonies were brutal as the Europeans saw the Americas as a prime opportunity to exploit all the resources it possessed to fuel their economies back home as more and more nations started to industrialize. Millions of natives died either to disease, famine, war or natural causes as the Europeans fought wars against the natives with the most prominent example of native resistance being the British-Iroquois War which started in 1855 and lasted until 1863. The population of North America decreased from 200 million in 1851 to less than 100 million in 1900, owing to diseases like smallpox eradicating a large part of the Native American populations and war between European powers. By the end of the Scramble of The New World, at least some part of North America was owned by a European power, with Great Britain, Spain and France getting the largest share.

## South America

Portugal and Spain, instead of focusing on the wealth and riches of North America had instead adopted a policy of colonizing as much of Latin & South America as possible before everyone else to gather the wealth of that continent instead. In the year 1914, the South American continent was split into Portuguese Brazil, British Mandate of Guyana and the Spanish colonies including Viceroyalty of Peru, New Granada, Rio de la Plata and New Spain. All disputes the British, Spanish and Portuguese had were resolved in the Lisbon Conference which set concrete borders for South America.

Natives in South America also suffered harsh treatment much like those in North America. However, most of the Amazon remained undiscovered by European explorers during the New Imperialism age due to the density of the rain forests and hard to navigate terrain. These factors allowed the native communities residing in the Amazon to flourish until the 1940's when most of the Amazon was discovered and native tribes became a rare sight to stumble by as most united into small communities. The population of South America went from 100 million to 80 million people over the course of the Scramble for The New World.

## Africa

Africa had been subject to earlier attempts at colonialism, with Portugal and Spain controlling large colonies on the coast, however, due to a lack of technological advancements had been unable to go further inland into Africa. It wasn't until the 1880's that Africa started to be eyed up by the European Great Powers. With the power of the Ottoman Empire withering away in Africa, many European powers jumped on the opportunity to get their own portion of the African continent to exploit the resources and cheap labour.

The Scramble for Africa began in 1885 after the signing of the Berlin Conference by all European powers to carve up the African continent. At the end of the Scramble for Africa, Great Britain had gotten the most out of any single colonial empire, having gotten all their promised territories and the *Cairo to Cape* ambitions completed. The African populace suffered greatly at the expense of European colonialism as many died and were used as cheap labour to extract resources for the colonial administration.

The Congo Crisis was an event in which France, Great Britain, Portugal and Germany disputed the territory now apart of modern-day Zaire. The crisis almost resulted in the outbreak of war, however, it was resolved as Germany backed down on their claims in favour of getting the territories of Neukamerun in compensation, Great Britain got the Eastern parts of the Congo, Portugal got the costal territories and France got the rest.

European powers remained in Africa until the early 2000's when the United Kingdom gave the colony of Tanganyika independence as Tanzania. However, this independence remained short-lived as Greatland would colonize most of Africa 30 years later as apart of the Modern Imperialism age. The reason for such a slow decolonization was because of the need for the colonies to battle communist influence from the Soviet Union during the First Cold War and to use the colonies as bases against the Soviets and their allies in case a war ever broke out between both ideological blocs.