Imperialism Dbq

As the 19th century came to a close, a new wave of colonization spread across the globe while European powers and the United States sought to expand their realm and assert control over new lands. This time was defined as a period of expansion and imperialism for the most powerful countries during the late 19th and 20th centuries. This era was driven by a complex set of economic, political, and social forces that helped fuel the desire to expand. Among these forces more specifically, Imperialists were drawn to imperialize Africa and Asia because of the promise of new resources and an opportunity to establish new trade routes, receiving honor from additional countries while also gaining more territory for them to control, but also the chance

This was a modern force that motivated imperialists in the 19th and 20th centuries which was not prevalent during original imperialism. The idea of imperialism tended to be justified by the belief in the superiority of European or white culture and the need to spread their culture to everyone worldwide. Document 7 describes that natives did not have a strong government and that they should adopt a European style of government to succeed (Document 7). As seen in this document, the white person's way of thinking justified imperialism and made it seem like imperialism was necessary. It rationalized the use of force to establish and maintain European control over colonized regions because it was seen as a blessing for natives to be seized. Along with that, European powers also saw themselves as saviors who were helping modernize non-white people who were not as modern as everyone else. Document 4 affirms these ideologies by stating that Britons were the superior race and when they control more land the world becomes a better place (Document 4). This is a form of racial superiority that made it seem to Europeans that their society was higher class and more advanced than anyone else. The Europeans might have had more technological advances than the natives but that doesn’t make them better or worse than a certain group of people. This thinking supported Europeans to force their beliefs and culture on said people in order to “modernize” or “civilize” natives which led to centuries of culture being suppressed or lost. Since their culture was being laid out in these new places, more Europeans flocked here and made it their own. More people came which gave colonizers no reason to end imperialism. Imperializers were motivated to continue because they saw no reason wrong with imperialism and the benefits in their lives outweighed the