The Western nations that justified imperial expansion as a "civilizing mission" did so at the same time as industrialization's social costs drew millions of slaves and children into the workforce

Question

As industrialization took root in other parts of the globe, did the same contradiction exist? Why or why not? Compare examples from at least one Western and one non-Western region. What forces gradually ameliorated this situation?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: The "civilizing mission" was a contradiction in that many imperialist victims were not better off with the influence of imperialist powers. On the whole, it is hard to assess claims that the paladins of the civilizing mission governed for the benefit of their victims. Under the grasping rule of King Leopold, 8–10 million people in the Congo died in massacres or from stunningly callous neglect. Native peoples who perished to make room for white empires in the Americas and Australia had no opportunity to count blessings. The British Empire can claim to its credit to have suppressed the slave trade, but even this was not an exclusively benign business. In 1879, in southern Sudan, General Charles Gordon, in charge of antislaving operations, was sickened at the skulls and skeletons his men's work left: slavers' womenfolk slaughtered to stop them breeding, thousands of slaves abandoned to starve when slavers' caravans were disrupted or destroyed. For those who suffered from it, imperialism was often a path to hell, paved with the good intentions of white people who stumbled under the burdens of their self-imposed, self-proclaimed responsibilities. It probably made the effects of natural disasters worse. Outside Europe, North America, and a few other lucky locations, the famines of last three decades of the nineteenth century exceeded all others up to that time for mortality and perhaps on every other measure of severity. As with the changing views of women, children, and slaves in the industrial workforce that led to social change, only changes in the way imperialists began to see the people under their rule was a force for change. Social scientists found, among the subject peoples of empire, disturbing new perceptions: new ways to see not only the "primitives" and "savages," but also themselves and the nature of human societies.