Dbq New Imperialism

Words: 753
Pages: 4

In the late 19th century and early 20th century when new imperialism started to rise, European powers started to colonize other parts of the world. The opening of the Suez Canal in the 1800’s gave European Imperialist leaders the ability to colonize parts of Africa for a stronger government and greater national wealth because of the newer and shorter route that was able to be taken straight through Egypt. The imperialist powers saw Africa as an easy target to gain their nation's own economic wealth. New imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th century was primarily caused by economic motives because of Africa's amount of natural resources and access to new markets to trade and sell. Despite the economic reasons, new imperialism also had political motives that can be analyzed as a …show more content…
A political cartoon published in the French newspaper, called China the cake of kings and emperors, shows Queen Elizabeth and Otto Von Bismarck bickering while both holding knives in their hands over a map of Africa. They are arguing or fighting over the division of Africa because of the natural resources found in Africa(Doc 4).The purpose of this document is to portray the division of Africa so it makes sense that the French newspaper would communicate the division of Africa in this way because it shows how tyrant and unfair the division was and it was only up to the imperialist leaders and how they just wanted the economic profits of the natural resources.This supports the argument that the economic motivations are also because of Africa’s resources. As an additional piece of evidence that supports this argument is the European success in the Congo from harvesting rubber in trees that was used for tires in cars/automobiles. The cars are a result of the Industrial