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19th Century American Imperialism Essay

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Imperialism had a huge impact on the world in the 19th century. Imperialism is defined as a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force, but to the people affected it was much more than that. Countries with power went into other counties and directly or indirectly controlled their territories. These nations questioned the cultures, political systems, and social systems of these places, and in some cases replaced the territories’ systems with their own. There were several principle motives for imperialism. For example, modern colonization drove countries into these territories. They not only sent colonists to live in these new places, but they sent them to take over the political, social, economic, …show more content…
Some went into these territories with plans of direct control, like France, while others had plans of indirect rule, like Great Britain. The French started “mission civilsatrice” or working to bring people to civilization through political order and social stability. France went into Africa and enforced their own social and political, as well as cultural standards. They believed in the mastery of things such as disease and ignorance. They thought that through doing all of this they would become a sphere of influence in the world. France practiced extraterritoriality, the principle that disputes were settled by their law and by their courts, rather than by the native land’s laws and systems. This was enforced by writing them into economic treaties, so it was initially overlooked, and later the natives were confused by the terms. At that point they could do little about it because it was legally binding. Great Britain, on the other hand, went through indirect rule. Their thought process was that they’d develop the nations, rather than enforce their views on them. Through this, Britain expanded their ports through the idea of entrepôt, which is a place for imports and exports, as well as warehouses. Great Britain was going through hardships in their own country at this time such as famine and population growth, so they used this period of imperialism to defuse tension at home by focusing on these foreign

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