In this video Heimler explores the various responses from indigenous peoples to the big wave of European imperial expansion from 1750-1900.
In general, when imperial powers showed up, resistance was the response from the natives. American Indians, including the Cherokee, resisted westward expansion by Americans. Their resistance took the form of the Ghost Dance. Africans responded often with violence as in the Madhist Revolt. South Americans likewise rebelled under the leadership of Tupac Amaru II. Mexicans repelled the French from Mexico in a movement begun by ousted Mexican leader Benito Juarez.
All of this aligns with Unit 6 Topic 3 (6.3) of the AP World History Curriculum. If you have any questions, leave them below and Heimler will answer forthwithly.
Content
0.11 -> Hi and welcome back to Heimler’s History.
1.17 -> Now, we’ve been working through Unit 6 of
AP World History and as we’ve been doing
4.65 -> so we’ve been talking about the massive
wave of imperialism that swept the globe from
8.78 -> 1750-1900.
10.349 -> And you might be tempted to think that everywhere
these empires expanded into, the native peoples
14.19 -> were like, WELCOME!
15.269 -> But here’s where I tell you not so much.
18.17 -> In many cases, the indigenous people resented
imperial intrusion, and in this video, that’s
22.01 -> what we’re going to talk about.
23.17 -> So let’s get to it.
24.24 -> So when imperial nations began pushing into
these other places, often the response among
28.12 -> the indigenous people was a surge of nationalism.
30.34 -> And that sense of nationalism often led to
a resistance against the encroachment of these
34.84 -> imperial powers.
35.84 -> So what I’d like to do is just go around
the world and see what these different responses
39.4 -> to the imperial powers were.
40.88 -> Alright, well let’s begin in the Americas.
42.71 -> So recall that at the beginning of this period
the United States was not yet the United States
46.46 -> but instead, a collection of British colonies.
48.73 -> Now after the British won the French and Indian
War (which was part of a bigger, global war
52.899 -> called the Seven Years’ War), they issued
the Proclamation of 1763.
57.14 -> Basically, the British won a bunch of territory
from the French on the American continent
61.579 -> and the proclamation reserved all lands in
the Ohio River Valley for the natives.
65.6 -> To which the Americans promptly responded,
“Ain’t no Parliament gon’ tell me what
68.95 -> to do.”
69.95 -> And so they went ahead and pushed west into
those lands and settled there anyway.
72.51 -> Now later, after the Americans fought a war
with Britain in order to gain their independence,
76.57 -> they still couldn’t stay put on the east
coast.
78.67 -> Always they were pushing westward.
80.38 -> So I think we oughta talk about the Cherokee
Indians.
82.41 -> The Cherokee had dealt with British colonists
and later Americans for a long time.
86.31 -> And one way they sought to carve out a space
for themselves in the midst of the American
89.99 -> nation was, surprisingly, assimilation, which
is to say, they became culturally like Americans.
95.34 -> They created a constitutional government patterned
after the U.S. Constitution and adopted many
100.35 -> American cultural customs.
101.939 -> And that semi-worked for a while, until gold
was discovered on their land.
105.92 -> “You know, even though there’s gold as
far as the eye can see, these are your ancestral
110.36 -> lands, and we just want you to know, we honor
your journey…” said no American ever.
114.911 -> And so in 1830 the American Congress passed
the Indian Removal Act which sent all the
119.53 -> Cherokee and some others off to the Oklahoma
Territory into reservations along the Trail
124.57 -> of Tears.
125.57 -> Now, that’s just one illustration of the
plight of American Indians in the midst of
128.929 -> the American desire to expand their nation.
131.35 -> But there was a significant resistance movement
from American Indians in the second half of
135.36 -> the 18th century.
136.36 -> And this resistance movement was called the
Ghost Dance.
138.39 -> During this time Indians in the northwest
believed in a prophecy given to them that
142.03 -> announced their ancestral dead would return
and drive the white man out of their lands.
146.099 -> And therefore, they engaged in the Ghost Dance
which was a set of ritualistic dances and
150.849 -> songs they performed which was meant to hasten
that event.
153.71 -> In a short amount of time, the Ghost Dance
movement was adopted by many of the native
157.64 -> peoples of America.
158.64 -> And this movement culminated in the conflict
at Wounded Knee in 1890 in which the Sioux
163.03 -> Indians were crushed by the Americans.
165.14 -> And this was effectively the end of the Indian
Wars in America.
168.33 -> Okay, now more briefly, let’s head down
to Peru.
170.52 -> There, a cacique, which is to say a hereditary
leader, by the name of Tupac Amaru II led
175.819 -> an armed rebellion against Spanish colonial
leaders.
178.11 -> Amaru was fed up with the abuses of Spain,
and so he went ahead and arrested one of the
181.84 -> colonial leaders and charged him with cruelty.
183.67 -> And when the Spanish retaliated, a rebellion
among the natives spread throughout Peru and
187.6 -> even reached into other South American nations.
189.93 -> Eventually Amaru was captured and executed,
and this marked the last major Indian revolt
194.45 -> against Spain.
195.45 -> And now let’s move north a little and talk
about Mexico.
197.62 -> During this time a guy named Benito Juarez
was in power, and he was of Zapotec blood,
202.12 -> which is to say, a pre-Columbian people.
204.17 -> Juarez was a liberal who despised any sort
of foreign influence in Mexico, and specifically,
208.54 -> it was the French (but there were others)
who had interests in Mexico.
211.39 -> But the conservative members of his government
resented his liberalism and saw the French
215.54 -> encroachment as a way to oust Juarez from
his power.
218.2 -> So they conspired with the European powers
to overthrow Juarez’s government.
221.959 -> However, the French occupation was short lived.
224.269 -> After three years of armed resistance from
the Mexicans, the French were ousted from
228.489 -> Mexico.
229.489 -> Okay, now let’s head over to Australia and
see what kind of responses to imperialism
232.22 -> are happening over there.
233.22 -> As I mentioned in the last video, in 1788
the British established a penal colony in
237.55 -> Australia, and they began sending their convicts
there.
239.95 -> And eventually, settlers came to live there
too.
241.769 -> And the British government was very clear
with these settlers: be kind to the aboriginal
246.49 -> peoples.
247.49 -> Now I know I’ve trained you to expect me
to say something like that and then come back
250.38 -> and say “no it wasn’t really like that”
but in this case it was actually true.
253.34 -> However, even though that’s what they said,
you know that’s not in fact what happened.
256.499 -> It wasn’t long before the British settlers
began to understand that the native peoples
259.989 -> had no voice in the British courts, and really
couldn’t challenge their intrusion, and
263.97 -> so the settlers began to push onto their native
lands.
266.479 -> And the native people did rise up in their
own defense, but the superior British military
270.659 -> capacity crushed them, and thousands of natives
died in the effort.
274.199 -> Alright, now let’s head over to Africa.
275.639 -> As the European powers colonized Africa, often
what they would do is set up colonial governments
279.86 -> run by Europeans.
281.059 -> This was true in South Africa.
282.419 -> But there, the native Xhosa people refused
to be ruled by Europeans.
286.05 -> And as a result they fought with the British
for over forty years in the 19th century.
290.009 -> And near the end of that time, the Xhosa cattle
began dying off in huge numbers.
293.669 -> And the Xhosa concluded that their cattle
were dying because they had been infected
296.96 -> with diseases from European cattle.
298.849 -> And so they decided to kill all their own
cattle under the belief that by doing so the
303.68 -> spirits would drive the Europeans out of their
land.
306.259 -> And so in what became known as the Xhosa Cattle
Killing Movement, the Xhosa people killed
310.469 -> over 400,000 of their own cattle.
312.949 -> But the spirits did not in fact drive the
British away.
315.419 -> It only left the Xhosa people with famine
and death.
318.219 -> Alright, let’s move up to West Africa now.
319.96 -> Here the Sokoto Caliphate was established
in 1804 as a sort of purification mission
324.349 -> from the Islamic Hausa tribes.
325.979 -> The Caliphate established a thriving economy,
which grew largely by means of the slave trade.
330.479 -> Now if you’ll recall in the last video when
I talked about the Berlin Conference, you’ll
334.099 -> remember that major European powers decided
how the African continent would be allocated
338.259 -> fairly to everyone who wanted a piece.
339.99 -> Well, at that conference the Sokoto Caliphate
was designated as British.
343.93 -> And by 1903, despite much resistance, the
Sokoto Caliphate was dismantled and made a
348.61 -> protectorate of Britain.
349.8 -> Also in West Africa the French had their eye
on some territory and similarly ran into some
354.189 -> resistance.
355.189 -> In 1868 a chieftain named Samory Toure established
the Wassoulou Empire in West Africa.
359.84 -> When the French came knocking, he resisted
them violently in a series of conflicts called
363.509 -> Samory Toure’s War.
365.11 -> But the French were victorious, and quickly
established a colonial presence there.
368.59 -> Now over in East Africa it’s not the same
scenario, but it sure does rhyme.
372.319 -> Recall from the last video that the British
intervened in Egypt in order to protect their
375.58 -> interests in the Suez Canal.
376.86 -> Well, in Sudan an Islamic cleric named Muhammad
Ahmad could see clearly enough to understand
381.569 -> that he and his people were next.
382.999 -> And so he gathered an army to resist the British
forces in the 1880s, and he actually defeated
387.689 -> them.
388.689 -> It became known as the Mahdist Revolt.
389.689 -> However, after Ahmad died, the movement pretty
much disintegrated.
392.219 -> And when the British returned to Sudan in
1896 they handily defeated the Mahdists and
396.61 -> went ahead and took over.
397.61 -> And finally let’s talk about the Balkans.
399.529 -> For a long time the territories in the Balkan
peninsula had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire,
403.629 -> but by this time they were starting to lose
their grip.
406.31 -> Resentment regarding Ottoman occupation bubbled
close to the surface in places like Greece
409.77 -> and Serbia and Bulgaria, among others.
411.869 -> And that resentment gave birth to a strong
wave of nationalism in those places.
415.21 -> Each of those folks rose up against the Ottomans
and many of the Balkan states gained their
418.869 -> independence and established new states.
421.029 -> Alright that’s what you need to know about
Unit 6 Topic 3 of AP World History.
424.27 -> If you need help getting an A in your class
and a five on your exam in May, then get your
428.98 -> And if you want me to keep making videos for
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