Imperialism: historical contexts, causes, and global impacts

Imperialism is now considered a dirty word, because the desire to exert control over foreign lands and people is associated with a belief that those people are somehow inferior to the ones asserting control. This negative connotation is certainly well-deserved, because it is impossible to catalog all of the horrible things that have been done for the sake of imperialism. However, it would be ridiculous to suggest that all of the effects of imperialism have been negative. The modern world has been shaped by imperialistic ideals in such a way that it would be impossible to even attempt to imagine what the world would be like without imperialism. There would certainly be no Western civilization as it is known today.

Some of the major consequences of imperialism were apparent long before the beginning of industrialization. When Western European countries began to expand their power bases through colonialism and other imperialistic forms of government, they took their dominant religions with them. Eventually, the dominant religion was Christianity, and imperialism was responsible for the spread of Christianity to literally all parts of the globe. Another major goal of imperialism was the economic use of the colonized or otherwise occupied area. Because the goal was to increase the fortune of the colonizing country, this economic use was almost always exploitative and could involve stripping the land of its natural and human resources. How the land was exploited depended on the land being conquered. In the New World, European countries sought natural resources like gold, silver, and jewels, and impressed Native Americans into forced labor or slavery. As the New World colonies became more settled and the plantation system developed, the colonizers needed cheap and dispensable labor, which increased the slave trade, which was not solely a Western phenomenon, and transformed it into a race-based caste system. In fact, in virtually every area that was subjected to imperialistic expansion, one can see the development of race-based caste systems, making it clear that imperialism is highly correlated with racism.

Because of the negative aspects of imperialism, it would be tempting to assert that imperialism is incompatible with traditional American values. However, to do so would be to engage in a horrible revisionist version of history. The development of modern America was based on the concept of manifest destiny and would not have occurred without the systemic deprivation of the rights of indigenous people. Attacking Native Americans, killing off tribes, killing off of buffalo for sport and thus depriving tribes of their food sources, and forcing Native Americans into reservations are all examples of imperialistic behavior. In addition, the development of the plantation system, the history of slavery, and the post-emancipation degradation of African-Americans are likewise examples of American imperialism. Unfortunately, imperialism is a traditional American value, though those values are changing.