1. DBQ-Imperialism
Evaluate the new imperialism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Africa and Asia. What were the effects of imperialism for the colonizer (western countries) and the colony (non-western countries)?

2. Document 1

3. Document 2

4. Document 3

5. Document 4

6. Document 5

7. Document 6

8. Document 7

9. Document 8
Background/Source: The following is an excerpt from a private letter written by King Leopold to a group of Belgian missionaries about to leave for the Congo in  
“Reverends, Fathers and Dear Compatriots:
The task that is given to you to fulfill is very difficult and requires much tact (careful strategy). You will go to the Congo certainly to evangelize (preach religion), but your evangelization must inspire above all Belgian interests. Your principal (most important) objective in our mission in the Congo is not to teach the savages to know God. They know God already. They speak and submit to a Mungu, one Nzambi, one Nzakomba, and what else I don’t know (all of these are native African gods). They know these many gods, so have courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. Your essential role is to facilitate (make easier) the task of administrators (Belgium government officials) and industrialists, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in a way that it will best protect our interests in that part of the world.
Evangelize the savages so that they stay forever in submission(obedience) to the white colonialists, so they never revolt against the restraints (challenges) they are undergoing. Recite every day-"Happy are those who are weeping because the kingdom of God is for them." If need be, convert the blacks always by using the whip.

10. Document 9
Background Information/Source: King Leopold II made many efforts to keep foreigners out of the Congo. However by the 1890s the horrendous reports of missionaries in the area caused alarm. Robert Casement was sent by Britain to investigate these accusations in Below are parts of his report, which caused a full scale investigation to be launched.
“I visited two large villages where I found that fully half the population now consisted of refugees (people driven from their homes). I saw and questioned several groups of these people. They went on to declare, when asked why they had fled their district (region of the country), that they had endured such ill-treatment at the hands of the government soldiers in their own district that life had become intolerable (unbearable). Nothing had remained for them at home but to be killed for failure to bring in a certain amount of rubber or to die from starvation or exposure (exhaustion) in their attempts to satisfy the demands of the government (the Belgians).
At one of these villages, I saw women coming back from the surrounding forest where they had hidden themselves. I met some of these returning women in one of the fields and asked them why they had run away at my approach, and they said, smiling, 'We thought you were Bula Matadi ' ('men of the Belgian Government').
She said men still came to her whose hands had been cut off by the Government (Belgian) soldiers, and she said there were still many victims of this kind of mutilation in the surrounding country. Two cases of the kind came to my actual notice while I was on the lake. One was a young man whose hands had been beaten off with the butt-ends (back) of rifles, and the other was a young lad of eleven or twelve years of age, whose right hand was cut off at the wrist.”

11. Document 10
Congolese children and wives whose father failed to meet rubber collection quotas were often punished by having their hands cut off. The following image is of Mola and Yoka, victims of Belgian atrocities, taken in 1905.
Source: “The River Congo,” by Peter Forbath, 1907

12. Document 11
Background/Source: In this excerpt, adapted from British economist, O.P. Austin’s “Does Colonization Pay?” printed in The Forum, January 1909, demonstrates both the effects of imperialism and Western attitudes towards the colonies.
“Modern progressive nations [Western imperializing countries] seek to control “garden spots” in the tropics. Under their direction, these places can yield the tropical produce that their citizens need. In return the progressive [Western] nations bring to the people of those garden spots the foodstuffs, and manufactured items they need. They develop the territory by building roads, canals, railways, and telegraphs. The progressive nations can establish schools and newspapers for the people of the colonies. They can also give these people the benefit of other blessings of civilization which they have not the means of creating themselves.”

13. Document 12
Background/Source: In this speech, Dadabhai Naoroji, a native of the country of India, describes the effect of British imperialism on India.
Europeans [the British] occupy almost all the higher places in every department of government. . .Natives, no matter how fit, are deliberately kept out of the social institutions started by Europeans. . .All they [the Europeans] do is live off of India while they are here. When they go, they take with them all they have gained.

14. Document 13
Background/Source: This excerpt is adapted from British historian, J.A.R. Marriott’s book, The English in India, 1932.
British brains, British enterprise, and British capital have changed the face of India. Means of communication have been developed. There are great numbers of bridges, more than 40,000 miles of railway, and 70,000 miles of paved roads. These testify to the skill and industry of British engineers. Irrigation works on a very large scale and have brought 30 million acres under cultivation. This has greatly added to the agricultural wealth of the country. Industrialization has also begun. India now has improved sanitation and a higher standard of living. It has a fine transport system and carefully thought-out schemes for relief work. Because of these things famines have now almost disappeared.

15. Document 14
Background/Source: This excerpt, from “The Discovery of India” by historian Jawaharlal Nehru, a native citizen of India, explains how India became a “typical” colonial economy.
This process continued throughout the nineteenth century. Old Indian manufacturing industries—shipbuilding, metalwork, glass, paper—and many crafts were broken up. Thus the economic development of India was stopped and the growth of new industry [factory production] was prevented A typical colonial economy was built up. India became an agricultural [farming] colony for industrial England. India supplied raw materials to Britain and was required to provide markets for England’s industrial goods. The destruction of Indian manufacturing [factory systems] led to unemployment on a vast scale The poverty of the country grew. The standard of living fell to terribly low levels.