INDIGENOUS RESPONSES to State Expansion 1750-1900 [AP World History] Unit 6 Topic 3 (6.3)

Hi and welcome back to Heimler’s History. Now, we’ve been working through Unit 6 of AP World History and as we’ve been doing so we’ve been talking about the massive wave of imperialism that swept the globe from 1750-1900. And you might be tempted to think that everywhere these empires expanded into, the native peoples were like, WELCOME!

But here’s where I tell you not so much. In many cases, the indigenous people resented imperial intrusion, and in this video, that’s what we’re going to talk about. So let’s get to it.

So when imperial nations began pushing into these other places, often the response among the indigenous people was a surge of nationalism. And that sense of nationalism often led to a resistance against the encroachment of these imperial powers. So what I’d like to do is just go around the world and see what these different responses to the imperial powers were.

Alright, well let’s begin in the Americas. So recall that at the beginning of this period the United States was not yet the United States but instead, a collection of British colonies. Now after the British won the French and Indian War (which was part of a bigger, global war called the Seven Years’ War), they issued the Proclamation of 1763.

Basically, the British won a bunch of territory from the French on the American continent and the proclamation reserved all lands in the Ohio River Valley for the natives. To which the Americans promptly responded, “Ain’t no Parliament gon’ tell me what to do. ” And so they went ahead and pushed west into those lands and settled there anyway.

Now later, after the Americans fought a war with Britain in order to gain their independence, they still couldn’t stay put on the east coast. Always they were pushing westward. So I think we oughta talk about the Cherokee Indians.

The Cherokee had dealt with British colonists and later Americans for a long time. And one way they sought to carve out a space for themselves in the midst of the American nation was, surprisingly, assimilation, which is to say, they became culturally like Americans. They created a constitutional government patterned after the U.

S. Constitution and adopted many American cultural customs. And that semi-worked for a while, until gold was discovered on their land.

“You know, even though there’s gold as far as the eye can see, these are your ancestral lands, and we just want you to know, we honor your journey…” said no American ever. And so in 1830 the American Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which sent all the Cherokee and some others off to the Oklahoma Territory into reservations along the Trail of Tears. Now, that’s just one illustration of the plight of American Indians in the midst of the American desire to expand their nation.

But there was a significant resistance movement from American Indians in the second half of the 18th century. And this resistance movement was called the Ghost Dance. During this time Indians in the northwest believed in a prophecy given to them that announced their ancestral dead would return and drive the white man out of their lands.

And therefore, they engaged in the Ghost Dance which was a set of ritualistic dances and songs they performed which was meant to hasten that event. In a short amount of time, the Ghost Dance movement was adopted by many of the native peoples of America. And this movement culminated in the conflict at Wounded Knee in 1890 in which the Sioux Indians were crushed by the Americans.

And this was effectively the end of the Indian Wars in America. Okay, now more briefly, let’s head down to Peru. There, a cacique, which is to say a hereditary leader, by the name of Tupac Amaru II led an armed rebellion against Spanish colonial leaders.

Amaru was fed up with the abuses of Spain, and so he went ahead and arrested one of the colonial leaders and charged him with cruelty. And when the Spanish retaliated, a rebellion among the natives spread throughout Peru and even reached into other South American nations. Eventually Amaru was captured and executed, and this marked the last major Indian revolt against Spain.

And now let’s move north a little and talk about Mexico. During this time a guy named Benito Juarez was in power, and he was of Zapotec blood, which is to say, a pre-Columbian people. Juarez was a liberal who despised any sort of foreign influence in Mexico, and specifically, it was the French (but there were others) who had interests in Mexico.

But the conservative members of his government resented his liberalism and saw the French encroachment as a way to oust Juarez from his power. So they conspired with the European powers to overthrow Juarez’s government. However, the French occupation was short lived.

After three years of armed resistance from the Mexicans, the French were ousted from Mexico. Okay, now let’s head over to Australia and see what kind of responses to imperialism are happening over there. As I mentioned in the last video, in 1788 the British established a penal colony in Australia, and they began sending their convicts there.

And eventually, settlers came to live there too. And the British government was very clear with these settlers: be kind to the aboriginal peoples. Now I know I’ve trained you to expect me to say something like that and then come back and say “no it wasn’t really like that” but in this case it was actually true.

However, even though that’s what they said, you know that’s not in fact what happened. It wasn’t long before the British settlers began to understand that the native peoples had no voice in the British courts, and really couldn’t challenge their intrusion, and so the settlers began to push onto their native lands. And the native people did rise up in their own defense, but the superior British military capacity crushed them, and thousands of natives died in the effort.

Alright, now let’s head over to Africa. As the European powers colonized Africa, often what they would do is set up colonial governments run by Europeans. This was true in South Africa.

But there, the native Xhosa people refused to be ruled by Europeans. And as a result they fought with the British for over forty years in the 19th century. And near the end of that time, the Xhosa cattle began dying off in huge numbers.

And the Xhosa concluded that their cattle were dying because they had been infected with diseases from European cattle. And so they decided to kill all their own cattle under the belief that by doing so the spirits would drive the Europeans out of their land. And so in what became known as the Xhosa Cattle Killing Movement, the Xhosa people killed over 400,000 of their own cattle.

But the spirits did not in fact drive the British away. It only left the Xhosa people with famine and death. Alright, let’s move up to West Africa now.

Here the Sokoto Caliphate was established in 1804 as a sort of purification mission from the Islamic Hausa tribes. The Caliphate established a thriving economy, which grew largely by means of the slave trade. Now if you’ll recall in the last video when I talked about the Berlin Conference, you’ll remember that major European powers decided how the African continent would be allocated fairly to everyone who wanted a piece.

Well, at that conference the Sokoto Caliphate was designated as British. And by 1903, despite much resistance, the Sokoto Caliphate was dismantled and made a protectorate of Britain. Also in West Africa the French had their eye on some territory and similarly ran into some resistance.

In 1868 a chieftain named Samory Toure established the Wassoulou Empire in West Africa. When the French came knocking, he resisted them violently in a series of conflicts called Samory Toure’s War. But the French were victorious, and quickly established a colonial presence there.

Now over in East Africa it’s not the same scenario, but it sure does rhyme. Recall from the last video that the British intervened in Egypt in order to protect their interests in the Suez Canal. Well, in Sudan an Islamic cleric named Muhammad Ahmad could see clearly enough to understand that he and his people were next.

And so he gathered an army to resist the British forces in the 1880s, and he actually defeated them. It became known as the Mahdist Revolt. However, after Ahmad died, the movement pretty much disintegrated.

And when the British returned to Sudan in 1896 they handily defeated the Mahdists and went ahead and took over. And finally let’s talk about the Balkans. For a long time the territories in the Balkan peninsula had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, but by this time they were starting to lose their grip.

Resentment regarding Ottoman occupation bubbled close to the surface in places like Greece and Serbia and Bulgaria, among others. And that resentment gave birth to a strong wave of nationalism in those places. Each of those folks rose up against the Ottomans and many of the Balkan states gained their independence and established new states.

Alright that’s what you need to know about Unit 6 Topic 3 of AP World History. If you need help getting an A in your class and a five on your exam in May, then get your And if you want me to keep making videos for you then subscribe and come along. Heimler out.