The British Empire PDF

# The British Empire The British Empire is a name given to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the former dominions, colonies, and other territories throughout the world that owed allegiance to the British Crown from the late 1500s to the middle of the 20th century. At its...

# The British Empire The British Empire is a name given to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the former dominions, colonies, and other territories throughout the world that owed allegiance to the British Crown from the late 1500s to the middle of the 20th century. At its height in the early 1900s, the British Empire included over 20 percent of the world's land area and more than 400 million people. At the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories. ## The story of the British Empire The story of the British Empire began in 1497 when the Italian seafarer John Cabot sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in the service of King Henry VII of England and reached Newfoundland. However, the real foundations of the British Empire were laid during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). Under Elizabeth, English support for naval exploration increased dramatically, and in 1580 Sir Francis Drake became the first Englishman to sail around the world. Overseas commercial and trade interests were also established in the form of the English East India Company in 1600. However, because England was at war with Spain, which had a large colonial empire in the Americas, English colonization in the Americas remained almost unknown in the 15th century. The first real venture was the attempted settlement of Roanoke Island off the North American coast in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh. This settlement did not survive, and the English did not attempt further exploration and colonization in the Americas until 1604, after peace had been made with Spain. ## Age of Discovery During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe and in the process, established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires bestowed, England, France and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left Britain the dominant colonial power in North America and India. However, the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1733 after a war of independence was a blow to Britain, depriving it of its most populous colonies. Despite this setback, British attention soon turned towards Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Following the defeat of Napoleonic France in 1815, Britain enjoyed a century of effectively unchallenged dominance, and expanded its imperial holdings across the globe. ## The Roots of World Empire Britain in the 18th century was more deeply involved with the world beyond its shores than ever before. British ships plied the world's oceans, displacing the Dutch from their leadership in world trade. African slaves, Indian cotton textiles, and Chinese tea all served to fill the coffers of British merchants. ## The Royal Navy The Royal Navy was establishing a virtually insurmountable lead over all rivals and a global network of bases. The British colonies of the Caribbean, Jamaica, and Barbados, with their vast, slave-worked sugar plantations, were the source of immense wealth. The Hudson's Bay Company, founded in 1670, traded with Native Americans for furs, although in the first part of the new century it was outpaced by French rivals. The East India Company, founded in 1600, had established a firm foothold in Bengal in northeastern India that became a base for further expansion by the mid-18th century in whole India. ## Knowledge and Navigation Knowledge went with power. Along with other strong European nations, Britain amassed knowledge of global navigation and cartography. British captains followed in the wake of the Elizabethan captain Francis Drake, but with an emphasis on knowledge rather than mere plunder. The most notable of these explorers was James Cook (1728–79), who charted the coast of Newfoundland and the Pacific Northwest coast of America, circumnavigated New Zealand, and was the first European to encounter the islands of Hawaii. Like other British explorers, Cook was accompanied by cartographers and natural historians who made the layout and resources of the newly discovered lands and peoples known to Britain and Europe. ## The First Empire (1588-1783) In the 17th and 18th centuries, Britain established its first empire, which was centered in the Caribbean and in North America. It began with the establishment of tobacco plantations in the West Indies and religious colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America. England established a presence in India during the 17th century with the activities of the East India Company. Although this presence became larger and more entrenched during the 17th and 18th centuries, India did not come under direct British rule until 1858. ## Mercantilism An important factor in the first empire was *mercantilism*, an economic policy based on protected trade monopolies and governmental control of manufacturing. Under this system, colonies were established mainly to increase the wealth of the home country. They were either used as sources of raw materials or as markets for products of the home country. The intention was to keep the amount of the home country's exports higher than the amount of its imports; since the home country would be selling more than it was buying, its capital reserves would grow. Because this system required strict governmental control, the English began to regulate the affairs of its colonies closely. In 1551 the English parliament passed the Navigation Act, which stipulated that imports into English harbors and colonies could only be carried in English ships or those of the producing country. ## North America The first permanent English settlement in North America was established in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia by the Virginia Company. Shortly after this, in 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers landed from the ship *Mayflower* to found the colony of Massachusetts. By 1733, the English had established 13 colonies along the Atlantic seaboard between French Canada and Spanish Florida. The colonists began to plant cotton in the 17th century, and this plantation crop was being grown on a very large scale by the late 18th century. In 1688, wars with France led to further English expansion. Colonies in New England grew steadily, and the Hudson's Bay Company was established near Hudson Bay to participate in the fur trade. This growing English presence intensified friction in the 1690s with New France, based in the nearby St. Lawrence Valley. As a result of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), in which Britain and its allies fought against France and Spain, British forces captured the French American possessions of Acadia and Newfoundland The Spanish islands of Gibraltar and Minorca were seized in the same conflict, giving Britain for the first time a territorial presence in the Mediterranean Sea. The Peace of Utrecht (1713) resolved the war, and officially ceded the conquered lands to the British. It also extended British rights to supply slaves and other trade goods to the Spanish Americas, and as a result, established Britain's status as an overseas power approximately equal to its main European competitors. ## The West Indies The first British foothold in the West Indies was Saint Christopher (later Saint Kitts), acquired in 1623. The English plantations established in the West Indies were worked initially by white indentured servants from England. The "West Indian tobacco boom gradually petered out and was replaced by sugar production, which required a larger labor force that was provided by slaves from Africa. This began the transformation of the islands into a plantation economy based on slavery. In 1655 the English conquered the Spanish colony of Jamaica—the first English colony taken by force. In 1670 England and Spain signed the *Treaty of Madrid*, in which Spain finally acknowledged English possessions ir, the Caribbean The sugar economy expanded, and the Royal Africa Company was formed in 1672 to bring large numbers of African slaves to the Caribbean. The plantation owners obtained labor. By the 1670s slaves had become the largest proportion of the population in the English islands. Sugar emerged as the chief impost into Britain, fueling the West Indian plantation economy, and with it the flow of 70,000 slaves annually across the Atlantic. In 1707 Great Britain was to form the largest free-trade area then existing, and by the late 18th century Britain had become the leading industrial nation. Its main pattern of trade was based on the triangular trade: British ships took manufactured goods and spirits to West Africa to exchange for slaves, whom they transported to the West Indies and most of the 13 colonies. The ships then returned to Britain with cargoe s of cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco, produced mainly by the labour of the black slaves. Britain's prosperity was bound up with the slave trade until this became illegal in 1307. By that time the importance of the slave trade had diminished and other forms of commerce had become more profitable. With other western European nations, the British had already established a string of forts in West Africa to safeguard the trade in slaves, gold, and ivory. ## The Seven Years' War During the Seven Years' War in Europe (1756-1763), Britain made large imperial gains at the expense of France. The North American segment of the Seven Years' War was known as the French and Indian War. It was launched by the British against French possessions in North America in 1754, and in 1758 the British captured the French fortress of Louisbourg, which gave them access to French territory in the St. Lawrence Valley. In the following year Québec was captured, marking the end of the French presence in Canada. In the Caribbean, British forces captured many of the French possessions, including the large sugar-producing islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe. At the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which ended both the Seven Years' War and the French and Indian War, the British handed Guadeloupe and Martinique back to France, but retained control of Canada. This was especially important to the British in guaranteeing the security of the New England colonies. ## The American Revolution and loss of the colonies For the British, an expanded empire meant new responsibilities and new costs. The British government wanted to increase taxation with the *Stamp Act (1765)*. Although the British considered the act to be perfectly fair, many American colonists saw it as a violation of their rights. After riots in the colonies, the Stamp Act was repealed, but other taxes soon replaced it, setting off a controversy in which the colonies united against Britain in the Continental Congress. A skirmish at Concord, Massachusetts, in April 1775 deteriorated into general fighting, and in July 1776 the Congress issued the *Declaration of Independence*. British resistance ended when General Charles Cornwallis surrendered with his army at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781. This defeat marked not only the end of the American war, but also the end of the First British Empire. Yet because France had not been able to challenge British supremacy at sea, Britain's losses did not extend beyond the American colonies themselves. At the same time, the British presence in Canada was reinforced by the establishment of the colony of New Brunswick, resulting from the migration northwards of over 30,000 citizens of the American colonies who were still loyal to Britain. ## The Second British Empire (1783-1947) After the loss of the American colonies, British commerce turned from the Americas to the east in its search both for spices for re-export and, increasingly, for markets to sell ever-growing amounts of British manufactured goods. The Industrial Revolution had transformed the British economy from a primarily agricultural one to one based much more on mechanized manufacturing, and as a result had drastically increased the amount of British products available for export. The quest for new markets for international trade was the economic incentive behind the Second British Empire. *Free trade*, the belief that international trade should not be restricted by any one nation, replaced the old colonial system, which had relied on mercantilist ideas of protected commerce. The Second British Empire, focused more on Asia and Africa, continued to expand in the 1800s and early 1900s and reached its apex at the end of World War I. However, a growing nationalism among the British colonies gradually weakened the power of the empire, and Britain was eventually forced to grant independence to many of its former colonies after 1945. ## India Although the first empire was centered in the Americas, the English were also active in India in the 17th century. The English East India Company focused on trade with the Indian subcontinent, as it was not in a position to challenge the powerful Mughal Empire, which had granted it trading rights in 1617. This changed in the 18th century as the Mughals declined in power and the East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the *Compagnie française des Indes orientales*, during the *Carnatic Wars*; in the 1740s and 1750s. The Battle of Plassey in 1757, which saw the British, led by Robert Clive, defeat the French and their Indian allies, left the Company in control of Bengal and as the major military and political power in India. In the following decades it gradually increased the size of the territories under its control, either ruling directly or via local puppet rulers under the threat of force from the British Indian Army, the vast majority of which was composed of native Indian sepoys (mercenaries). The Company's conquest of India was complete by 1857. The Indian Rebellion that year eventually led to the end of the East India Company and India came to be ruled directly by the British Raj. In 1828 English replaced Persian as the official language of government in India, and Christian missionary activity increased. In 1877, Queen Victoria was made Empress of India. Her new empire included present-day India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and most of Myanmar (Burma). In 1887 the nearby Maldive Islands became a British protectorate. ## Australia Though English expeditions had landed in Australia in the late 1600s, it was not put as target for explorations until the 1770s by Captain James Cook. Though remote, Australia became important to the British, both as a strategic port near East Asia, and as a destination for British convicts after the loss of the American colonies (prisoners in Britain were overcrowded). As a result, a British fleet composed mainly of convicts was dispatched to Botany Bay in the Australian region of New South Wales, resulting in the foundation of Sydney in 1788. ## The Napoleonic Wars Britain's involvement in wars with France after 1793 gave a fresh spur to the growth of its empire. In 1794 Britain again captured the French sugar-producing islands in the Caribbean. This resulted in a glut of sugar on the British market and contributed indirectly to British legislation in 1807 abolishing the slave trade, by virtue of the fact that production was so high that few new slaves were needed. Britain's Mediterranean position and its route to the east were secured during the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), primarily due to the naval triumphs of British Admiral Horatio Nelson. First, Nelson stopped Napoleon's invasion of Egypt at the Battle of the Nile, which gave control of the entire Mediterranean to the British. Then, at the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson destroyed a French fleet on its way to land troops in Italy. By decimating the French navy, Nelson ended any possible threat to the British islands from Napoleon and ensured British naval superiority for much of the 19th century. America was not a theater of operations until friction over neutral trading rights and boundaries led to the War of 1812, during which the Americans seized York (now Toronto) in Upper Canada, and the British sacked Washington, D.C. The inability of American forces to make significant advances into Canada confirmed the survival of British North America. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Netherlands sided with France, and Britain seized several Dutch possessions, including the Cape Colony, in South Africa; Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), off the Indian coast; Java, in Indonesia; and parts of Guiana, in South America. Though Java was returned to the Dutch, most of these possessions were retained by the British under the agreement reached at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. ## Ireland Ireland had been absorbed into the United Kingdom with the *Act of Union 1800* after the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and had suffered a severe famine between 1845 and 1852. Home rule (being partially free) was supported by the British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, who hoped that Ireland might follow in Canada's footsteps as a Dominion within the Empire, but his 1886 Home Rule bill was defeated in Parliament, as many MPs feared that a partially independent Ireland might pose a security threat to Great Britain or be the beginnings of the breakup of the Empire. A second Home Rule bill was also defeated for similar reasons. A third bill was passed by Parliament in 1914, but not implemented due to the outbreak of the First World War leading to the 1916 Easter Rising. ## South Africa The acquisition of the Cape Colony from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars allowed the British to establish a strong presence in southern Africa. Thousands of British colonists began to arrive after 1820, and English became the official language in 1822. Slavery, which had been heavily relied upon by the Dutch, was abolished in 1833. In 1843 the British established the coastal colony of Natal. The Boers, who were descendants of the original Dutch and German settlers, resented British rule, and thousands of the Boers migrated north, eventually founding the interior African republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In 1902 Britain completed its military occupation of the Transvaal and Free State by concluding a treaty with the two Boer Republics following the Boer War 1899-1902. ## Burma During the 19th century, Britain was using its strong armies in India to expand into Southeast Asia. The Burmese Konbaung dynasty had expanded the borders of Burma (now Myanmar) greatly, until they began to bump up against British India. Attempted Burmese incursions into india resulted in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826), in which the Burmese were overpowered by the British and were forced to cede several coastal areas to them. Over the course of the Second and Third Anglo-Burmese Wars (1852 and 1885) Britain established its dominance in the region, conquering all of Burma. In 1886 Burma was officially made a province of India. ## The Beginning of Responsible Government An empire based on free trade required less regulation than one based on mercantilist principles. As a result, the concept of responsible government, or government by the citizens of a colony, emerged. It was applied in the British North American colonies during the 1840s, and in 1867 Canada was confederated. Confederation allowed Britain to withdraw its military presence while retaining control of foreign affairs and external defense. ## New Imperialism By the 1870s, the British Empire was characterized by the New Imperialism which was a much more aggressive imperial expansion and defense of British interests overseas. Though it was sometimes the result of local instability, as in 1882 when British troops occupied Egypt in order to preserve control of the Suez Canal, it was more often fueled by the British government's desire to extend its empire. After the occupation of Egypt, a race to establish colonies in Africa ensued. Britain, which competed principally against France and Germany, made a series of claims in West Africa in the 1880s, mainly in the Niger River Valley. Additional colonies were established in southern Africa, where the activities of Cecil Rhodes led to the annexation of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) in 1885 and the founding of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1890. In East Africa, British explorers were active from the 1850s in the search for the source of the Nile, and in 1864 Sir Samuel Baker discovered Lake Albert; the acquisition of Uganda in 1894 eventually secured Britain's political dominance in the region. About the same time, British settlement in Kenya began.