New Global Patterns

For each term, person, or place listed at the beginning of the section, write a sentence explaining its significance.

• French Indochina – the name given to the colonies in Southeast Asia that were under French control. Significant of European imperialism in Asia and the pressure that was placed on it by Western and European powers.
• Mongkut – the king of Siam who by studying modern science, mathematics, and language was able to uphold his country and keep it from European rule and pushed Siam into a period of modernization.
• Spanish-American War – a struggle between the United States and Spain over the independence of Cuba.

Was significant in the US’s ability to win and take control of Cuba.

• Liliuokalani – the queen of Hawaii had attempted to resist foreign influences but did not succeed as the United States overpowered her. Led to the imperialism of all Pacific islands by European powers.

2. Reading Strategy: Identify Causes and Effects-How did industrialized powers divide up Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and how did the colonized peoples react?

• Powers such as the Dutch, British, and French were able to use the rivalries between local communities of Southeast Asia to their advantage by using new technologies and armies to conquer new colonies.

In the Pacific the United States, Germany, and Britain had extraterritorial rights in Samoa and had a triple protectorate in action. Even after leaders of the former independent countries that became colonized tried to fight off foreign influence, the Western powers were always able to gain control of all except Siam. People of the colonies had pushed hard to resist the imperialist force and in the end after colonization, they adopted the ideals of the powers that controlled them by means of modernization.

3. Summarize – What steps did Siam take to preserve its independence?

King Mongkut had studied foreign languages and on modern sciences and mathematics. He gained much knowledge and didn’t underestimate the power of the Europeans and took smarter approaches to resisting imperialism. He heavily negotiated with the Western powers by forming unequal treaties, much like the ones the Western powers had been using to take advantage of others. Mongkut was successful and was able to keep Siam out of the clutches of imperialism and soon after with the aid of his son Chulalongkorn was able to start a modernization movement to strengthen the country.

Draw Conclusions – Why were Filipino rebels disappointed when the United States took control of the Philippines?

• During the Spanish-American War, the Philippines was able declare independence from Spain and decided to fight alongside the US to help in the effort. Rebels were disappointed because they had expected the US would acknowledge their independence after helping them defeat Spain. Instead, the US offered to buy Spain’s control of the Philippines for $20 million and the US was able to imperialize the Philippines which outrages rebels.

4. Synthesize Information – How did Hawaii become part of the United States?

• The US had been part of the triple protectorate between the US, Germany, and Britain. The US exclusively had pushed for power in Hawaii and the American planters were able to overthrow Liliuokalani and her efforts to halt Western influence and supporters of annexation convinced the US that if they did not act for power in Hawaii, other countries would soon interfere. This convinced the US to lock in its power in Hawaii.

6. Make Comparisons- Compare the partition of Southeast Asia to the partition of Africa. How was it similar? How was it different?

• I see the partition of Asia and Africa similarly in the sense that both means of imperialism were the same. The powers used the same tactics to partitions colonies in both areas. They used unequal treaties, used a country’s weakness to their advantage such as local conflicts, used new technologies and armies as a means of conquering, and made the same modernization changes to society such as education, politics, transportation, economy, societal, etc.

The main difference I seemed to remember was that the reason for imperializing these two parts of the eastern world was for Africa, the main idea was always based on social Darwinism and there seemed to be less multiple protectorates in Africa than in Asia. Also the struggle for Africa was mainly for resource benefits as opposed to Southeast Asia where concern of resource supply wasn’t discussed in the section.