9.4.2 Resistance and Revolution

Resistance movements and outright revolts sprang up wherever colonizers went. The revolt by Egyptians unwilling to submit to European control, the war waged by the Mahdi’s army, and Ethiopia’s war with Italy were all examples of African acts of resistance. Elsewhere in Africa, more limited revolts took place, such as the Zulu and Matabele (Ndebele) tribes’ resistance of British or Dutch control in the south.

In Their Own Words

An African King Fights the Boers

King Moshoeshoe I of the Basuto kingdom of southern Africa hoped to avert violence between his subjects and European settlers (Figure 9.28). However, when Boers attacked Basuto settlements, Moshoeshoe went to war. In 1858, his soldiers defeated the Boers, but in two subsequent wars Moshoeshoe lost territory to the Boers. Finally, in 1868 the kingdom of Basuto was made the British protectorate of Basutoland (today’s Lesotho), and the Boer attacks ended. Following, in a letter to Sir George Grey, governor of Britain’s Cape Colony, Moshoeshoe describes his reasons for going to war in 1858.

Figure 9.28 King Moshoeshoe I of Basutoland, seated in the middle, poses with his government ministers and advisors in this undated nineteenth-century photograph. (credit: “King Moshoeshoe of the Basotho with his ministers” by Bensusan Museum, Johannesburg/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

I had given orders that no farms should be burnt, and my orders were obeyed till my people saw village after village burnt off, and the corn destroyed, they then carried destruction among the enemy's homes. On coming to my mountain, the Boers found I was prepared to check their progress, and they consequently retired. My intention was then to have followed them up, and to have shown them that my people could also carry on offensive operations, believing that having once experienced the horrors of war in their midst, I should not soon be troubled by them again. My bands were getting ready to make a descent upon them, when the Boers thought proper to make request for a cessation of hostilities. I knew what misery I should bring upon the country by leaving the Basutos to ravage the Boer places, and therefore I have agreed to the proposal of Mr. J. P. Hoffman. I cannot say that I do so with the consent of my people, for many of those who suffered by the enemy were anxious to recover their losses. If they have remained quiet, it has been owing to my persuasions and my promises that they might have good hope of justice—Your Excellency having consented to act as arbitrator between the Boers and Basutos.

—Moshoeshoe I, Letter to Sir George Grey, 1858

• What explanation does Moshoeshoe give for the attack on the Boers?
• What indication does he give that more conflict will take place in the future?
• Do you believe he was correct that attacking their settlements would have convinced the Boers to leave the Basuto in peace? Why or why not?

Resistance to foreign rule also took place in Asia and the Pacific. By the end of the nineteenth century, Chinese people’s resentment against foreigners in their land was high. The sale of foreign manufactured goods had hurt many Chinese artisans. The imperialists’ building of railroads and bridges had put many porters, cart drivers, and ferriers out of work. Foreigners were not subject to Chinese law. Protestant and Catholic missionaries in the country were especially resented. They interfered with rituals for venerating ancestors, and families were sometimes split when some members became Christians and others did not. Rumors abounded concerning the missionaries’ orphanages. One story, no doubt influenced by foreigners’ interest in taking photographs, said missionaries took children in only to kill them and use their eyeballs to make the substance that captured images on photographic plates.

In northern China, anti-foreign sentiments led to the formation of a secret society known as the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists. Foreigners who witnessed the ritual exercises that members believed made them invulnerable to bullets called them Boxers. In 1899, the Boxers began their campaign to drive foreigners from China by killing two German priests. Violence swept through northern China as the Boxer Uprising flared. Boxers murdered foreigners and Chinese Christians and destroyed foreign property, sometimes disrupting railroads by pulling the steel rails from the ground.

At first the Chinese army tried to stop the Boxers. However, in January 1900, believing foreign forces had invaded China to stop the uprising, the dowager empress Cixi proclaimed the Boxers should not be treated like criminals (Figure 9.29). Terrified foreigners streamed into Beijing seeking protection, but Cixi encouraged them to leave. Fearing for their lives, they barricaded themselves inside the embassies in the foreign quarter of Beijing. Cixi then proclaimed her allegiance to the Boxers and declared war on foreigners within China.

Swiftly Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed the Eight-Nation Alliance, and their troops raced to Beijing. Waiting for help, the foreigners rationed their food and huddled in fear. One woman recalled hearing frenzied Boxers trying to dig through the building’s wall to reach the people inside. After a siege of fifty-five days, the international force arrived and the Boxers were dispersed, killed, or captured. In September 1901, the Boxer Protocol was signed, officially ending the incident. China was forbidden to import weapons for two years, and foreign legations were given the right to keep troops of their own nation for their defense. China also awarded $330 million to the members of the Eight-Nation Alliance.

U.S. attempts to rule the Philippines after purchasing it from Spain were hindered by the resistance of many Filipino tribes. Middle-class Filipinos had sought independence from Spanish control just as the Cubans had. Following Spain’s defeat, leaders of the independence movement like Emilio Aguinaldo had expected the United States to allow them to rule themselves. When President William McKinley announced in 1898 that the United States intended to govern the islands until the Filipinos were judged capable of ruling themselves, Aguinaldo objected: “My relations with the United States did not bring me . . . to make war on the Spaniards for their benefit, but for the purpose of our own liberty and independence.”

The United States did not intend to relinquish control of its newly claimed territory, however, and war broke out. Attempts by the Filipinos to defeat U.S. forces in conventional warfare failed, so they adopted guerrilla tactics. Both sides tortured captives. U.S. soldiers burned villages to weaken civilians and guerrilla fighters alike and built concentration camps to hold resisting Filipinos. Many starved or died from infectious disease. In 1900, the United States began a “policy of attraction” by promising economic development along with a degree of self-government. The policy drew the support of wealthy and middle-class Filipinos and others who did not support Aguinaldo’s tactics. In 1901, Aguinaldo was captured, and the United States declared the war over in 1903. It was several decades before the Philippines gained independence.

India’s response to British imperialism was somewhat different. Violence had failed in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, and middle-class Indians, especially those with a British-style education, now turned to political change. They were disappointed, however, because many British elites considered Indians unfit for self-government, and they feared losing control of their most valuable colony. In 1885, moderate nationalists founded the Indian National Congress (INC), aimed at enacting political reform. The INC especially wished to end unfair taxation and remove all British-imposed barriers to industrialization in India.

In Their Own Words

The Detriments of British Rule

A moderate member of the Parsi religious minority and sometimes called the “Grand Old Man of India,” Dadabhai Naoroji (Figure 9.30) was a merchant, political leader, and language professor at University College London. A founder of the Indian National Congress, he expressed the opinions of many middle-class Indians in 1871 when he wrote on the subject of the benefits and detriments of British rule of India. The following excerpt outlines the detriments.

Figure 9.30 Dadabhai Naoroji, photographed in 1889, was elected president of the Indian National Congress three times and represented the Liberal Party in the British House of Commons. (credit: “Dadabhai Naoroji 1889, The Grand Old Man Of India” by Sorabji Jehangir/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

In the Cause of Humanity: Nothing. Everything, therefore, is in your favor under this heading.

In the Cause of Civilization: As I have said already, there has been a failure to do as much as might have been done, but I put nothing to the debit. Much has been done, though.

Politically: Repeated breach of pledges to give the natives a fair and reasonable share in the higher administration of their own country, which has much shaken confidence in the good faith of the British word. Political aspirations and the legitimate claim to have a reasonable voice in the legislation and the imposition and disbursement of taxes, met to a very slight degree, thus treating the natives of India not as British subjects, in whom representation is a birthright. Consequent on the above, an utter disregard of the feelings and views of the natives. The great moral evil of the drain of wisdom and practical administration, leaving none to guide the rising generation.

Financially: All attention is engrossed in devising new modes of taxation, without any adequate effort to increase the means of the people to pay; and the consequent vexation and oppressiveness of the taxes imposed, imperial and local. Inequitable financial relations between England and India, i.e., the political debt [. . .] clapped on India’s shoulders, and all home charges also. . . .

To sum up the whole, the British rule has been: morally, a great blessing; politically, peace and order on one hand, blunders on the other; materially, impoverishment, relieved as far as the railway and other loans go. The natives call the British system Sakar ki Churi, the knife of sugar. That is to say, there is no oppression, it is all smooth and sweet, but it is the knife, notwithstanding. I mention this that you should know these feelings. Our great misfortune is that you do not know our wants. When you will know our real wishes, I have not the least doubt that you would do justice. The genius and spirit of the British people is fair play and justice.

—Dadabhai Naoroji, “The Benefits of British Rule”

• What changes did Naoroji want the British to make?
• If Naoroji had been a peasant farmer instead of an educated member of the middle class, do you think his criticisms would have been different? Why or why not?
• Why do you think Naoroji included the last two sentences?

The moderate approach did not suit all Indian nationalists, however. Bal Gangadhar Tilak called for immediate independence from Britain, and in his newspaper he stated that Indians were justified in killing the British. “Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it,” he proclaimed. When the British partitioned the province of Bengal in 1905, making Bengali Hindus a minority group within the new divisions, the INC supported a boycott of British-made goods and government schools, and acts of anti-British terrorism occurred.

Fearing a radical turn would harm their cause, INC president Gopal Krishna Gokhale and other moderate members called for the boycott to end when a new secretary of state for India was appointed whom they believed was sympathetic. The Swadeshi movement calling upon Indians to purchase only Indian-made goods continued, however, led by the Indian lawyer and political activist Mohandas Gandhi. Tilak supported the Swadeshi movement, and in 1907 the INC split in two, with radicals aligning themselves with Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Lala Lajput Rai (Figure 9.31).