Opium Wars-Imperialism in China

The Opium Wars took place during the mid 1800s between the British and the Chinese because of the illegal trade of opium, hence the name Opium Wars. Opium was a drug originally used for medical reasons. But, after the British introduced the idea of mixing opium with tobacco so that it could be smoked, people started to become addicted to the substance. Because of this addiction, the British made a lot of profit from selling opium. We know that people who use drugs too much often suffer the consequences. Those who used opium felt the effects of using it so much and China's population became weak. The Chinese government noticed opium's bad effect on the Chinese people and decided that they would not allow opium to be sold for smoking. Those who were caught going against this would be punished by being banned or executed.

Despite this new rule, the British continued to bring in more opium to China. They bribed government officials, who were corrupt, and managed to bring them into the illegal opium trade. The Chinese government discovered that there was still an illegal opium trade taking place and didn't do much about it for a while. Eventually, the Chinese government decided to make an effort to stop this madness by having government officials destroy any opium being imported into their land. The British wanted to stick up for their trade rights and decided to take action by taking their places in Canton, the trading port by which the opium was being imported into China. This was when the Opium War officially started. The British had won this war because they were more technologically advanced and also because their military was stronger than China's military, which was corrupt.

Film Lesson: "Mountain of the Moon"

Recently in our Global 3 class, we watched a movie called "Mountains of the Moon" featuring Richard Burton and John Speke. While these two men explored Africa, they experienced many hardships, just like many other Europeans at that time. In Africa, diseases caused by mosquitoes, like malaria, were very common. This is why Burton and Speke were shown sleeping with mosquito or insect guards over them. There was one scene in the movie where John Speke was sleeping without a guard to protect him from the insects. This caused a beetle to crawl into his ear. They had to drop hot wax into Speke's ear and soon after Speke jammed a spear into his ear. Another hardship faced by these two men in Africa was when they entered a different territory. In one of the scenes of the movie, Burton and Speke entered the territory of a group of "colorful" Africans. They told the men that they could not enter their territory without bringing them gifts. In some cases in history, people have gotten into battles because one person entered a different territory without the permission of its owner.

Burton and Speke came across a body of water. They named this body of water Lake Victoria, after the Queen of England. This is very strange because they named a lake after the Queen of England and this lake is located in Africa. It would make more sense if they named a body of water in England after the Queen of England or if they named that body of water they encountered in Africa after an African leader. The movie had a scene where one of the two men took out a gun and threaten one of the Africans. The Africans appear to have not known what this object was. This is one of the primary technological advantages that Europeans had over Africans during this time. Europeans were more updated with their weapons. Europeans were eventually able to conquer Africa so easily not only because they were more advanced in their technology but because they were also more united than the Africans. The African people had different tribes who would occasionally end up in a battle with each other for land most of the time. Europeans, on the other hand, worked together and were more united. With teamwork, of course you can wipe out the other team.

Imperialism Project

Over the past couple of days, our Global 3 class has been working on an Imperialism project because we are currently working on the Imperialism unit. We completed this project so that our class could see the effects of imperialism. Imperialism is when a powerful country or nation takes over another foreign territory. For this project, we attached things like cotton, tea, gold, and products related to that onto the project map. We also drew shipping lines on the map to show the trade routes of some of the countries. For example, England needed cotton to make more clothing in their factories, especially since there was an increase in demand for clothing. They discovered that India had cotton in their country so they decided to sail to their country to get the goods they needed.

For this project we also colored in countries, not only because our teacher wanted the paper to look pretty, but to show which countries took over which territories. My partner and I learned that England took over places like Canada, Eastern United States, and many countries in Africa. There was a slave trade between the New World and Africa during this time as well. Spain took over many countries in South America and a few countries in the Caribbean. This can explain why many countries in South America and in the Caribbean speak Spanish today. This project helped us learn that European countries participated the most in imperialism.