skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The Opium War began in China, the British wanted China's tea but they didn't want to trade with the British. The British found something that was addicting and knew the Chinese wouldn't get tired of getting. Opium was what the Chinese wanted and the English had it. Opium was very addicting to anyone but since the British were the ones trading it with the China and for them to get Opium they had to trade tea. Soon the government of China didn't like the idea of trading tea for Opium. The government told everyone he would have the person who gets opium from the British would be killed. China also only had one port for the British to come through and even if it wasn't easy for them they still wanted to tea and went threw that port to get their tea. The British used war to get what they wanted. They had very god technology and used their advanced technology to fight against China and won. They made China sign the "Treaty of Nanjing" which allowed the British to come into China in any port they wanted to get the tea. The Chinese didn't want that so asked for another war and once again lost. Which gave the British more power.
Mountain of the Moon was a meaningful movie, it showed that it wasn't easy to go across Africa without getting into a problem. When John Speke and Richard Burton went to Africa for the first time their journey didn't come out as planed. They both got hurt but didn't give up, Richard and John both went to Africa again to find the Nile River. This time they brought much more supplies from Europe for their journey. Also had more men from Africa to travel with them. The journey to find the Nile River wasn't easy people got hurt or have gotten a disease. When John and Richard were on their journey with their men they would meet up with other Native Africans who never saw a white person. To them John and Richard were something unusual but if Richard or John wouldn't trade with the tribe the tribe would kill them. John had gotten beetle in his ear and Richard couldn't walk because of something with his foot. After Richard wasn't able to walk anymore the have found Lake Victoria and thought it was the Nile River until they realized it wasn't.
Lake Victoria was named after the British Queen, this is strange because the lake has always been there and people were living there. The lake wasn't named after the queen of Africa or no one from Africa. Africans weren't able to change the name because the Europeans were much superior. The primary technological advantage that Europeans had over African people were mostly the guns because Africans have never seen a gun before. In the movie the king of the Native Africans was shocked and amused of the gun Richard had shown him. The gun gave the king much more power and people were terrified of getting next to him. The gun would easily beat the spears the Africans had. Since Europeans also the machine gun and much better people to fight against Africa and were able to find a cure to the disease in Africa. With all the things England had they were able to conquer Africa easily.
We did the Imperialism Project to learn on how during the European Imperialism people have traveled the seas to get raw materials from other countries. I learned that everyone traded in that period and to trade they had to travel in ships. Not everyone would come back a live though a few would survive their journey. One person that went on a journey to find an easier way to get spices from India was Christopher Columbus. They would go to India to get spices, cotton and opium but spices was important for Europeans. Instead of ending up in India Christopher Columbus ended in America what he called the New World. Finding the New World was better because now Europe was earning more money with the crops they grew in the New World. Much has been traded during the European Imperialism, Europeans have traveled traded and gain many raw material from other continents.
