Illustration shows Britannia carrying a large white flag labeled "Civilization" with British soldiers and colonists behind her, advancing on a horde of natives, one carrying a flag labeled "Barbarism". Esherick, Joseph. Source:The Weimar Classics Foundation. Co.. Puck Bldg.. NY] Photograph. By the spring of 1900, Boxer attacks were spreading toward the capital city of Beijing. Newspapers carried pictures of corpses and stories of rape and plunder, notably in the wealthy merchant city of Tongzhou just before troops reached Beijing. When this cartoon was published, the foreign Legation Quarter in Beijing was besieged by Boxers and Qing troops. In the United States, the most famous counter-voice to Kipling and his white mans burden rhetoric was the writer Mark Twain. Source:The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate. The poem acknowledged the thanklessness of a task rewarded with The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard and sentimentalized the savage wars of peace as self-sacrificial crusades undertaken for the greater good. (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972)(New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1972). Britannia, carrying a large white flag labeled "Civilization" with British soldiers and colonists behind her, advances on a horde of natives, one carrying a flag labeled "Barbarism." and Photographs Reading Room to view the original item(s). This special issue illustrated by Thophile Steinlen comprises a particularly gruesome mural depicting the bloodshed of contemporary colonial wars in Turkey, China, and Africa. | | Print shows Chauncey M. Depew and Robert G. Ingersoll, each in the arms of the other, pointing to quotations attributed to them that justify American imperialist activities 1 print : chromolithograph. As the U.S. moved into the Pacific, Chinas millions represented an enticing new market, but the eruption of the anti-Christian, anti-foreign Boxer movement threatened the civilizing mission there. In mid 1899, Life published this chilling view of the war in the Philippines that was to drag on for several more years. N.Y.: J. Ottmann Lith. Given the fact that Twain was famous and widely admired for his outspokenness, it is especially disconcerting to learn that he and his close supporters concluded that challenging the mystique of civilization and progress in such stark terms was not feasible given the political and religious fervor of the times. Women and children were included among the Boer prisoners of the British. Co., Puck Bldg., NY [New York: Published by Keppler & Schwarzmann, NY. (1902) From the Cape to Cairo / Keppler. The cause of the explosion is still undetermined. Case Study: The Boxer WarThe Boxer Uprising.Online Encyclopediaof Mass Violence(July 23, 2008). 11 [-21]. As the American West was absorbed and the continent consolidated, the mandate of Manifest Destiny shifted from territorial to commercial expansion beyond contiguous borders. More about Copyright and other Restrictions. Scorched earth tactics destroyed scores of villages. Includes bibliographical references and index. Life published many graphics that showed the humanitarian costs inflicted by war and political aggressiondespoliation, looting, concentration camps, torture, and genocideoften awkwardly interspersed amongst humorous sketches and domestic scenes. And the political cartoons of the timesubjective, emotional, ideological, highly politicized and at the same time, politically diversifiedconvey this complexity with unparalleled sophistication and intensity. The caption, "From the Cape to Cairo. The U.S. appears to be carried by the Philippines, Great Britain by India, and Germany by Africa. 5 vols. https://www.loc.gov/item/2010652189/. Texas and U.S.S. 1900) and starlight from a goddess of civilization. Take a look at the pictures and answer the questions to determine what these cartoons tell us about the era of imperialism. (The exception would be Manchuria, alternating between Russian and Japanese control in the coming years.) LAC nsk 2021-10-04 create (1 card), Printed Ephemera Collection (Library of Congress) - Anti-Imperialist League (Washington, D.C.), Horrible nightmare of a worthy old gentleman. Thus, under the Here lies (Hic jacet) on each gravestone, we see generic names coupled with places of origin extending from England to Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Gibraltar, India, Ceylon, and Egypt. Uncle Sam, armed and dangerous, cocks an eyebrow as he displays his handiwork: countless dead Filipino soldiers laid out in rows. Office hours: By appointment only. Good Will to Nobody., The Poet, the President & The White Mans Burden, Rudyard Kiplings poem that begins with the line Take up the White Mans burden was published in the United States in the February, 1899 issue of McClures Magazine, as the American war against the First Philippine Republic began to escalate. To the Person Sitting in Darkness addressed Great Britains Boer War as well as the Philippine conquest and Boxer intervention. In the civilization narrative, barbarians were commonly identified as the non-Western, non-white, non-Christian natives of the less-developed nations of the world. Its colonies were acquired through purchase, agreements with other world powers, and economic domination. Source:Library of Congress, Left: Kentucky feuds, New York City Government, Right: Labor riots, Anti-Chinese Riots, Violence in the Name of Peace and Civilization. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Seated around them (left to right) are a feminized Russia, Turkey, Italy, Austria, Spain, and France. , 1902. England has governed her colonies whether they consented or not. This French cartoon eschews the romantic presentation in the preceding Puckgraphic and casts a far more cynical eye on Anglo-American expansion as fundamentally a matter of conquest. Source: Widener Library, Harvard University. The aggressive quest for new marketsChinas millions being the most covetedwas justified as part of the benevolent and inevitable spread of progress. Western missionaries had penetrated the interior, and the missions they established disrupted village traditions. ), In an image titled, Vers le Camp de Reconcentration (To the Concentration Camp), women and children are dragged off by British soldiers. Lifes satire of the white mans burden mystique offers a procession of the supporters of the new imperialism beginning with missionaries and ending with the traveling salesman. 167-165, The American Peace Society, Boston, (December, 1989). Ask A Librarian service or call the reading room between 8:30 and Even the language of Lifes caption is subversive, for it picks up a famous pro-imperialist speech by Theodore Roosevelt titled The Strenuous Life. Delivered on April 10, 1899, two years before Roosevelt became president, the most famous lines of the speech were these: I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger . 1898) illuminate demeaning caricatures of China. Britain, the more powerful military partner, shows celebrated victories over the Spanish Armada in 1588 and over the French and Spanish navies at Trafalgar in 1805. The Philippines are diminished as Only the Stepping-Stone that enables the U.S. to reach the eagerly anticipated China market. While the European powers favored Spain in the Spanish-American War, for example, neutral Britain backed the U.S. During the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay, British ships quietly reenforced the untried U.S. navy by blocking a squadron of eight German ships positioned to take advantage of the situation. English. Bickers, Robert A. and R. G. Tiedemann, editors (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007). In a post-Bismarck era, Germany was a late-comer to the colonial land grab in Africa and the Pacific. New Forces in Old China: An Inevitable Awakening(New York: F.H. From breathtaking sights to local culture, Africa is the heartbeat of the world, and anyone lucky . What were the effects on China, as portrayed in the cartoon? title not id. Regarding the Philippines in particular, he continues: without any desire or design on our part, the war has brought us new duties and responsibilities which we must meet and discharge as becomes a great nation on whose growth and career from the beginning the ruler of nations has plainly written the high command and pledge of civilization. The strategy was among several emerging in these small wars of the turn of the century. Overview; View 4 Editions Details; Reviews Lists; Related Books; Publish Date. Accusations of atrocities against civilians on the ten-day march to Beijing were made in first-hand accounts of the mission. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2010652189/. Blocking its uphill path, the Chinese dragon crawls downhill bearing a Boxer waving a bloody sword and banner reading 400 Million Barbarians. The image puts progress and primitivism on a collision course at the edge of a cliff. What imperialist practices are you rallying against (taking of raw materials, manipulation of trade, colonialism, violence, etc.)? The imperialist rhetoric of civilization versus barbarism that took root during these years was reinforced in both the United States and England by a small flood of political cartoonscommonly executed in full color and with meticulous attention to detail. The message suggests that the indigenous man will be brought out of ignorance through the inescapable march of progress in the form of Western civilization. The phrase became a trope in articles and graphics dealing with imperialism and the advancement of Western civilization against barbariansor as the poem put it, Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.. Almost thou persuadest me to be a ChristianActs xxvi, 28. William H. Walker,Life, April 25, 1901. The following year, Life cartoonist William H. Walker evoked the horror of the Allied intervention in China in a graphic captioned, Almost thou persuadest me to be a ChristianActs xxvi, 28. A Chinese man falls off his chair, the Bible at his feet, laughing at Uncle Sams duplicity in preaching Christianity while showing a bloody panorama of Allied soldiers executing and marauding on a screen. Name: From the Cape to Cairo Material: Color offset lithograph Size: Unknown Date: 1898 Place of Origin: New York City Location: Unknown Source and Registration#: Created by Joseph Keppler John Woods Professor of Iranian and Central Asian History and of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, The University of Chicago Alexander Barna Asking only the open door for ourselves, we are ready to accord the open door to others. [p. 199], The Way We Get the War News. His biblical title, which came from Matthew 4:16 (The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light), picked up on many pro-imperialist themes of the times. She may be red-handed, and at times drunk, but she is there for business. What do they expect from a drunken soldier, anyway? The belief in racial/cultural superiority that fueled the British empire embraced the U.S. in Anglo-Saxonism based on common heritage and language. Vol. The 'Cape to Cairo' idea, dating back at least to 1876, and Rhodes' active promotion of a railway linking the . Illustration shows Britannia carrying a large white flag labeled "Civilization" with British soldiers and colonists behind her, advancing on a horde of natives, one carrying a flag labeled "Barbarism". In the storm clouds on the left, the Eastern Question looms. The cartoon links might with right, as the cannon is pushed and dragged forward by clergy identified by their headgear: skullcap, biretta, clerical hat, top hat, and distinctive English-style shovel hat. Columbia Studies in the Social Sciences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955). Course Materials, Requirements, and Grading, https://gmu.zoom.us/meeting/tJYsf-6hpzooHtCcgUHFQlJ5Hy13bvsr3WDv/ics?icsToken=98tyKuCqrzMtE92Ush2DRowQBYqgKPPxmH5Bgrd-nxjQKwZibimjHvsTYbBpA8qD. 32, No. site.). In this 1898 cartoon, Britannia (Great Britain) welcomes Columbia (the United States) as an estranged daughter and new imperialist partner. Although protested by some commanders, no single approach prevailed among these competitive armies thrown together in a loose coalition. As the Heathen See Us A Meeting of the Chinese Foreign Missions Society. John S. Pughe,Puck, November 21, 1900. Elliott, Jane E. SomeDid It for Civilisation, Some Did It for Their Country: A RevisedView of the Boxer War(Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2002). Cartoonist Victor Gillam turns the tables on American missionary zeal and moral imperative to save the heathen by showing how the Chinese might view the foreign devils in vignettes of ignorance, racism, and extreme violence in the United States. It ends with a stranger entering the church and delivering a devastating description of the carnage experienced by invaded countries. An iron railing through which an electric current runs is the healthiest and safest of fences. (Some images display only as thumbnails outside , 1902. The artists of both "Conquest and Competition" (Visual . Original publication of Rudyard Kiplings poem, The White Mans Burden.McClures Magazine, February, 1899 (Vol. Co., Puck Bldg. Ugly and shocking scenes of violence in 19th-century American life are ironically captioned as refined and elegant to challenge the self-image of a nation contributing cash to save the heathen of foreign lands while ignoring its own barbarity. And, more subtly yet, it reflected the shift from the nations agrarian roots toward global engagement. 'Explorers in Africa: To the Sources of the Nile') is a 1991 illustrated monograph on the European exploration of Africa. Keppler, U. J. Lasting from June 20 to August 14, 1900, the siege was the catalyst for a rescue mission by the Allied forces of eight major world powers. In the U.S., pro-imperialist graphics created the image of robotic, unstoppable American soldiers stomping on foreign lands and towering over barefoot savages. Chinas Worn Out Traditionsrepresented by the queue hairstyle required during the Qing dynastyare about to be cut with the shears of 19th Century Progress., Nearly two years later, in the midst of the Boxer Uprising, Puck was still resorting to the same sort of stereotyped juxtaposition. Looming on the left, the Eastern Question refers to the long-standing British confrontation with Russia in the Balkans that would soon extend to conflict over Britains Cape to Cairo strategy in Africa. On November 29, 1892, while on a visit to London, Rhodes made a speech in which he dramatically announced that he intended to extend the Colony's telegraphic connections across the entire continent - not only to Lake Tanganyika and Uganda, but through the fundamentalist Islamic Sudan and all the way to British Cairo. Dominated by full-page graphics, many issues were thematic visual essays developed by a single artist. Keppler, Udo J., Artist. Barbarism lies at the base of the mountain to be climbed by Uncle Sam and John Bullwith civilization far off at the hoped-for end of the journey, where a glowing figure proffers education and liberty. The fifth stanza of Kiplings poem refers to an ascent toward the light: Barbarisms companion attributes of backwardness, spelled out on the boulders underfoot, include oppression, brutality, vice, cannibalism, slavery, and cruelty. In many cases, the originals can be served in a few minutes. 1898 poster promotes the U.S.-British rapprochement as A Union in the Interest of Humanity Civilization, Freedom and Peace for All Time. Multiple representations symbolize the two Anglo nations: national symbols (the eagle and lion); flags (the Stars and Stripes and Union Jack); female personifications (Columbia and Britannia); male personifications (Uncle Sam and John Bull); and national coats of arms (eagle and shield for America; lion, unicorn, crown, and shield for Great Britain). British armies had difficulty stopping mounted Boer commandos spread out over large areas of open terrain. At the same time, however, the suppression of The War Prayer helps highlight the courage and critical edge that many political cartoonists brought to the very same subject of spreading death and destruction in the name of civilization and progress. The small print under this graphic quoted these lines from McKinleys speech: Teaching them the truth of the common fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and showing that if we are not our brothers keepers we can be our brothers helpers., William! Twain went along, partly out of concern for his family, and The War Prayer was not published until 1916, six years after his death. - Original publication of Rudyard Kiplings poem, The White Mans Burden.. Does the artist portray imperialism in a positive or negative light? 12/29/2010, Contact Information | Rights & Permissions, This resource was created by scholars at the University of Chicago and funded by the Although Wilhelm II was famous for introducing the concept of a yellow peril, Germanys major colonial possessions were in Africa. This military dimension of the multi-ethnic United Kingdom is often forgotten. As the disturbance escalated, so did news coverage around the world. John Bull and Uncle Sam lift the globe, turned toward Asia and the Pacific, to the heavens. Cairo and Cape Town, the twin citadels of British power and presence in Africa. Powered by WordPress. The Boxers, China, and the World(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007). Source: Houghton Library, Harvard University. J. Ottman Lithographic Company, Printer, and Udo J Keppler. As the military governor until May 1900, Otis inflated Filipino atrocities and prevented journalists, Red Cross officials, and soldiers from reporting American atrocities, though ghastly accounts slipped through. Explain the Sepoy rebellion and the reaction to this rebellion as detailed in the cartoon. Written over the battle clouds on the right, the Spanish-American War would have inspired the depiction of Columbia as an emerging military power. Bickers, Robert A. and R. G. Tiedemann.