Opium Wars - Imperialism in China

During the imperialism all the way in China, Europeans wanted to get some of the good natural resources that thay had. One of the most important resources the Europeans wanted to get, was Chinese tea. When the Europeans came to China, the chinese were never willing to give them their valuable tea. The only way they could get the tea was by trade. One of the items traded to the Chinese was a plant called opium. It was a type of drug in some way. The chinese wanted to buy it abd in return, they would give them tea. Most of the imports of opium to China was strictly forbidden. However, the trade continued to grow with the increasing number of opium addicts. Since this trade continued, the Chinese ended up spending most of their money on the drug. China began to fall moneywise , and thus, the opium wars began.
Since China was rapidly losing its money, the chinese army quickly began to collapse. Tax collectors in China began charging more and more to the local villages. People were getting poorer and poorer by the minute. Britain, on the other hand, decided to force the issue of increased trade rights. The trade of opium also started to destroy the original trade order of China. After a while, China finally decided to burn all the opium in their possession. The British did not take it well and occupied positions around China.
Although China was determined to defeat the British, they had no sucess. Britain was able to defeat them easily because of the advanced technology they had. China still had their money problem, so it was difficult to supply their soldiers with enough weapons. Not wanting to lose any more of their troops and their pride, they made a treaty with the British. This allowed them to open new ports for better trade.

Film Lesson: "Mountain of the Moon"

Over the last two days, we watched an interesting film called "Mountains of the Moon". This film was basically about how these two European explorers wanted to find the source of the Nile River. To do that, instead of going up the river to its source, they decided to walk through the middle of Africa in hope of finding the source near Africa's center. However, finding the source of the Nile was not an easy task. To find the sorce, they had to walk on foot the entire way. Africa's terrain was not really inviting. In fact some of it was mountainous! They had to carry all these heavy loads by walking. Many people died of fatigue and more then half of them deserted. Another big problem was the local tribes in the area. There was one scene where their camp was ambushed by a whole bunch of people from a trbe. Many were killed. Some also died of diseases, such as milarea.
It took them a good couple of months but eventually John Speek was able tto find the true source of the Nile. In honor of the queen of England, he decided to name the enormous lake, Lake Victoria. It was actually a very strange name at first. For one thing, the lake was always there but the Europeans believed that they "discovered" it just now. A second factor, was that the sorce of the Nile was located in the heart of Africa and it belonged to Africa. John Speek named it after his queen all the way in Europe. It's strange that an African lake has a European name.
During the course of the film Speek and his travel partner, Burton, showed many of the gadgets that were from Europe, to the native peoples of Africa. Many of the Africans were amazed at all these new devices. They have never seen such things in their life before. For example, the gun. When Burton gave the tribeleader the gun, he was simply astounded. He knew that his tribe's spears were no match for the deadly firearm. This wasone of the reasons why Europe was able to cinquer Africa so suddenly. If it was spear against guns, who do you think would win? Of corse the European guys with guns!

Imperialism Project

Over the past few days, we worked on a project about imperialism. Imperialism is when one country tries to take over another country to gain control over their economic, social, and political lives. For this project, we had to attach certain labels of things (for example tea, cotton, etc.) on certain parts of different countries. We also had to draw some sort of trade route to show where some of the products came and went. Keep in mind that all of the trade routes we drew, were over water. Many of the product, including slaves themselves, were transported from one place to another by ship. The main point of this imperialism project was to show what countries in Europe went to what parts of the world to take over. Many of the European countries went to Africa and took almost every part of Africa they could get their hands on.
I learned a lot from this from this project. I was able to learn what countries took over what parts of the world. I can't remember much about the project but i do remember coloring the countries that certain parts of Europe took over. I remember both France and Spain taking over a good part of Africa and perhaps even parts of the new world. (Present day N.A) I also remember all the different types of products that they shipped from all over. They had tea that came from China, all the way back to Europe. Slaves were also taken from Africa and brought over to the New World so they could work on plantations.

Karl Marx and Communism

As said before on the previous blog, Karl Marx was not a big fan of the industrial revolution. He believed the people should be the one to run the government. Not the landlords. As a matter of fact, he encouraged workers to stage bloody revolts against the factory owners. Since he thought workers should all be treated equal, he came up with the idea of communism. He spoke of the idea frequently and was able to persuade leaders to adopt communism for a good number of years. His idea of communism was equivalent to that of a utopia. A perfect world in other words. He said that people should be treated equally when it came to pay. Everyone had a shared pay and there was no type of social class. No one owned a private home. Everything was owned by the government and people basically had to share everything. It kind of gave new meaning to the term "sharing is caring" except it was placed on a much higher standard. Unfortunately, even though it souded like a good idea to many, in reality, it failed miserably. After only a couple of years communism nearly crumbled. Only a few countries still use communism today but they might revert to capitalism eventually.
Although Karl Marx wanted people to join in communism, what was it exactly? Communism is a social structure that is based on common ownership and a way to control the means of production and property in general. It would hold a classesss and stateless society of people. Karl Marx did not want just this but he also wanted something called "Pure Communism". It is when EVERY member of a society can participate in the decision-making of political and economic aspecs of life.
During the Industrial Revolution, Karl Marx saw all of the workers as the "good guys". He didn't want them to be treated in such a poor manner, so he tried to help them. He saw any of the owners or landlords as the "bad guys". They treated the people unfairly to him. They barely payed them and such and such.

Karl Marx and The Indutrial Revolution

Karl Mrax was a German man who practically changed Russian History. He was born a Jew but his father turned to Christianity to find a job. Karl Mrx, however, did not believe in God whatsoever. He thought that religion was what made people get jobs. He compared religion to some sort of "drug". He also had no love for the Industrial revolution at all. Conditions in European factories were very dangerous to the people. He though that factories should be run by the people who work in it, not by the landlords of the factories itself. He didn't like the ideas of people, especially young children , had to work for such long hours at a time with no breaks in between. He felt that the workers themselves were being run by these machines instead of by their own will. Workers didn't seem to have a say during the Industrial Revolution. They were hardly being paid enough to support their families. Many people who did work but never got paid enough, lived in slums. They were very dirty places! Landlords of the factories were usually the ones who lived in the laps of luxury. Karl Marx declared this was very unfare and it inspired him to create a world of communism.
The idea of communism was derived from the word common. It goes with the idea that workers would be able to share wealth and that wealth could also be ditributed among members of a communism society. After he died, his communism ideas were not used that often, however. He believed that workers of a communist society should band together and control the government. The only problem was that communist societies were very strict when it came to ruling. It was like being ruled by a dictator. Most workers were forced to work on huge farms like they did befor. The press was almost always censored to the public. People didn't know if something was going on. They were not even allowed to print news on things that were concerned with the government. If they tried to speak out, the people were often times treated harshly.
Even though not all things in a communism society were good, people have learned. Communism is not as controlling as it was then. People of a communism society are now treated more fairly. Karl Marx may not have had the best idea during the Industrial Revolution but we have learned from them. As the saying goes, we learn from our mistakes!

Nationalism and the Creation of Italy

Nationalism is a major part of our country. Not just out country but all around the world. It defines who we are and what we do.(almost) Nationalism is basically the love for one's country. We live in America and therefore we have a cetain loyalty to our country. We, as people, believe that our loyalty should be to all of our country's people. We don't want to be loyal to a king or an empire. There are many ways to show that we are nationalistic. For starters, we are all live in the same area. WE LIVE IN AMERICA PEOPLE! That would be the most obvious way to know. If you look in a map, people could clearly define that we are nationalists to our country. We also share a common currency. We all use the great dollar. (which is not so great anymore) We all have a common religin. Although not everyone is the same religion, most Americans are christians. The history for our country is the same, no matter who tells the story. It all starts with the Mayflower coming into the Americas and settling in the new world. Learning how to farm from the Indians. We have the Civil War and of course The Revolutionary war. Then things start going on until the present. We have a whole bunch of symbols that represent us. The bald eagle and the american flag both represent the freedom of our nation. Our culture, almost anywhere you go in America is the same. We have malls, schools, certain foods, and certain clothes we wear. We also have a sense of belongingness. If we are stuck in a country with almost no Americans, we feel left out. As soon as we see anither American we immediately feel welcomed.
A lot of nations also have astrong sense of nationalism. Italy was one of the most important ones. Before Italy became a country of strong nationalism, it was strongly divided. The people lived far apart from one another and it was a fairly messy system. Eventually, people started to realize that they had things in common with one another. People would communicate with each other more. When the seperate countries interacted with each other, they would notice they shared similar life styles. They found out they all spoke the similar language of italian. This would encourage more interaction with other people. The culture of the people were also very similar. Very much all the reasons why we are all nationalists is how Italy became adoptive of nationalism.

Simon Bolivar and Latin American Revolutions

Simon Bolivar was an amazing man, who did what no other could do for the people of Latin America. He was a man of great curiosity. Once the French Revolution was over, he traveled to France to see how the new government was progressing. He saw that it was greatly changed for the better. Once he was done visiting France, he decided to check out the United States. He also saw that the government was doing very well. Once he gathered all the information he needed, he went back to the Latin Americas. He told his people that their government could be changed as well. The people of Latin America thought about why they were always being loyal to a king. They wondered a lot about that because they also learned that their king was not even from Spain. He was French! The people of the Latin Americas decided to have a revolution of their own. Bolivar created and commanded his own powerful army. Although they lost a good couple of fights between the Spaniards, Bolivar stood tall and eventually prevailed over them. Latin America was finally free from Spain's power and soon enough, the whole continent of South America followed. This was why Simon Bolivar became so famous. He freed his people from another one's influence and now they have their own government.
As a tribute to the man who freed them from Spain's influence, Bolivar was rewarded with a country named after himself. This country is, what we call today, Bolivia. I've never been their myself but i have heard it is a nice place to visit. I also know that their is a statue of Bolivar almost everywhere you go in that country.
Bolivar commanded a strong army at the time. Even though he did have his army, he could not win on his own. When he fought Spain, he asked for help in many different places. These places include the areas he visited when before he went back to Spain. With some help from people like the Haiti, they were finally able to defeat Spain and gain their independence from them. He fought for his people who wanted change. He would not give up without a fight.
Bolivar's greatest influence for doing this was probably the revlutions of both the French and the Americans. He saw how the people were able to rebel against their own government. It took some time but eventually they all prevailed. He saw how the people reconstructed to form a new type of government. This time, the government would treat all the people fairly. The enlightenment thinkers would be proud!