3. What contributed to changing European views of Asians and Africans in the 19thcentury?
The Industrial Revolution led Europeans to develop a secular arrogance that fused with or in some cases replaced their long-standing notions of religious superiority. They would take or adopt many ideas from other advanced societies and make them theirs. Europeans viewed the culture and achievements of Asian and African people through the prism of a new kind of racism. Europeans used scientific methods to classify humans, concluding that whites were more advanced or superior which created a hierarchy of race with whites on top and others beneath them. Europeans believed that they were superior to others, which led to the idea that Europeans dominated the other races that were considered weak, as fate. The Europeans believed that it was their duty to bring Christianity, to govern the lands, educate those who needed, provide health care, and many more.
11. How did cash-crop agriculture transform the lives of colonized peoples?
Cash crops benefited farmers in some regions, making them able to own their own land, build houses, and buy imported goods. That happened when British authorities ended a prohibition on rice exports, which made rice exports soar. In other regions, cash crops were forced on the local population by the colonial power. Forcing people to grow crops had an effect on the production of food. A profitable cash crop farming was developed in the Gold Coast in West Africa, which was a territory of the British. It had African farmers who developed export agriculture. That brought a new prosperity to local farmers which were managing and farming their own land. However, that caused some problems like a shortage of labor. Shortage in labor fostered employment of slaves and generated tension between sexes. Men were marrying women for their labor power. As well as an influx of migrants from interior West Africa and the problem that came to be when colonies specialized in one or two cash crops, creating unhealthy dependence when the world market prices would drop. Cash crop agriculture led to some social change as the production of crops for markets and wage labor was set up which shifted normal labor patterns.
13. How were the lives of African women in particular altered by colonial economies?
African women were farmers with the responsibility of weeding, planting, and harvesting as well as cooking and helping take care of children. Many women were also involved in trading activities and had a measure of economic autonomy. As the demands of the colonial economy grew the lives of women diverged from the lives of men. Women had total responsibility for domestic food production while men dominated the high profitable cacao farming. In the Ivory Coast, women grew cotton for the clothing of their families but when men found out that cotton was worth a certain price, men wanted cotton to be grown and produced on their own land for export. This made women work harder or increase their workload, increasing their hours from forty-six to over seventy hours per week by 1934. Wives of those who looked for work in other cities were left to manage the domestic economy alone. Women also had to supply or provide food to men in cities to compensate for low urban wages. They took the jobs or tasks normally done by men such as milking cows and breaking grounds for planting. Couples by the 1930s did not live together. Men and women lived in separate worlds not being able to live together for more than two months. Women would have to get close to their birth families and adopt new farm implements and earn money as traders.
Comments
Post a Comment