The Opium Wars

The Opium Wars was when European nations, mainly England were selling opium to China and using it so they would be able to buy more stuff from the trade ports on China's East coast. It started when England was running low on silver which was their main trading resource with China. They were trying to think of a product that they had that China didn't. They finally came up with Opium, a very addicting drug that was banned in England. Smugglers gave some Opium free around the ports so that people would get addicted and when traders came looking for tea and other things they would trade it for Opium.
After a while many people in China became addicted to Opium and eventually the Emperor cough word of it and sent a letter to England. The note was a plea to England to stop selling Opium to the Chines people. He said "Why do you sell a drug to our people that is baned in your country?" The English refused and continued to sell Opium. Eventually China set up a barricade around the port with their best ships. The English then arrived with their more advance steam ships with their guns and cannons and literally blasted threw the barricade. Probably only one or two English ships were sunk and the entire Chines barricade was destroyed. After this China was forced to sign a treaty with many countries that opened new ports and each country controlled at least one port.

"The White Man's Burden"

The White Man's Burden explains how white Europeans were trying to civilize Africans and Indians. They considered it a burden because they felt it was their duty to help instead of just for personally reasons. Some Europeans felt that since they were more advanced and civilized they had to help other cultures but instead the reason they did it was because they were disgusted by their uncivilized ways and they also were ripping them off by getting them to sell raw materials cheap and selling back completed products. I cant really agree or disagree with the analysis, all I can say is that the author of the poem was racist and as we said were are in the same possition today with the war in Iraq (damed Bush).

"The Scramble for Africa"

The Scramble for Africa was when European countries were trying to conquer as much of Africa as possible. It was called the scramble because many countries were trying to conquer Africa at the same time and they ended up splitting it into different countries and each European country controlled a certain amount of African countries were they imposed their laws, confusing the African people because they arent used to the European ways and also separating friendly tribes. The main countries who conquered Africa were Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, and Holland. These countries were able to conquer Africa so easily because they were more advance with guns.

Film Lesson: "Mountains of the Moon"

The movie "Mountains of the Moon" was a true story of to explorers, John Speak and Richard Burton who set out to find the source of the Nile River. They meet many hardships on their journey including hot deserts and hostile tribes. They were also almost killed by a tribe on their first attempt at finding the source of the Nile. Its strange that they name the Lake thats the source is named after a british Queen when its in Africa. Lake Victoria would be a good name because it was a victory but they named it after the queen.
The main advantage the Europeans had against the Africans was guns. Africans had spears while Europeans had guns.