The Bittersweet Effects of the British Empire on India and Africa

Christopher North once said, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” This famous quote is the perfect description of how the British Empire covered such a wide variety of areas in the world that there was always going to be a place that the sun was shining on that which the British inhabited. The British began to expand and colonize, like the Europeans started to do into the sixteenth century, in the seventeenth century. The British Empire continued to grow more and more and later developed into the largest expansion of colonial authority in history. By the twentieth century, the British Empire became too expensive for Britain due to their spiraling downhill in many of their territories and thus ending the incredible and prominent, British Empire. Africa and India were two of the many countries involved in the British Empire. The British Empire had a very significant impact on India and Africa socially, economically and politically in both negative and positive ways.

The very moment that the British stepped foot onto Indian and African land, they automatically thought of the citizens there to be of much lower class than they which also began the descent into the drastic social changes the British Empire brought upon. With this foolish idea in mind, the British continued to be sure that they kept white rule over Africa and India.

With India, Britain interrupted their already self-developed and still growing social realm and turned it into a permanent caste system, where your caste is your “destiny” of which you were born into. Changing this caste destined for was just not possible. The British, of course, put themselves at the top of the Indian caste system, which pretty much made them have a governmental say, and no one else. ...

... middle of paper ...

...The Benefits of British Rule, 1871.” Fordham University. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1871britishrule.asp (accessed May 11, 2014).

Pierce, Samuel "British Empire." In Encyclopedia of World Trade from Ancient Times to the Present. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/sharpewt/british_empire/0 (accessed May 21, 2014.)

Rogers, James "Abolitionism, British." In Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2008. http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/abcafatrle/abolitionism_british/0 (accessed May 15, 2014.)

World History: The Modern Era, s.v. "European Imperialism in Africa (Overview)," accessed May 14, 2014. http://worldhistory.abc-clio.com/.

World History: The Modern Era, s.v. "The Exporting of Wealth (Overview)," accessed May 14, 2014. http://worldhistory.abc-clio.com/.