Imperialism Dbq

During the 19th and 20th century, a new way to gain land began to develop. It was known as Imperialism. Imperialism is when a country takes another country by force and makes it into colonies for its main country. Even though it proved to be effective, there were still the positive and negatives of this new type of way to gain land. The positive and negative effects of imperialism are that it changed the lives of the people in these colonies, affected their wealth, and changed the lands of those colonies.

First of all, it changed the lives of the people in those colonies. Based on Document 1 and 2, you can see how imperialism affected them for the worst. They were forced into slavery to do hard labor. Plus, because of imperialism, people began to see them differently as individuals. It’s stated in Document 2 that they were stripped of all their responsibilities and were thought to be useless people. In a certain view, it’s the European’s fault because they were the ones who took their own jobs away in the first place.

Many countries aim for nations that are rich in goods. However, according to Document 3, once they get to that nation and take it over, they then strip that nation of their riches, leaving the people there in poverty. However, that doesn’t mean that the nations don’t get affected. According to Document 7, the countries have to spend over $1,100 million just to gain a new territory. I kind of find that hard to believe for a nation that they would spend that much money on that territory just to gain more land when they could have used it to fix that land they have