Euro Thursday: A short history of Imperialism (Part 2)

Alright, I've let the suspense of what happens to screw everything up with Europe's little imperialist scheme build for two weeks now. I think you're all ready to find out (or have taken World History, in which case you can at least pretend to be surprised and shocked by the shit that is about to hit the fan.)

When we last left our intrepid heroes, everything was pretty alright for everyone except France, who we've already noted to have a desperate need to get their shit together. All their American and Indian possessions went to England  or Spain at the conclusion of the French and Indian war, leaving them with very little to work with.

Not too long after all this, roundabouts 1775, there was a little thing called the American Revolution in which England realized it's mistake in giving their colonies nice things like limited self governance. This taught them to be much bigger douche bags to the rest of their colonies, like India. America gained it's independence against what was supposed to be the most powerful Empire in the world, giving a bunch of other people ideas.

America's ideas of freedom and liberty and whatnot was greatly appealing to the slaves of what would come to be Haiti and spread there quickly, with the small change of acknowledging blacks as full class citizens, or at least some of them. Toussaint Louverture, a man with a name I will now type as  "Touss" because like hell I'm going to remember how to spell it and I don't feel like looking up all the time, led a successful revolution in Haiti which freed it from French rule. The rebellion which Touss led made him a famous and fairly wealthy man, so he decided to buy a plantation with several slaves to work it. Because every revolution needs its fair share of irony. So France loses another colony, which had been one of it's most profitable, to a bunch of people lauded as being racially inferior. When Napoleon took control of France after all that crazy stuff over there went down, Touss made alliances with France that ended in him being carted off by Napoleon's soldiers to die in a dungeon somewhere. One of his compatriots defeated the French again, thereby finally earning Haiti the right to be as ironic as it damn well pleased.

Also around this time was the Lagutao Revolt in the Philippines, the latest in a series of revolts which had been an almost semi-annual tradition in the region for the last hundred years or so. Most likely to make Spain feel good about itself, since it hadn't done anything of major significance for a good amount of time now.

Even this, however, was not enough to keep them feeling like a real imperial power when Mexico fought a war independence and won it. Though it took a good ten years, it was still fairly embarrassing for Spain. At this point, they basically said to the rest of the world to wake them up when it was time for a violent fascist uprising.

Continuing on, Greece wins its independence from the Ottoman Empire with the help of some bored European nations, Afghanistan continues its history of making invading/occupying it really difficult, and Britain takes it out by stomping out the last bits of pretending to just be business partners with India by installing viceroys and whatnot.

And so ends the second part of this abridged history. In the third and final installment of the series, modern imperialism causes a bunch of craziness.

Euro Thursday: A short history of Imperialism (Part I)

For any of you wondering why AP European History is so similar to world history in many aspects, I have your answer: AP Euro is a class on Europe and everyone they've screwed over. Which happens to be almost the entirety of the known world. And so, it ends up being very similar to world history. But don't forget, this is Europe we're talking about here. They can't just fuck up the rest of the world to help themselves. Oh no, they're going to trip themselves up too.

The first wave of imperialism started roundabouts 1492, in which Columbus sailed the ocean blue and gave a lot of people small pox in exchange for some syphilis. Columbus was kind of a massive dick to everyone, along with rather stubborn and generally not worthy of having all sorts of stuff named after him. But that's a tale for another time. Anyways, Spain and Portugal start land grabbing the shenanigans out of the Americas and surrounding regions, subjugating and conquering all the native populaces. England and France follow, seeing that it looks like a pretty good time over in this hip, fresh "New World" place. For awhile, Europe has it pretty good (except for the syphilis, which is a bit of a downer). But then they decide that it's a little too boring, this triangular trade thing.

There are some wars, such as the French and Indian war (which, as all your history teachers have probably told you, actually involved the French and the British. Seriously, why not just name these wars after who fought them and when?) in which the natives decide that one side is wrecking their homeland a little less than the other side and fight so that the French/British* can get more of the land that technically belonged to the natives for thousands of years. A little weird, but I'm sure the French/British were very persuasive. Anyways, this war was just a part of the larger 7 Years War, named for the amount of time it took to fight.** This was also really the first World War, although they had yet to hire the marketing people to name these wars dramatically or appealingly yet. They were still in the store brand period of war, in which they sounded pretty dull and stuffy.

So, lots of people die in the 7 Years War. In the French and Indian War, started over a land claim in Ohio (which is, if you ask me, a frickin' dumb place to start a war over. They didn't even have Cedar Point back then), a lot of people die as well. Some natives do as well, something that both sides can be happy about while they contemplate their next plan to make themselves look like squabbling children. Britain gained all of France's possessions in the New World, leaving them with what would eventually become French Canada and a whole lot of culture clash that would mysteriously lead to one of the most polite and well tempered nations in the world. They also succeeded in doubling their debt, something which led to higher taxes on things like tea. I wonder where this is headed?

By the way, Spain and Portugal are still chillin' in South America and the Caribbean. But Haiti's about to open up a can of whoopass.

*Yes, the Indians fought on both sides. The American name for this war is really rather silly.
**Much like the Hundred Years War but a lot less impressive sounding, and a little under a third of the length of the 30 Years War. Europe was in a bit of a creative slump at this time.