AP World History: Modern · Consequences of Industrialization

Flashcard deck · Test Prep · AP World History: Modern · History

Covers laissez-faire capitalism, Berlin Conference, King Leopold II, Maji Maji Rebellion, unequal treaties, and indentured servitude for AP World Modern.

Terms in this deck

Laissez-faire capitalism: An economic system where private businesses operate with minimal government interference, a principle central to industrial capitalism's expansion.
Protectorate: A territory that maintains nominal self-governance but is controlled and protected by a stronger imperial power.
Indenture contract: A legal agreement binding a worker to an employer for a fixed term, commonly used to move South Asian laborers to Caribbean and Pacific plantations.
Sanitation reform: Public health efforts in industrializing cities to improve sewage, clean water, and waste removal after disease outbreaks revealed urban infrastructure failures.
Remittances: Money sent by migrants back to their home communities, which became economically significant for many labor-exporting regions during industrialization.
Push factors: Conditions such as poverty, famine, or political unrest that drive people to leave their home regions in search of better opportunities.
Monoculture: The agricultural practice of growing a single crop across large areas, making colonial economies vulnerable to price shifts and ecological damage.
Cash crop economy: A colonial agricultural system forcing territories to produce crops like cotton or rubber for export rather than local food needs.
Berlin Conference: An 1884-85 meeting where European powers formally divided Africa among themselves, accelerating the Scramble for Africa without African input.
Surplus value: The profit capitalists gain from workers' labor beyond what workers are paid, a key concept in Marxist critiques of industrial capitalism.
Capital accumulation: The process of reinvesting profits to generate more wealth, driving industrial expansion and shaping global economic hierarchies.
Commodity markets: Systems where raw materials and finished goods are bought and sold globally, linking industrial economies to colonial territories.
Coolie labor: A derogatory term applied to Asian indentured and contract workers brought to plantations and construction sites across the Americas, Africa, and Pacific islands.
Chartism: A British working-class movement in the 1830s-40s demanding political representation and rights for male workers through the People's Charter.
King Leopold II: Belgian king who personally controlled the Congo Free State and imposed brutal extraction quotas, exemplifying extreme colonial economic abuse.
Indirect rule: A colonial system where imperial powers govern through existing local leaders, reducing administrative costs while maintaining control.
Tenement housing: Overcrowded, low-quality urban apartment buildings that housed industrial workers in cities like New York, London, and Manchester.
Girmitiya: A term used by South Asian indentured workers, derived from the word agreement, reflecting their contractual but often exploitative labor status.
Pull factors: Opportunities such as higher wages or available land that attract migrants to a new destination region.
Means of production: The resources, factories, and machinery used to produce goods; in industrial capitalism, these are privately owned by capitalists.
Indentured servitude: A labor system where workers contract to work for a set period in exchange for passage, often used after slavery's abolition in British colonies.
Direct rule: A colonial administration system where the imperial power governs the colony through its own appointed officials rather than local leaders.
Homestead Act analogy: Settler colonial land policies that displaced indigenous peoples by granting their lands to European migrants who established permanent farming communities.
Chain migration: A pattern where migrants follow earlier settlers from the same community, creating ethnic enclaves in destination cities and regions.
Slum urbanization: The rapid growth of poorly built, densely populated neighborhoods on city fringes as industrial labor demands outpaced housing infrastructure.
Ivory trade: The commercial harvesting and export of elephant tusks, driving colonial penetration of African interiors and devastating wildlife populations.
Apartheid roots: The origins of racial segregation in South Africa trace to settler colonialism, where European settlers institutionalized land and labor control over indigenous Africans.
Boer Wars: Conflicts in South Africa between British imperial forces and Afrikaner settlers, reflecting tensions within settler colonial systems over land and political control.
Concession companies: Private firms granted rights by colonial governments to exploit resources in a territory, often using forced or coerced African labor.
Rubber extraction: A major colonial enterprise in Central Africa and Southeast Asia where indigenous people were forced to harvest wild rubber under violent coercion.
Maji Maji Rebellion: A 1905-07 uprising in German East Africa where Tanzanian peoples united against German colonial rule and brutal forced cotton cultivation policies.
Opium Wars: Two conflicts in which Britain forced China to open its markets to opium trade, exemplifying economic imperialism in Asia.
Civilizing mission: The European imperial justification claiming colonialism brought education, Christianity, and progress to supposedly inferior societies.
Informal empire: Indirect control over a region through economic pressure and diplomacy rather than outright military occupation or annexation.
Treaty port: A port city in China or Japan forced open to foreign trade and residence through unequal treaties after military defeat.
Anarchism: A political philosophy rejecting all forms of hierarchical authority, including the state and capitalism, influential in some 19th-century working-class movements.
Mandate system: A post-WWI arrangement granting European nations administrative control over former colonies under League of Nations supervision.
Unequal treaties: Agreements imposed on weaker nations by imperial powers that granted trade privileges, territorial rights, and legal exemptions to foreigners.
Pan-Africanism: An intellectual and political movement asserting solidarity among peoples of African descent worldwide to resist racism and colonial domination.
First International: The International Workingmen's Association founded in 1864, uniting European socialist and labor groups to coordinate workers' struggles across national borders.
Bourgeoisie: The capitalist class that owned factories and means of production, profiting from workers' labor during industrialization.
East India Company: A British trading company that eventually ruled large parts of India, exemplifying corporate-driven imperialism before Crown takeover.
Resource extraction colony: A colonial territory exploited primarily for its raw materials, with wealth transferred to the imperial metropole.
Formal empire: Direct political and military control exercised by a powerful nation over a territory, establishing colonial governance structures.
Chartered company: A private company granted government authority to trade and govern overseas territories, such as the British East India Company.
Marxism: The political and economic theory developed by Karl Marx arguing that industrial capitalism exploits workers and that class struggle will lead to socialist revolution.
Raj: The British Crown's direct rule over India after 1858, replacing company rule following the Sepoy Mutiny's aftermath.
Extraterritoriality: The right of foreign nationals to be governed by their own laws while living in another country, common in colonial treaty arrangements.
Ethiopian resistance: Ethiopia successfully defeated Italian forces at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, making it a symbol of African resistance to European imperial conquest.
Sepoy Mutiny: The 1857 Indian uprising against British East India Company rule, triggered by military grievances but reflecting broader resentment of colonial control.
Sphere of influence: A region where a foreign power claims exclusive or dominant economic and political rights without formal annexation.
Industrial proletariat: The class of wage workers who sold their labor in factories and mines, forming the backbone of industrial capitalist economies.
Free trade imperialism: A form of economic dominance where powerful nations forced weaker ones to open markets without formal colonial control.
Plantation economy: An agricultural system based on large estates producing export crops using coerced or low-wage labor, common in tropical colonies.
General strike: A mass work stoppage by workers across multiple industries, used as a collective bargaining tool and form of labor protest.
Social Darwinism: The misapplication of Darwin's evolutionary ideas to justify European racial superiority and imperial domination of other societies.
Economic nationalism: A political stance in colonized or semi-colonized regions advocating local control of industries and resources rather than dependence on foreign capital.
White Man's Burden: Rudyard Kipling's phrase expressing the racist belief that Europeans had a duty to civilize and rule non-European peoples.
Anti-colonial literature: Written works produced by colonized intellectuals critiquing imperial rule and asserting cultural dignity, contributing to emerging nationalist consciousness.
Racial hierarchy: A pseudo-scientific ranking of human races used by Europeans to justify colonialism and the subjugation of non-white peoples.
Luddism: Early 19th-century movement in which British textile workers destroyed machinery they believed threatened their livelihoods and skilled trades.
Public health movement: Reform efforts in industrial cities to improve water, sewage, and living conditions in response to disease outbreaks like cholera.
Industrial city: An urban center whose growth was driven by factory production, attracting large numbers of rural migrants seeking wage work.
Coolie ordinance: Colonial legislation that regulated and restricted the movement and rights of indentured Asian laborers in plantation territories.
Factory Acts: British laws passed in the 19th century that regulated working hours and conditions, especially for women and children in factories.
Hut tax: A colonial tax imposed on African households, forcing men into wage labor for European employers to earn the required currency.
Diasporic community: A group of people dispersed from their homeland who maintain shared cultural identity in new locations, often through migration networks.
Commune: A form of collective self-governance or community ownership, as seen in the 1871 Paris Commune workers' uprising.
Debt bondage: A system where workers owe money to employers or landlords, trapping them in labor they cannot leave until the debt is repaid.
Migrant worker: A person who moves to another region or country, often temporarily, to find employment, frequently under difficult conditions.
Profit motive: The incentive to earn financial gain that drives capitalist production decisions and pushed industrialists to seek cheaper resources and markets globally.
Zulu resistance: Armed opposition by the Zulu Kingdom against British colonial expansion in southern Africa, including the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879.
Capital investment: Money or resources put into businesses or infrastructure to generate profit, driving industrial expansion and imperial ventures abroad.
Second International: A 1889 federation of socialist and labor parties from multiple countries that coordinated workers' movements globally before World War I.
Trade union: An organized association of workers formed to protect members' rights and negotiate better wages and working conditions collectively.
Socialism: A political and economic philosophy advocating collective or government ownership of production to reduce inequality and exploitation.
Extractive economy: An economic system focused on removing raw materials from a territory for export rather than developing local industries or diversified production.
Port city growth: Rapid expansion of coastal cities driven by global trade, serving as nodes for commerce, migration, and imperial administration.
Wage labor: Work performed in exchange for monetary payment, forming the foundation of industrial capitalist economies where workers sell their labor to employers.
Cholera epidemic: A deadly waterborne disease that spread rapidly in overcrowded industrial cities, prompting major sanitation and public health reforms.
Raw material dependency: A colonial condition where a territory's economy revolves around supplying unprocessed goods to industrial nations rather than manufacturing finished products.
Return migration: The movement of migrants back to their homeland, sometimes after completing indenture contracts or accumulating savings abroad.
Collective bargaining: The process by which unions negotiate wages, hours, and working conditions with employers on behalf of their members.
Division of labor: Splitting production into specialized tasks performed by different workers, increasing efficiency and output in industrial factories.
Child labor: The employment of children in factories, mines, and other industries under harsh conditions, common during early industrialization.
Imperial rivalry: Competition among European powers for colonies, markets, and global influence that intensified during the late nineteenth century.
Missionary activity: Religious efforts by European Christians to convert colonized peoples, often accompanying and legitimizing imperial expansion and cultural suppression.
Municipal government: Local urban administration responsible for managing city services, infrastructure, and public health in rapidly growing industrial towns.
Colonial administration: The bureaucratic system European powers used to govern colonized territories, enforcing laws, collecting taxes, and maintaining order.
Natal Indian Congress: An organization founded by Gandhi in 1894 to oppose discriminatory laws against Indian migrants in colonial South Africa.
Crossing the kala pani: The Hindu concept of ritual pollution associated with crossing the ocean, which indentured migrants violated and had to reconcile within their communities.
French West Africa: A federation of French colonial territories in West Africa governed through centralized administration and exploited for agricultural and mineral resources.
Native reserve: Designated land areas where colonized peoples were confined by colonial governments, limiting their movement and access to resources.
Labor contract system: A formal agreement binding workers to specific employers for set periods, used throughout colonial territories to control migrant and indentured laborers.
Recruitment agent: A person hired to recruit workers for indentured or contract labor schemes, often using deception about conditions and destinations.
Coolies in the Americas: Chinese and Indian contract laborers brought to the Americas for railroad construction, mining, and plantation work under harsh and exploitative conditions.
Ethnic enclave: A neighborhood or community where a specific immigrant or migrant group concentrates, maintaining cultural practices and mutual support networks in a new environment.
Yaa Asantewaa: Asante queen mother who led armed resistance against British attempts to seize the Asante Golden Stool in 1900, symbolizing anti-colonial defiance.
Plantation system: Large-scale agricultural enterprise using controlled labor to produce cash crops for export, common in colonial territories across Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
Abolitionist movement: Campaign to end slavery that, after success in the nineteenth century, created labor shortages that colonial planters filled through indentured labor systems.
Territorial partition: The division of land among competing colonial powers, most notably formalized for Africa at the 1884 Berlin Conference without African input.
Fiji Indian community: South Asian laborers brought to Fiji under indenture contracts who formed a significant diaspora community after their contracts ended.
Cape Colony: British-controlled territory at the southern tip of Africa that became a center of imperial expansion and settler colonialism in the nineteenth century.
Sugar economy: Colonial economic system centered on sugar production, dependent on coerced or indentured labor and linking colonial territories to global commodity markets.
Belgian Congo: Central African territory controlled by Belgium after 1908, notorious for brutal exploitation of rubber and labor under King Leopold II's personal rule.
Railroad construction labor: Dangerous work performed largely by Chinese, Irish, and other migrant laborers building transcontinental rail networks that linked industrial economies and markets.
Resistance leader: An individual who organized opposition to colonial rule, such as Samori Touré in West Africa or Yaa Asantewaa among the Asante.
Natal Colony: British colonial territory in southern Africa that recruited Indian indentured laborers for sugar plantations and later faced anti-Indian discriminatory legislation.
Forced labor: Compelled work without fair compensation, commonly used by colonial powers to build infrastructure and extract resources in colonized territories.
Trinidad Indian diaspora: South Asian indentured workers transported to Trinidad who created lasting cultural and social communities in the Caribbean after indenture ended.
Cecil Rhodes: British imperialist and businessman who expanded British control in southern Africa and exemplified the link between industrial capital and imperial ambition.
Chinese Exclusion Act: 1882 U.S. law barring Chinese laborers from immigrating, reflecting racial anxieties about Asian migrant workers during industrialization and westward expansion.
Passive resistance: Nonviolent opposition to colonial or oppressive authority, used by groups like Gandhi's followers in South Africa to protest discriminatory laws.
Depot system: The network of holding facilities where recruited indentured laborers were assembled, examined, and processed before being shipped to colonial destinations.
Land dispossession: The seizure of indigenous peoples' land by colonial settlers or governments, displacing communities and transferring wealth to colonizers.
Urban wage worker: A laborer employed in city industries or services for monetary wages, forming the growing working class of industrializing and colonized urban centers.
Suez Canal: Waterway opened in 1869 connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas, strategically vital for European trade routes and imperial control in Africa and Asia.
Samori Touré: West African military leader who built an empire and fought prolonged resistance against French colonial expansion in the late nineteenth century.
Working conditions reform: Legislative and activist efforts to improve safety, hours, and wages in industrial workplaces, driven by labor movements and humanitarian reformers.
Factory town: A settlement built around one or more industrial factories where most residents depended on factory employment, exemplifying industrial urbanization patterns.
Peripheral economy: An economy that supplies raw materials to industrialized core nations while remaining dependent on and subordinate to them.
Core-periphery model: A framework describing how wealthy industrial nations exploit less-developed regions, keeping them economically dependent and underdeveloped.
Global commodity chain: The linked sequence of production, transport, and sale connecting raw material sources in colonies to consumer markets in industrial nations.
Labor aristocracy: A privileged stratum of skilled workers who earned higher wages and had more stability than unskilled workers, sometimes distancing themselves from broader labor movements.
Anti-imperial coalition: An alliance of diverse groups united by shared opposition to colonial domination, often crossing ethnic or class boundaries.
Land alienation: The colonial practice of seizing land from indigenous communities and transferring it to settlers or commercial enterprises.
Scramble for Africa: The rapid and competitive division of Africa among European powers, formalized at the 1884 Berlin Conference.
Plantation labor: Work performed on large agricultural estates producing export crops, historically relying on enslaved or indentured workers under coercive conditions.
Dependency theory: The idea that poorer nations remain underdeveloped because global economic structures are designed to benefit wealthy industrialized countries.
Indenture system: A labor arrangement in which workers signed multi-year contracts to work in distant colonies, often under harsh and exploitative conditions.
Gunboat diplomacy: Using the threat or display of naval military force to pressure weaker nations into economic or political concessions.
Transoceanic migration: Large-scale movement of people across oceans, driven by colonial labor demands, economic opportunity, or political upheaval.
Resistance movement: Organized efforts by colonized or oppressed peoples to oppose imperial control through armed struggle, protest, or cultural assertion.
Mechanized production: Manufacturing that uses machines rather than hand tools, dramatically increasing output and transforming labor relationships.
New Imperialism: The intensified wave of European territorial expansion between roughly 1870 and 1914, driven by industrial competition and nationalism.
Diaspora formation: The creation of dispersed communities when large groups migrate or are displaced from their homelands to multiple new locations.
Urbanization pressure: Rapid population growth in cities that strains housing, sanitation, and social services, often creating poverty and inequality.
Imperial ideology: The set of beliefs used to justify conquest, including claims of cultural superiority and a duty to govern other peoples.
Indigenous displacement: The forced removal of native peoples from their ancestral lands due to colonial settlement or economic development.
Settler colony: A colony where large numbers of colonizers permanently settle, displacing and marginalizing the indigenous population.
Nationalist movement: An organized effort by a group sharing cultural or ethnic identity to achieve political self-determination or independence from colonial rule.
Industrial Revolution spillover: The spread of industrial technologies and capitalist practices from Britain to other regions, reshaping global economies after 1750.
Proletarianization: The process by which independent workers lose ownership of productive resources and become dependent on selling their labor for wages.
Colonialism: A system where a powerful nation controls another territory politically and economically, exploiting its resources and people.

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