846 Ch. 21 • The Age of European Imperialism
that could be hinted at in theatrical productions, songs, dances, or other
public expressions. Symbols, gestures, double meanings, and images were
easily understood by the subordinate population, but sufficiently disguised
from Europeans. These were small victories of political dissent, but victo
ries nonetheless.
Imperial Economies
Once they had a foothold, the European powers established command, or
“plunder,” economies in three ways: they expropriated the land of the
indigenous people; they used the soil and subsoil for their own profit; and
they exploited the population for labor. The European powers imposed com
mercial controls over natural resources. Imperial powers routinely blocked
long-standing trade routes that led to other colonies, preventing commercial
exchanges from which their own merchants did not profit. European mer
chants, protected at home by high tariffs against foreign imports, main
tained a monopoly on the sale of their manufactured goods in the colonies.
Colonialists forced or, in the best circumstances, encouraged local popula
tions to produce for the European market, discouraging or even forbidding
the extraction of raw materials or production that would compete with that
of the mother country. In Indonesia, for example, the Dutch employed the
“culture” or “cultivation” system until 1870. They imposed production quotas
on the indigenous population, organized forced labor, and ordered people in
West Java to grow coffee when its price rose and to cut down spice-bearing