THE IMPERIAL MISSION: THE SUPERIOR RACES’ CONTEST
TO CIVILIZE THE WORLDAs a political practice, nineteenth-century colonialism became closely con-
nected to nationalism. From the 1830s to the 1870s the criteria deWning a
successful nation were transformed. It increasingly became crucial not only to
be a large, institutionalized state and to have a long-established cultural elite
with a literary and administrative tradition in the vernacular language, but
also, importantly for the discussion in this and the following chapter, to have
capacity for conquest, that is, to be an imperial people (Hobsbawm 1990: 38).
Imperialism was even seen by some as a substitute for nationalism, a view
expressed by the historian William Flavelle Monypenny in 1905:
Today the words ‘Empire’ and ‘Imperialism’Wll the place in everyday speech that was
onceWlled by ‘Nation’ and ‘Nationality’... power and dominion rather than freedom
and independence are the ideas that appeal to the imagination of the masses; men’s
thoughts are turned outward rather than inward; the national ideal has given place to
the Imperial.
(in Betts 1971: 150).Within this framework in Europe a hierarchy of successful and unsuccessful
nations was created. The ebbing empires—mainly Portugal and Spain—were
overshadowed by the main nineteenth-century European powers: Britain and
France. Despite losing some of their early modern colonies, both nations
embarked on an imperial mission that led to an expansion of their territories
and reinforced their position as the most successful rulers of the Western
world. Other minor empires already in existence during the early modern
period, such as The Netherlands, managed to maintain their territories. In the
last three decades of the century politics within Europe led to signiWcant
changes in colonialism. In the early 1870s the collapse of the traditional power
structure in Europe following the uniWcations of Italy and Germany was
perceived as a threat to the status of Britain and France; more than ever,
they turned to colonization and imperialism as a means of national regener-
ation. This meant that colonies were no longer essentialWnancial assets for the
metropolis, but part of the empire, understood as an outgrowth of the nation.
By the 1880s most of the overseas territories that had once been ruled by
commercial enterprises had come under the authority of the state. The
establishment of colonies was supplemented with the establishment of pro-
tectorates, in which, theoretically, the colonial powers only assisted the local
government (Baumgart 1982).
South and South East Asia 211