Opium Wars - Imperialism in China

The Opium War began in China, the British wanted China's tea but they didn't want to trade with the British. The British found something that was addicting and knew the Chinese wouldn't get tired of getting. Opium was what the Chinese wanted and the English had it. Opium was very addicting to anyone but since the British were the ones trading it with the China and for them to get Opium they had to trade tea. Soon the government of China didn't like the idea of trading tea for Opium. The government told everyone he would have the person who gets opium from the British would be killed. China also only had one port for the British to come through and even if it wasn't easy for them they still wanted to tea and went threw that port to get their tea. The British used war to get what they wanted. They had very god technology and used their advanced technology to fight against China and won. They made China sign the "Treaty of Nanjing" which allowed the British to come into China in any port they wanted to get the tea. The Chinese didn't want that so asked for another war and once again lost. Which gave the British more power.

Film Lesson: "Mountains of the Moon"

In the movie "Moutains of the Moon" it displays many of the problems englishmen had to face while trying to discover the Nile River. Many tried to find the source by going from the end of the river to the source but were eaten up my the deserts that surrounded it. In the movie the 2 explores try walking at random in hoping they would bump into it. While traveling they had many of their helpers run away with the gear they brought cause they would be able to sell it and make alot of money. Another problem was the disease they would get off the Moskito, Englishmen didn't have a immunity to it and died. Also seeing near by tribes who have never seen a white man before.
It funny that the source of the Nile is called Lake Victoria after a dead white queen because she didn't discover it. Its been discovered along time a go by the native people who already named it. England was finally able to conquer Africa because they invented the vaccine for malaria that was what was killing them. Another benefit they had was around the time the vaccine was invented they created the machine gun which made it even easier for them to take a village of Africans.

The Imperialism Project

In the imperialism project we had a map and a paper with pictures of resources on them. We had to cut out the resources and then put it on places of the map. We also had a paper that determined where the resources went and what countries to color in with the color pencil. The places we colored in determined which country had taken them over. I learned that Africa had a lot of resources like coal, gold and silver. I also learned that the British took over alot of places in Africa.