Episode 522: The Sun Never Sets

By mid century, European states as unprecedented power, and with it came a renewed and dangerous confidence, the belief that they had both the right and the duty to dominate the rest of the world. Look, imperialism wasn't new. I want to be clear about that, folks, whether we're talking about I don't even know that. The adventurisms of Alexander the Great, the expansion of the Roman Empire, European colonialism in the centuries before. Europeans had traded, conquered, and enslaved

for centuries, but for millennium. Which changed after the year eighteen hundred was the scale, the speed, and the justification. Empires were no longer coastal trading networks or scattered colonies. They became vast centralized systems of control, political, economic, and cultural. Nowhere was this transformation more dramatic, or I suppose, more devastating, than in Africa. European imperialism rested on several overlapping foundations

that we have to understand first. The one I want to talk about to begin with, was, of course, what I mentioned a couple episodes ago, industrial capitalism. The rise of industrialism changed the game for European states. Factories required raw materials rubber, cotton, palm, oil, copper, and of course also new markets in which to sell manufacture goods. Industrial economies created both surplus capital and surplus ambition. Colonies promised profits, resources,

and strategic advantage. The second factor that you need to understand is state competition. After the defeat of Napoleon in eighteen fifteen, Europe entered a century of relatively uneasy peace, punctuated though by major rivalry. Empires quickly became symbols of national strength. A nation without colonies seemed weak, outdated, or irrelevant. As one French politician put it rather bluntly, a great nation is a colonizing nation. And the third issue was ideology.

In the nineteenth century, European imperialism was not driven by power and profit alone. It was also sustained, arguably made respectable. There's differences of opinion here by a dense web of ideas that told Europeans who they were, what history demanded of them, that verbs important, and why domination could be recast as duty. Imperialism didn't just march behind armies and steamships, also behind sermons, school books, scientific treatises, and of course,

patriotic speeches. To understand why the Europeans conquered so much of the world so quickly in this period, I think I have to explain the stories that Europeans told themselves. The first one of these stories is progress. Nineteenth century Europe lived in the shadow of the Enlightenment and in the glow of the Industrial Revolution. Railroads cut across continents,

and factories reshaped cities. But most importantly, science now seemed to explain everything from disease to the origins of life itself. History was increasingly imagined as a ladder, one in which societies climbed from primitive to civilized. Of course, Europeans conveniently were already at the top of the latter, at least that's where they placed themselves. This worldview transformed imperial expansion

from naked conquest into more of a historical inevitability. If Europe represented the most advanced stage of human developments, then expansion was not theft. It was transmission. Railways, schools, Christianity, modern medicine, and law were framed as gifts carried outward to stagnant societies. Empire became, in this telling, less about what Europe took and more about what it claimed to give. Now few ideas fused science and superiority more intrinsically and

more powerfully than the idea of social Darwinism. Drawing loosely and generally incorrectly on Charles Darwin's theories of natural selection, social Darwinists argued that competition between races and nations mirrored the struggle for survive in nature. Strong peoples, they insisted, were simply meant and designed to dominate weak ones. By the way, that's an argument that would have made perfect sense to people who lived in classical Athens or people

who lived in Imperial Rome. So sometimes, again the old adages history doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes, And here it's rhyming. Empires under this theory weren't moral failures. They were proof of biological and cultural fitness. Now, I want to be totally clear here, by the way, this was not fringe outside conspiratorial, crazy thinking. This was mainstream.

These ideas were taught, they were published, and they were respected, and it reassured Europeans that conquest itself was not only justified but natural. To resist empire in this framework was to resist the laws of nature itself. When Africans, Agans, or indigenous peoples were conquered explained not as violence, but

as evidence that they were destined to be ruled. These ideas blended easily with racial theories that classified humanity into hierarchies of worth, pseudoscientific measurements of skulls, skin colors, and even the angles of people's faces. They gave racism a veneer of objectivity. Europeans increasingly believed not only that they were just culturally different, but biologically that they were superior. Imperial rule thus became framed as necessary because quote unquote,

lesser races were simply presumed incapable of self government. Evidently, this was a ladder that only some people could climb. Religion added another powerful layer to this ideology. Christian missionaries would fan out across Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, convinced that salvation and civilization traveled together. Now, conversion was rarely just about faith. It was about reshaping entire societies, family structures,

gender roles, labor, habits, and morals. Missionaries often condemned local customs as barbaric, reinforcing the idea that European values were universal truths rather than cultural choices. The moral language of empire reached its most famous expression in Reared Kipling's in eighteen ninety nine work The White Man's Burden. Kipling urged Europeans,

especially Americans, to take up imperial rule as self sacrificing obligation. Empire, he would argue, was thankless work civilizing quote half devil, half child end quote peoples who would never fully appreciate the effort. Now, this poem captured a central imperial paradox. Europeans ruled brutally, but insisted that they did so reluctantly, perhaps altruistically. This idea that empire was a burden rather

than a benefit, proved extraordinarily useful. It allowed imperial powers to deflect criticism and recast resistance as ingratitude as spoiled children not being able to understand the gifts they were being given. Anti colonial uprisings weren't cry for freedoms. They were signs that colonized people just weren't mature yet enough. They weren't high enough on that ladder to enjoy their own autonomy. Nationalism also fueled imperial ideology in an era

of newly unified states like Italy and Germany. We will come back to those stories, don't worry. Empire became a measure of national greatness. Colonies were symbols of prestige, proof that a nation had arrived on the world stage if you lacked an empire that was humiliating. Imperial competition thus became intertwined with European rivalries, as I mentioned before, feeding the arms race and diplomatic tensions that's later eventually going to explode into World War One. Yet, even as imperial

ideology dominated European culture, cracks appeared. Critics like Ja Hobson argued that empire primarily served the financiers and industrial elites, not the ordinary citizens. Hobson insisted that moral justification was just a mask for economic exploitation, that imperialism was a lot less about civilization and a lot more about markets, raw materials, and investment opportunities. His critiques, though marginal at the time, would later influence anti imperialists and socialist movements

throughout Europe. Still, throughout most of the nineteenth century, in imperial ideology remained powerful, precisely because it blended morality, science, religion, and nationalism into one unified story. And that's really the key. It's not any of these one stories, any of these one justifications that make imperialism powerful and such a driving force for Europe and then eventually for America after the Civil War. It's how all of these ideas come together

in one powerful narrative. Now, this story told Europeans that they were advanced, benevolent, and destined to rule. It reassured them that domination wasn't cruelty, it was responsibility. In the end, the ideological underpinnings of European imperialism mattered because they shaped actions on the ground. They justified violence, silence, doubt, and made empire feel not just profitable but righteous. And when those ideas finally started to unravel later in the twentieth

century under the weight of course of world wars. They left behind empires that couldn't explain themselves, even to those who once believed in them the most. Now, contrary to imperial myth, Africa was not a blank space waiting to be discovered. Europeans had traded along its coast for centuries. As we know, African states the Ashanti, Ethiopia, Zulu Soukoto

governed themselves. They fought wars, conducted diplomacy, and controlled commerce. Now, look, I, by the way, wish that I had some time to go into a lot of these indigenous cultures in a lot more detail, because some, especially West African kingdoms, were incredibly sophisticated and well connected. Some, especially if we go back to the Late Middle Ages, were much much wealthier and to some extent technologically advanced than some European states.

But we don't have time. So as much as I would love to do that, I would push you elsewhere for that information. Now, what we want to understand is returning to our current age. What Europeans lacked before the eighteen hundred wasn't necessarily knowledge of Africa, but access and power. Malaria difficult terrain and strong African resistance limited inland expansion. Now that changed with medical advances like quinine, new weapons like the Maxim gun, and steam powered transport. By the

late nineteenth century, conquest was no longer dangerous. It was now efficient. The race for Africa, sometimes called the Scramble for Africa, accelerated rapidly after the year eighteen eighty. In just three decades, basically the entire continent almost was carved into European colonies. The turning point came the ambitions of King Leopold. Leopold was never interested in national glory. He

wanted personal profit. Leopold was the ruler of Belgium, but wouldn't end up ruling a vast African territory, though not as a colony of Belgium, but as his personal property, where his reign there would cost millions of lives. Leopold was born in eighteen thirty five, heir to a young and modest European kingdom. Belgium had existed for barely five years when he arrived, and Leopold grew up obsessed with the one thing Belgium lacked, an empire. In the mid

nineteenth century, Imperial possessions were the currency of prestige. Blocked repeatedly by the Belgian Parliament, which had little interest in funding imperial adventures, Leopold changed tactics. Instead of a acquiring a colony for Belgium, he would acquire one for himself. Through deception and diplomacy, he secured international recognition for his private control of the Congo basin. Under the guise of humanitarianism, he created the Congo Free State, a regime of forced labor,

mutilation and terror. It will become the inspiration for Heart of Darkness. A British missionary would report, quote, the rubber has cost lives by the thousands, Villages swept away, families destroyed. Estimates suggest millions died under Leopold's rule. The scandal shocked Europe, but it did not stop imperialism. In fact, if anything, it normalized it. Between eighteen eighty four and eighteen eighty five, European power gathered at the Berlin Conference, hosted by Auto

von Bismarck. No African representatives whatsoever were invited. The conference did not divide Africa outright, but it established rules effective occupation, justified ownership. Rivers were opened to trade, borders could be drawn by diplomats. It transformed conquest now into simple bureaucracy. As one delegate observed privately, quote, we are dividing a cake we have not yet baked. What followed was a

frenzy of treaties, expeditions, and military campaigns. Flags were planted everywhere, Borders were drawn, often with rulers and straight lines, ignoring ethnic, linguistic and cultural realities. Britain saw a global empire that would be tied together by trade and naval supremacy. Its possessions stretching from Egypt to South Africa, India to Australia, and control of the Suez Canal made Egypt vital to

this imperial strategy. France, on the other hand, built an empire across West and North Africa, driven by a mission to spread French culture and language. The French spoke of assimilation, though in practice, of course, power remained firmly European. Germany, who we haven't talked about much here, and we will. We'll get to German unification. But they had unified by

eighteen seventy one. Germany entered the imperial race late but aggressively, claiming territories in East and Southwest Africa, its rule was often brutal. The Herrero and Noma genocide in German Southwest Africa revealed how racial ideology could translate into extermination. Portugal meanwhile, clung to older colonies. Italy pursued empire to prove itself a great power, suffering humiliating defeat at Adwa in eighteen ninety six, one of the rare African victories against European invasion.

Only Ethiopia in Liberia remained independent. Ethiopia's victory over Italy demonstrated that imperialism was not inevitable, but it was relentless. Now. The race for Africa was a part of a broader imperial movement. Britain tightened control over India, France expanded into Indo China, the Dutch still ruled Indonesia, and Russia expanded

ever eastward, as we'll talk about in future episodes. The United States would join the imperial club after eighteen ninety eight, taking the Philippines and projecting power overseas, becoming then entangled in affairs far from home for the first time. Perialism quickly became global, and so did its consequences. Imperial rule was never uncontested. Africans resisted through diplomacy, rebellion, and war. Leaders like Samurai Torre fought prolonged campaigns against French forces.

Samurai Torre was not born a king, a prince, or even a soldier. He was born in eighteen thirty or around then, in a small village in what is today southeastern Guinea. In West Africa, it was a world already trembling under the approach of European Empire. By the time he died in exile at the hands of the French in the year nineteen hundred, Samurai Torre had built one of the most powerful African states of the nineteenth century and fought one of the longest, most sophisticated wars of

resistance against European imperialism anywhere. Samurai's early life was shaped by violent its instability. It's a really interesting tale because West Africa in the mid nineteenth century was a region of fractured states, long distance trade networks, Islamic reform movements, and endemic warfare. The Atlantic slave trade had officially ended, but internal slavery, rating and coercion remained central to political power.

When Samurai was still a young man, his mother was captured by a rival group, and to secure her release, he entered their service as a warrior, and that moment changed his entire life. Samurai proved himself ruthless, disciplined, and intelligent on the battlefield. He learned how power worked not through lineage, but through force, loyalty, and specifically organization. After securing his mother's freedom, he did not return quietly to

village life. Instead, he gathered followers, he armed them, and he began conquering territory of his own. The eighteen sixties and eighteen seventies, Samurai Torre was no longer just a simple local strongman. He was building a state. At the heart of Samurai's power was the Wassulu Empire, a centralized polity that stretched across parts of modern day Guinea, Mali, Cote Devor, and Burkina Fasso. Unlike many African states encountered

by European imperialists, Wassolu was not loose or decentralized. Samurai imposed direct rule, appointed governors, standardized taxation, and crucially created a standing army. The army was Samurai's masterpiece. He drilled his soldiers relentlessly in four strict discipline and adapted military techniques from the Europeans. When firearms became essential to survival,

Samurai always ensured that his men had them. He purchased rifles through coastal trade networks and eventually established workshops to repair and even manufacture weapons locally. His cavalry and infantry worked in coordinated set peace battles. Command structures were clear and orders were always obeyed, and religion became another tool of his state building. Samurai embraced Islam not only as

a personal faith, but as a unifying ideology. He declared jihad against rivals, framed obedience to the state as a religious duty, and used Islamic law to legitimize his authority. Yet this was not purely a spiritual project. It was political, pragmatic, and often brutal. Resistance was crushed, populations were relocated, and entire regions were reorganized to serve the war effort. But as I mentioned earlier, then came the French. By the

eighteen eighties, France was expanding aggressively inland from Senegal. Determined to link its West African possessions in a single imperial block. French officers expected African resistance to collapse quickly, as it had elsewhere, but Samurai Tori shattered that assumption. For nearly two decades. He fought the French with remarkable adaptability. When

out gunned, he avoided direct confrontation. When cornered, he retreated eastward, burning crops and villages behind him to deny supplies to the enemy, a scorched earth strategy that horrified the French but slowed their advance. When diplomacy seemed useful, Samurai signed treaties he never intended to honor, buying time to arm and regroup. In other words, he followed just about every single one of Julius Caesar, Czar, Nicholas the First and

also I guess Machiavelli's principles. French commanders complained that fighting Samurai was like fighting smoke. He appeared, then struck, and vanished, and reappeared hundreds of miles away. Columns marched for months through hostile terrain, only to find empty villages and poisoned wells in Paris. Samurai became a bit of an obsession, proof that African resistance actually could be organized, modern and dangerous. But resistance, of course had a cost Samurais wars, devastated

civilian populations, forced conscription, famine, and mass displacement followed. His armies, allies defected. Firearms became harder to acquire as European powers closed ranks and refused to sell them. By the late eighteen nineties, the French adapted, deploying larger forces, African auxiliaries and relentless pursuit, and so in eighteen ninety eight, Samurai Torre was finally captured in present day Cote Devor. There was no dramatic last stand, no battlefield death. He was

taken alive, a symbolic victory for the French Empire. The French exiled him to Gabon, far from his homeland, and he died two years later in the year nineteen hundred, but still well. I think that his life is really emblematic of something that could have been. Africa, because of a variety of factors, was unable to stitch together in effective resistance to European imperialism. But it was never because

they couldn't because of some I suppose biological reason. Torre proves that resistance was possible, and resistance by African leaders was possible, it was just difficult to put it together. Of course, there were many others, and others resisted through everyday acts. They could flee, they could sabotage, and they could also work to preserve their culture. European response was all often overwhelming violence. Superior firepower crushed resistance, Punitive expeditions

destroyed villages. Imperial peace was enforced through fear. In the end, imperialism reshaped the world Economically, Colonies were reorganized to serve European needs. Cash crops replace subsistence farming. Infrastructure existed to extract resources, not to develop societies. Politically, artificial borders sowed future conflict. Traditional authorities were undermined or often co opted.

Colonial states ruled through coercion rather than consent. Culturally, imperialism imposed languages, religions, and racial hierarchies whose effects endure still today. European superiority became embedded in global systems of power. In Europe, Imperialism fueled nationalism and rivalry. Colonial competition intensified tensions between great powers, tensions that would eventually explode in the Gray War of nineteen fourteen. Now, the Race for Africa wasn't

a random accident of history. It was the logical outcome of industrial power, nationalist rivalry, and racial ideology. It enriched Europe while deva stating much of the colonized world. It claimed to civilize while it conquered. It promised progress while it delivered only suffering. One African intellectual would later write, they came with maps and guns and left us with

borders and graves. Imperialism shaped the modern world, its inequalities, its conflicts, its ability now to connect because of technology. That it made the world so much small that it had been for millennium. But to understand European history in the nineteenth century is to understand empire, not as a side story, as ideology, not as something that is a little bit of a castaway, but as a central chapter

in everything that is to come. Next week, we have to turn our attentions, though, back to the United States. In the lead up to the Civil War, slavery dominated every single issue that was happening, and we'll see why the United States was so ineffective and unable to deal with the scourge that had been baked in to its very existence.