What was the most "benevolent" empire during the second age of Imperialism(1800-1970)?

[TheKutKu]

I like the dutch since they had a actual government policy dictating that they help improve the natives life (Dutch ethical policy) by investing a education and improving irrigation techniques.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Ethical_Policy

Uncomparable, the dutch were extremely brutal when conquering insulindia, doing mass deportations, wiping out the entire male population of islands, by WW1-1920 the worst had already been done tbh, while abuses became public and examinated principally in the 30s.
Spain just didn't control enough to be comparable to the rest post 1900, Fernando Po was also, like I said above, one of the best run colonies ever in the late 50/60s, it reached the highest gdp per capita (even if unequal) in all of africa before oil production, and primary school enrollment was above 90%, comparable to the poorest regions of spain and better than all of portugal, Rif was brutal alright, but then the Spaniards suffered as much as the Rifian there

I've gone for Portuguese. They were less racist than most, willing to let people of mixed race have full citizenship and not very powerful.

On the debit side they did hold on longer than most.

Which was mostly due to the high integration the mainland had with the colonies.

Bullshit, Portugal was like the rest, main difference is that the initial conquest was more drawn out (from the 1850s to the 1910s-1920s, suffering several setback everywhere) due to lower ressources, they were as motivated by profit as everyone else (under both Kingdom, 1st republic and Estado novo) , they gave away large part of angola and particularly mozambique to full foreign corporate exploitation, the Conquest of Angola led to a 15-20% decrease in population, comparable to a lot of other african colonies, the Portuguese had general mass forced labour for longer than anyone else (officially ending it in 1961, even france significantly curtailed it post 1945) - and when they ended it they replaced it with Mass deportation to planed towns (de facto work camps) which came to encompass 1/6 of Angola's population under the , they ran de facto slave trade from Angola with French Haiti-level mortality rate plantation in Sao tomé until ww1.
Also since this thread includes ealry 19th century, they directly oversaw the slave trade of >1.5 millions african from guinea and West-central africa during that period.

> People of Mixed race
Some dozen thousands Luso-Angolan who made up a centuries old elite (who was deeply involved in slave trade) who, when their monopolies got displaced by Settlers and Foreign companies, massively went to either colaborate with Portugal or found what would be MPLA, hardly indigenous africans really, they were as culturaly portuguese as settlers. Citizenship also didn't save 40,000 cape verdean from starving to death in the 40s, just meant they could emigrate to Brazil or the US or France more easily. And luso-Mozambican/goan/macanese/timorese were Irrelevent by the 20th century, And less than 1% of all Native african were "civilisados" who were exempted from forced labour.

 

[Mekul]

Why would I want to rate colonial empires that all were the opposite of benevolent?

 

[SuperSage125]

To clarify the question; the most "benevolent" empire of the second age of imperialism; is suppose to hold those empires to their standard of morality and hold them accountable for their bullshit.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Holding the empires to their own standards of morality? Ok, Russia treated it's colonies about as well as it treated its metropol.

 

[SuperSage125]

Might be helpful to begin by defining your standards of comparison.

Number one, what are the ethical standards you're using? Modern ones? If so, which modern group's standards do you prefer? We've got plenty of diversity today. Or is the thread applying imperialists' own standards, as some responses suggest, and saying that they failed to live up to their own press? (If so, the ruthless ones who had no standards would actually do better in this comparison.) Or is it the colonized people's standards? If so, are we talking pre-colonization, post-colonization, or something else? I imagine that the Aztecs didn't appreciate the Spanish putting a damper on their human sacrifices, for example, but most modern people wouldn't exactly call this a legitimate ethical complaint against Cortez. Or is it something else? And then there are the details: utilitarian approaches will diverge on "ends justifies the means" questions more than some other approaches.

Number two, to whom are we comparing the imperialists? Is it enough to be less-bad than the regime the imperialists replaced? Or are they being held to the standards prevailing in highly developed modern democracies, regardless of how good/bad they were in comparison to their contemporaries or the regimes that preceded them? (And some modern democracies are still being accused of engaging in imperialist wars in the modern era, so there's that, too...)

To clarify the question; the most "benevolent" empire of the second age of imperialism; is suppose to hold those empires to their standard of morality and hold them accountable for their bullshit. We are also comparing the imperial administrations to the previous kingdoms that they conquered.

 

[SuperSage125]

Holding the empires to their own standards of morality? Ok, Russia treated it's colonies about as well as it treated its metropol.

which is not that good; especially compared to how Britannia treated it's metro pole

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

which is not that good; especially compared to how Britannia treated it's metro pole

I don't see what England's standard of morality has to do with the Russian Empire. Russia definitely met (possibly exceeded) its own (low) standards.

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

Can't believe that people picked the Germans; they committed Genocide against the Herero people in Present Day Nambia. Also the Portuguese were pretty brutal to their colonies in Africa; due to their neglectful attitude toward their colonies.

It depends on the period and the colony. You could just as easily say the same about the British with the Maori, the Australian Aborigines, and the native peoples in their Canadian (the USA wasn't the only one expanding westwards at the expense of indigenous people) colonies. Those genocides largely preceded that of the Herero. There's a tendency to think of the British as more benevolent because their rule in India was limited to subjugating people rather than systematically exterminating them, but that view of benevolence only holds if we ignore the genocides in their other colonies. The only useful metric I can think of would be to look at which had the smallest colonies/fewest people subjugated/exterminated. I guess the Dutch out of the options listed, but that's not out of lack of brutality, just from fewer people being subject to it.

 

[Ameck16]

Bullshit

Which was mostly due to the high integration the mainland had with the colonies.

I don't see how that invalidates my reply to @Finbarr the Fair

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

I guess the Dutch out of the options listed, but that's not out of lack of brutality, just from fewer people being subject to it.

By population the Dutch colonial Empire was larger than the French colonial empire...

edit:
I've noticed a serious tendency on this thread to forget about the DEI

The Netherlands may have been a small player in diplomacy but much of that was because they already had a small continent's worth of land (and population to match!) all to them selves.

 

[Myth]

Holding the empires to their own standards of morality? Ok, Russia treated it's colonies about as well as it treated its metropol.

Yeah, holding them to their own standards benefits the empires with the worst standards. Of the options listed, the Germans during World War 2 probably treated their victims the most consistently with the (fucked up) German standards of the day. The WW2 Japanese also lived up to Japan's own standards of "morality," since the Japanese soldiers believed that they were fighting for Japan's god-emperor. Even more weirdly, the people who failed to meet their own fascist countries' standards -- in other words, the merciful Germans and Japanese -- would be considered less "benevolent." (Again, assuming we define "benevolence" as "holding the empire to its own standards of morality.")

The effect also gets perverse when you consider a single empire over time. Britain got a lot nicer to India between 1800 and 1947. Amritsar would be unsurprising in 1800, was way overboard in 1919, and would have been shocking in 1947. But British morality changed faster than the reality on the ground. The British public got "soft" faster than British violence declined. So you have a weird situation where the British are allegedly getting less "benevolent" (again, assuming "benevolent" = "following your own moral system") over time, despite becoming objectively less brutal, because they no longer adhere to a moral system that justifies violence.

If you extend the question back in time before 1800, the Assyrian Empire emerges as the all-time champion of "benevolence," since all of their pillagings, mass-skinnings, and impalements were considered divinely ordained punishments for defying the will of Assyria's god and imperilling the cosmic order.

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

By population the Dutch colonial Empire was larger than the French colonial empire...

edit:
I've noticed a serious tendency on this thread to forget about the DEI

The Netherlands may have been a small player in diplomacy but much of that was because they already had a small continent's worth of land (and population to match!) all to them selves.

Oh I'm not leaving out the Dutch East Indies. Part of the issue with such a large time period is that colonies change hands not to mention practices change. The French colonial empire wasn't just French Polynesia and Africa. There were also French Guyana, French islands in Caribbean, and Louisiana. Spain had large swaths of the Americas at the beginning but lost them to various independence movements with the last of them leaving in the Spanish-American War. Of course the size of the Dutch Empire also depends on whether you're looking at a time period that includes South Africa. That also holds for population, because even when colonies didn't change hands, their populations were not static.

 

[33k7]

personally is the Portuguese or the Dutch I chose the Dutch

 

[PrincessOfChina]

none of them? The y all exploited people and their countries for their own gain. This idea that the empires. Improved aboriginal or natives needs to die, the empires only brought suffering to the majority of their native subjects

 

[Jellico]

How was the Qing empire going? Admittedly their expansion west might be a little early (1750s) for this discussion. But, they were running an empire though 1800-1912.

 

[Aghasverov]

Can't believe that people picked the Germans; they committed Genocide against the Herero people in Present Day Nambia. Also the Portuguese were pretty brutal to their colonies in Africa; due to their neglectful attitude toward their colonies.

The German suppression of the Herero in Southwest Africa WAS horrific, no doubt... however, it was also somewhat atypical of the German "yoke" over their other colonies. For one, Southwest Africa was the only part of the relatively small German overseas empire that had been moderately successful in attracting European settlers - I think the Germans reacted with extreme brutality, but they didn't want the flow of settlers to trickle off and cease.
The other 3 German colonies in Africa, Togoland, Kamerun, and East Africa/Tanganyika, were, from what I've read, models of good governance according to the standards of the time... which unfortunately isn't saying too much.
(Incidentally, I didn't cast a vote in this little exercise... can think of too many "excesses" by all of the European empires to think that any one of them stood head-n-shoulders above the others in "benevolence"...)

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Oh I'm not leaving out the Dutch East Indies.

Then please explain your statement that the Dutch had the fewest colonial subjects.

The French colonial empire wasn't just French Polynesia and Africa. There were also French Guyana, French islands in Caribbean,

And? In 1900 the entire French colonial empire amounted to 40 million people. At the same time the DEI alone (so not including the Netherland's Caribbean colonies) had a population of over 42 million.

and Louisiana.

Not in the relevant time period. Unless you count Napoleonic France briefly owning but never administrating Spanish Louisiana before selling it to the US...

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

Then please explain your statement that the Dutch had the fewest colonial subjects.


And? In 1900 the entire French colonial empire amounted to 40 million people. At the same time the DEI alone (so not including the Netherland's Caribbean colonies) had a population of over 42 million.


Not in the relevant time period. Unless you count Napoleonic France briefly owning but never administrating Spanish Louisiana before selling it to the US...

The time period listed is 1800 to 1970. As I said, colonial populations varied drastically over that time period. The population of the Dutch East Indies increased greatly over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. I don't want to get into an argument over which year or decade we should use, since it's largely tangental to my point, which was that focus on the British decision to subjugate rather than exterminate the people of India in the context of this question seems to ignore the genocide of the indigenous people of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

The time period listed is 1800 to 1970. As I said, colonial populations varied drastically over that time period. The population of the Dutch East Indies increased greatly over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The only exception to the Dutch Colonial Empire being more populous than the French would be during the Napoleonic period when the Dutch and their colonies were annexed by France, and the period after Indonesian independence in 1949 (and of course the French Empire didn't hang around much longer after that). Populations varied dramatically, but the Dutch colonial empire being one of the most populous colonial empires is pretty consistent throughout the given period.

I don't want to get into an argument over which year or decade we should use, since it's largely tangental to my point, which was that focus on the British decision to subjugate rather than exterminate the people of India in the context of this question seems to ignore the genocide of the indigenous people of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

I don't want an argument either. Simple discussion of quantitative details shouldn't constitute an argument.

 

[marathag]

which was that focus on the British decision to subjugate rather than exterminate the people of India in the context of this question seems to ignore the genocide of the indigenous people of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Easier to kill off 10-100 thousand natives than the 200 million of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, that had a far higher technology and infrastructure than British North America, Oz and NZ.
So smallpox blankets in Ontario, but dealing with the disparate Indian Princely States of Hindus and Moslems
Oh, and given that was just after the time of the Highland Clearances and later Irish Famine, British were consistent in their treatment when they thought the risks were low