Colonialism Changed the Role of the Victorian Male Essay -- British Hi

Colonialism Changed the Role of the Victorian Male One of the most famous slogans of the age of global colonization was: "The sun never sets on the British Empire." As recently as 1940, world maps showed large areas colored pink, representing regions dominated by the British. Much of Africa was pink, along with India, Malaya, Hong Kong, and other scattered territories in Asia and the Americas. The existence of an empire on which the sun never set helped instill in the individual British citizen tremendous pride, and the need to become personally a devoted imperialist. For more than 100 years, the fact that Britain was an empire had changed the British man’s life, and had instilled in him the fact that he was superior to most other peoples especially those of other colors and backgrounds. This was also the period when it was felt that it was the "white man’s burden" to take care of all those countries whose inhabitants were less worthy than the white Anglo-Saxon. This way of thinking was called Social Darwinism. This was an age when even though England, in some respects, tried to act "fatherly" towards some of the countries it had seized, it still felt a strong amount of racism towards the people of those countries. In 1849, General Wolsely wrote from the Gold Coast, "The Africans are like monkeys. They are a good-for-nothing race." In 1849 Thomas Carlyle pronounced Europeans wiser than Africans and said inferior races must obey the superior. It was an idea that by 1900 most English men and women held, one that fit the paternalism of the governing classes and the prejudice of the lower classes. The Empire had created a nation of imperialists. The commercial spirit has always existed in human society. What was peculi... ...ed better sanitation, light, water, and power. More jobs opened up in the pursuit of these needs. As the century ended, national loyalty reached fever pitch in Britain as it did in France and Germany, and its favorite mode of expression was imperialism. It touched all classes, every religious faith, all political parties. This aggressive stance was motivated by many things; racism, greed, and the belief that it was up to the white man to rule the world. My essay has tried to prove that the colonization process within Great Britain, during the Victorian age (1815-1914), greatly changed the roles of men, as well as everyone else within that country’s walls. By changing the way people were educated, how they lived, what their dreams and aspirations were, government policy, and job openings in Britain and abroad, all helped to change the role of the Victorian male.