Opium Wars - Imperialism in China

During the year 1839 to 1842, China fought against the British. The war was known as the Opium War. It started out when the British seem to love the tea from China and wanted to trade with them. China didn't like the idea of trading. So however, the British decided to sell Opium to China, which was a drug grown in India. Then China banned the import of Opium because the effects of the drug was left to China to pay for it.
On the other hand, China said that anyone using, selling or buying Opium would be put to death. Simple as that, but the British's technology and army was too strong for China. Therefore Britain won the war. Also China was made to legalize the imports of Opium. China still had their money problem, so it was difficult to supply their soldiers with enough weapons.

Film Lesson: "Mountains of the Moon"

For the last 2 days, we have watched a video called "Mountains of the Moon" (picture on the left). Some hardships for the Europeans in Africa were traveling because in Africa you travel by walking. Another was that leaders in Africa own part of land and they weren't allowed in their territory without presents and gifts. Another was the spoken language. The Europeans spoke English while the Africans spoke a different, native language. 

Imperialism Project

The class has worked on a project about imperialism. Imperialism means when one country takes over another country to gain control over their government. During this project, we had to color certain parts of different countries controlled by bigger nations. We also had to draw some sort of trade route to show where some of the products came and went. The main point of the project was to show where people from Europe went to so they can take over. Many of the European countries went to Africa and took almost every part of Africa.

I learned a lot from the project. I was able to learn what countries took over what parts of the world. I remember all the different types of products that they shipped. They had tea that came from China, all the way back to Europe. Slaves were also taken from Africa and brought over to the New World so they could work on plantations.