October 12 Free trade and informal empire
naming of New South Wales [go to 59th minute]
Introduction
Pax Britannica?
imperial expansion: formal empire + informal empire
I. Unrivalled
naval supremacy
industrial powerhouse
II. The triumph of free trade
Adam Smith, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
Corn Law
liberalism / laissez-faire (deregulation)
1820s legislation
Anti-Corn Law League
Richard Cobden
John Bright
Sir Robert Peel (PM, 1841-46)
Irish Famine
repeal of Navigation Acts (1849, 1854)
III. Informal empire
iceberg
satellite economies
indentured labor
1834-1920: 1,475,000 Indians, Chinese, Africans, and Pacific islanders
use of force
Latin America
mid 1820s: 13% of total British exports to Latin America
1860 1913 British exports to Latin America 14,000,000 55,000,000 British investment in Latin America 81,000,000 1.18 billion interventions: Peru (1839 and 1857), Mexico (1860-61), Chile (1863)
China [timeline]
1833 end of EICo monopoly on sale of opium
Imperial Commissioner Lin
1839 Chinese ban on opium trade
1839-1842 Anglo-Chinese War (Opium War)
Hong Kong
free ports
war reparations
extraterritoriality
