Gina Tangelo

3/7/17
World History F

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct and In-direct

Imperialism

During the age of Imperialism, European countries used four different

kinds of rule. Some of those types of rule were in-direct and direct rule.

Direct rule was when foreign officers were brought into rule and there was no

self-rule, meaning no local rulers could rule over the country as well. In-direct

rule was where there was limited self-rule, meaning there could be local

rulers but they had to work together with the foreign rulers as well. The

British were known to use in-direct rule while most of the other countries

used direct rule. Both of these types of rule had their advantages and

disadvantages for both the colonizers and the colonized, both causing for

conflicts and the growth of countries to occur.

The advantages of both of these types of rule were more beneficial for

the colonizers rather than for the colonized. The advantages of direct rule for

the colonizers was that they forced people to adopt their ideas and they

were able to change anything that they wanted freely without having to

worry about people countering the ideas since no one else had power except

them. The advantage of in-direct rule for the colonizers was that even

though there was limited rule, there still had superiority and so they could

still bring their western ideas into the picture while ruling. Colonized people

could still rule over the country in some form in in-direct rule so they could
still impose their customs into the government. An advantage that both the

colonized in direct rule and in-direct rule share is that their services such as

the military and economy got stronger by using Western ideas.

There were many disadvantages of in-direct rule. One disadvantage for

the colonizers was that giving the local rulers some power created conflicts

such as who could make the real executive decisions. This also led to revolts

against the foreign rulers which led to war and other things. The

disadvantages for the colonized were that even though they had power it

was still limited so any real impact they wanted to make on their country

they couldnt because the foreigners came first. Another disadvantage was

the they were still forced to mostly abolish their local customs for the

Western styles, and even with a local ruler in place people were still killed all

the time. An example of in-direct rule is the Boers in South Africa with the

Zulu people. Boers were descendants of the Dutch and still let Shaka rule

over his people but they got into a war, that the Boers ended up winning,

because no one really agreed on any points and because the Boers caused

for famine in the land. Though in-direct rule may seem like the best type of

rule, it still had disadvantages that destroyed nations.

Direct rule was probably the worst type of rule out of the four. The

disadvantage for the colonizers was that they caused a lot of war and people

resisting instead of people just accepting the ideas. The colonized barely

benefited anything from direct rule. They could barely defend their country

and had no rights. Being forced to abolish their local customs for the Western
culture wasnt easy as well since it was the way of living and they didnt like

it. Mostly the reason for why they were treated like this was because the

Europeans felt like they were superior to any other race or nation, so they

thought why not just rule over them? An example of direct rule, as Jonathan

said: The Western countries forced the Chinese government to open the

ports so that trade was open to everyone and so that they could set up extra

territory. And even though in China a different kind of rule was used, this

example is similar to how the Europeans would work in other countries. They

would just force the people to do anything they wanted without mercy

because they only cared about benefiting Europe and didnt care for how

they left the colonized country once they were done.

In conclusion, the advantages and disadvantages of these types of rule

brought conflicts and trauma for the colonized people mostly. Now by seeing

the advantages and disadvantages, it would seem that in-direct rule was

better for the colonized people while direct rule was better for the colonizers.

Both rules, however, did have a lasting impact since they did help some of

the countries out, whether colonized people liked to admit it or not. The

economy got stronger under Western rule and when people stopped resisting

against the ruling, they did eventually get their power back, and having a

stronger county to rule did have its advantages. Some of the countries even

became some of the most powerful forces in the world years late. And

though the European counties didnt always succeed in colonizing countries

and bringing their type of rule into play, for example Ethiopia, they still had
effects on continents as wholes and how these countries would continue to

survive over time.