A survey of all India is carried across a farmer's own district, and he is hired to hold the measuring chain; write what he makes of the map, in his words.Fact: the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India ran from 1802 to 1871; its early teams used 100-foot chains.
A river that ran through one people's land now marks a border, and a family's fields lie on both banks; write planting season as the grandmother tells it.Angle: someone at the ford now asks for papers. Write what the family calls the two banks.
Two flags fly a short walk apart over a ruined fort on the Nile in the fall of 1898 while two governments argue; write one week of it as the cook of one camp.Fact: French and British parties met at Fashoda in September 1898; France ordered its men to withdraw on November 3.
A boundary party sets markers in a high mountain valley so that two empires will never touch; write the day as a shepherd of the valley tells it.Fact: the Wakhan Corridor was formed in the 1890s so that Russian and British territory would not touch.
A geography student in the 1890s is told that a border in her atlas is final; write her notebook entry twenty years later, when it has moved.Fact: a study of 2024 found most of Africa's borders took their final form over two decades after the conference.
A mapmaker in a European capital colors a stretch of African coast for his country before any official has landed there; write his doubts, as he tells them to his apprentice.Fact: the conference's rule of effective occupation asked for treaties, a flag and an administration on the ground.
A narrow strip is added to a colony on the map so that it can reach a great river; write the account of a ferryman on that river who wakes up in a new country.Fact: the treaty of 1890 gave Germany a ribbon of land that let its southwest African colony reach the Zambezi River.
A river is declared open to the ships of every country that signed at Berlin; write the account of a canoe trader who has worked that river all his life.Fact: the General Act of Berlin made the Niger and Congo rivers free for ship traffic.
A schoolteacher in 1914 unrolls a new wall map of Africa and sets it beside the one from her own school days; write the lesson in her voice.Fact: in the 1870s Europeans held about 10% of Africa; by 1914 only Ethiopia and Liberia were outside their control.
A survey of all India is carried across a farmer's own district, and he is hired to hold the measuring chain; write what he makes of the map, in his words.Fact: the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India ran from 1802 to 1871; its early teams used 100-foot chains.
An island in the North Sea changes countries in the summer of 1890 as part of a bargain about East Africa; write the news as a fisherman of the island hears it.Fact: by a treaty of July 1, 1890, Germany gained Heligoland and recognized British authority in Zanzibar.
Diplomats of fourteen countries sit down in Berlin in November 1884 to talk about Africa; write the first morning as the junior clerk who fills the inkwells.Fact: the Berlin Conference opened on November 15, 1884, and closed on February 26, 1885.
No African ruler has a seat at the conference in Berlin; write the letter one ruler's envoy drafts when he learns how the talks were held.Fact: no African country was invited. The sultan of Zanzibar asked to send a representative and was refused.
Six of the fourteen countries at Berlin go home with no zone in Africa; write one delegate's report to his own government on what the trip was for.Fact: Austria-Hungary, Russia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden-Norway and the United States secured no zones.
Two flags fly a short walk apart over a ruined fort on the Nile in the fall of 1898 while two governments argue; write one week of it as the cook of one camp.Fact: French and British parties met at Fashoda in September 1898; France ordered its men to withdraw on November 3.
The trading company 12
A chartered company runs short of money and hands its territory to the government in 1893; write the last page of the station ledger as the bookkeeper.Fact: in 1893 a British company in East Africa transferred its rights of administration to the British government.
A clerk in a company office on the Niger copies the day's fourth treaty into a ledger; write his account of what the page promises, and to whom.Fact: one British company on the Niger held over 400 treaties with local leaders.
A company agent weighs palm oil at a river station where he is the only buyer allowed; write the bargaining as the woman selling the oil tells it.Fact: one company's treaties obliged local people to trade solely with or through the company's agents.
A company promises free trade on its river and then lets nobody else trade there; write the complaint of a merchant from another country, as he files it.Fact: pledges that free trade would be respected in one Niger company's territory were dead letters.
A company with a royal charter may raise taxes, charge customs and hold courts along the East African coast; write a market day as a coconut seller who meets all three.Fact: a company chartered on September 6, 1888, could raise taxes, impose customs duties and administer justice.
A company's royal charter is written to last twenty-five years; write the letter of a young clerk who signs on in its first year and wonders who will be there in the last.Fact: one company's royal charter took effect on December 20, 1889, at first for a period of 25 years.
A shareholder in London has never seen the country her company governs; write her account of the yearly meeting.Angle: on the table are a map, a sample of ore and a balance sheet. Say what nobody in the room mentions.
A steamer meant for a great lake reaches the coast in crates and waits for a railway that has not been started; write the years of guarding it as the storekeeper.Fact: a lake steamer built in Scotland in 1890 was delivered to Mombasa in kit form and stayed in storage until 1895.
A trading company founded in 1600 is dissolved in 1874; write the last entry in its books as the oldest clerk still on the payroll.Fact: the East India Company was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874; the Crown had taken direct control in 1858.
A trading company on the Niger receives a royal charter in 1886; write the day as the storekeeper of one of its river stations.Fact: the company was formed in 1879 and chartered in 1886; in 1900 its territories became a British protectorate.
At its height one trading company kept armies of its own; write a recruit's first letter home, in which he tries to say who he works for.Fact: at its peak the East India Company's three armies totaled about 260,000 soldiers.
Rival trading firms on one river are joined into a single company; write the account of a local trader who liked having several buyers to choose from.Fact: by 1879 the British firms trading on the Niger had been combined into a single company.
Seen from the port 12
A boatman at a Korean harbor opened to foreign trade in 1876 watches the first foreign merchants set up shop; write his account of that month.Fact: after a treaty of 1876 Korea opened three ports; Busan was the first, and Incheon and Wonsan followed.
A customs clerk in a treaty port of Japan learns that from July 1899 the foreign merchants will answer to Japanese law; write his account of the last day of the old rules.Fact: Japan's treaty ports let foreigners live outside Japanese law; new treaties ended the system in July 1899.
A dockworker at Mombasa unloads rails by the thousand in 1896; write his own count of one day's work.Fact: the Uganda Railway's 200,000 rail lengths and 1.2 million sleepers were imported through a new port at Mombasa.
A girl who sells bread at the harbor of San Juan learns in 1898 that her island has a new flag; write her day.Fact: under the treaty of 1898 Spain ceded Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States.
A harbor pilot at a Chinese treaty port reads in 1899 that every nation's ships are to pay the same dues; write what he expects to change, and what he does not.Fact: an American note of September 6, 1899, asked the powers to show no favors in harbor dues or railroad charges.
A laborer from Punjab steps off a ship at Mombasa to build a railway to a lake he has never seen; write his first letter home.Fact: more than 30,000 laborers were contracted from British India, the majority from Punjab and Gujarat.
A sailor in Manila hears in December 1898 that the islands have passed from one country to another for 20 million dollars; write the talk on the quay as he reports it.Fact: by a treaty signed on December 10, 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States for $20 million.
A ship's doctor hands out bitter tablets before the crew goes upriver; write the grumbling as the youngest sailor reports it.Fact: quinine, an effective treatment for malaria, made vast expanses of the tropics more accessible to Europeans.
A stoker goes ashore at a coaling station halfway around the world and sees the flag of home over the harbor office; write what he says to the man who sells him fruit.Fact: growing navies and new ships driven by steam needed coaling stations and ports for maintenance.
A telegraph clerk on a small Pacific island relays words between Canada and Australia in 1902; write his night shift.Fact: Fanning Island was annexed in 1888; laying of the cable from British Columbia to the island began in 1902.
An engineer boasts that the empire's telegraph can never be cut off; write the account of the sea captain who lays one of the spare cables.Fact: the network had so many spare routes that 49 cuts would be needed to isolate the United Kingdom.
The railway from the coast reaches the great lake in 1901; write the arrival of the first train as a fish seller on the shore tells it.Fact: the line was begun at the port of Mombasa in 1896 and finished at Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, in 1901.
Seen from the village 12
A market woman finds that cloth from a factory across the sea is cheaper than the cloth her sister weaves; write her account of the choice.Fact: Britain could make finished goods so efficiently that they usually undersold locally made goods abroad.
A railway line is staked out across a village's grazing land; write the meeting with the engineer as the herdsman chosen to speak.Angle: he asks three questions. Write the one the engineer cannot answer.
A river that ran through one people's land now marks a border, and a family's fields lie on both banks; write planting season as the grandmother tells it.Angle: someone at the ford now asks for papers. Write what the family calls the two banks.
A school opens beside a village and teaches in a foreign language; write the first week as a pupil who is good at it and uneasy about that.Angle: she brings home one new word a day. Write which one her mother asks her not to use.
A son leaves the farm to work on a railway so that the household can pay its tax; write the season without him as his mother tells it.Fact: households sent members to work in cities or on construction projects to earn the money for the hut tax.
A tax of ten shillings a hut is announced in 1894, to be paid in coin the village has never used; write the family's decision as the eldest daughter tells it.Fact: in Mashonaland a hut tax of ten shillings a hut was introduced in 1894 and paid to a chartered company.
A village elder is told that his land now lies inside a protectorate; write his question about what is being protected, and the official's answer, as the interpreter remembers them.Angle: the interpreter softens one sentence in each direction. Write both.
A village headman is asked to put his mark on a paper in a language he cannot read; write that evening's council as the youngest man allowed to speak.Fact: before the conference of 1884, explorers and missionaries negotiated treaties with local leaders.
A village in Ethiopia hears in the 1890s that an invading European army has been turned back; write the news as the woman grinding grain tells it.Fact: the First Italo-Ethiopian War broke out in 1895 and Italian troops were defeated.
A village in India that once wove cloth is told to grow cotton for export; write the change as the weaver's daughter tells it.Fact: Indian weavers were replaced by spinning and weaving machines, and food crops by cash crops like cotton and tea.
A village that has always paid its ruler in grain is told to pay a new tax in coin; write the first trip to the colonial market as the man who carries the grain.Fact: colonized peoples paid the hut tax variously in money, labor, grain or stock.
Strangers with a brass instrument on three legs and a long chain begin measuring at the edge of a village; write the day as a child who follows them.Angle: say what she thinks the instrument is for, and what her grandfather thinks.
An argument at home 12
A debating club takes the motion that colonies cost more than they return; write the closing speech for the side you find harder to argue.Fact: one theory of the time held that surplus capital at home drove the search for investments in other lands.
A factory hand is told the empire means work for him, and his neighbor says it means taxes; write the argument over the fence as the factory hand's wife reports it.Fact: elites sought to use pride in empire to win the support of part of the industrial working class.
A family visits a colonial exhibition in the 1880s and argues on the streetcar home about what they were shown; write it as the aunt who said the least.Fact: from the 1880s colonial exhibitions had the added aim of bolstering popular support for the empires.
A grandmother who remembers her town before goods from the colonies filled the shops listens to her grandson praise the new store windows; write her answer in her own words.Angle: she does not scold. She names three things the town made for itself when she was young.
A household in a European city in 1910 lists everything in its kitchen that came from a colony; write the list, and the argument it starts, as the child holding the pencil.Fact: demand for ivory, rubber, palm oil, cocoa, diamonds, tea and tin was one inducement for empire.
A meeting is called in Boston on June 15, 1898, to protest against an imperial policy; write it as a student who came to heckle and stayed to listen.Fact: the protest meeting of June 15, 1898, led to an anti-imperialist league, formally founded on November 19.
A member of Parliament calls a railway to an African lake a waste of money; write the debate as a visitor in the gallery whose brother is building it.Fact: the Uganda Railway was much criticized in Parliament, where many called it exorbitantly expensive.
A newspaper of 1898 fills its front page with flags and drums; write the letter one reader sends in to ask what the war will cost.Fact: the new mass media promoted jingoism in the Spanish–American War of 1898 and the Second Boer War.
A speaker in 1899 says a republic cannot rule other people without their consent; write the neighbors' argument about it as their daughter hears it at supper.Fact: American anti-imperialists held that just government must derive from the consent of the governed.
A stenographer takes down the Senate debate over the treaty that hands the Philippines to the United States; write what she tells her family about both sides.Fact: in the debate one senator warned that the treaty would make the country a vulgar, commonplace empire.
Schoolchildren get the afternoon off for Empire Day; write the day as a pupil who enjoys the holiday and is not sure what it is for.Fact: Empire Day was first observed in Ontario schools in 1898; in Britain pupils were given the afternoon off.
Two brothers read the same newspaper report of a railway built across another people's land; write their argument as their mother hears it from the kitchen.Angle: one counts miles of track, the other counts whose fields it crossed. She asks who paid.
How it works
An imperialism writing prompt is only as good as its narrator. Each one here says whose account it is: the clerk filling inkwells in Berlin, the ferryman who wakes in a new country, the reader writing to her newspaper.
Read the full guide
Write it from both ends
Take a prompt from the map room or the company office, then one on the same subject from the port or the village: the railway as a dockworker counts its rails, and as a herdsman meets its engineer. The years match; the accounts will not.
The fact under the prompt
Fifty-two prompts carry a fact, from the 100-foot chains of the survey of India to the more than 30,000 laborers contracted from British India for one railway. Treat it as the one thing in your piece that you did not invent.
Let your narrator be wrong about one thing. Nobody inside an empire saw all of it.
Put what was gained and what was lost in the same paragraph.
Questions and answers
What is a good imperialism writing prompt?
One that names its narrator. A village headman is asked to put his mark on a paper in a language he cannot read; write that evening's council as the youngest man allowed to speak.
When was the age of imperialism?
Wikipedia places the New Imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 1870s Europeans held about 10 percent of Africa; by 1914 only Ethiopia and Liberia were outside their control.
What was the Berlin Conference?
A meeting of fourteen countries, from November 15, 1884, to February 26, 1885, that agreed rules for European claims in Africa. No African country was invited. Five prompts are set at it or on its rules.
Do the imperialism writing prompts show more than one side?
Yes. Twenty-four are told from a port or from a village that meets the surveyors, the tax collector and the railway. Twelve are arguments at home, for and against, among them a protest meeting held in Boston on June 15, 1898.