Ch.22 National Uprisings
The Easter Uprising
- The most powerful of these resistance groups was organized in 1905. It was called Sinn Fein, which is Gaelic for “Us Alone”.
- Sinn Fein wanted Ireland to remain under the British crown, but to get its own parliament and its own self-rule back again.
- But Protestants in the north of Ireland (“Ulster”) were afraid of what might happen if Ireland - which still had more Catholics than Protestants in it - got self-government back again.
- By 1923, the Irish Free State was governing itself. Fourteen years later, Great Britain would agree to allow the Irish Free State to become a completely independent country called “Eire”, or “the Republic of Ireland”.
- But Ulster remained part of the British Empire - an unhappy and trouble-filled part, where Catholics were too often harassed, robbed, and even beaten by their neighbors.
Indian Nationalism
- Instead of fighting with weapons, Gandhi and the Congress Party began to use other methods of resisting the British.
- “noncooperation” - refused to pay taxes to the British government.
- “boycott” British goods
- After the Amritsar Massacre, the British finally agreed that they would start to change the way India was governed, so that the country could slowly become m independent. But it would take thirty years for that promise to be fully kept.
