The phenomenon ofcolonization is one that has occurred around the globe and across time. Various ancient and medieval polities established colonies – such as thePhoenicians,Babylonians,Persians,Greeks,Romans,Han Chinese, andArabs. TheHigh Middle Ages saw colonising Europeans moving west, north, east and south.[1] The medievalCrusader states in theLevant exemplify some colonial features similar to those of colonies in the ancient world.[2]
A new phase of European colonialism began with the "Age of Discovery", led by thePortuguese, who became increasinglyexpansionist following theconquest of Ceuta in 1415. Portugal aimed to control navigation through theStrait of Gibraltar, to spreadChristianity, to amass wealth and plunder, and to suppress predation on Portuguese populations byBarbary pirates (who operated as part of a longstandingAfrican slave trade[3]at that point a minor trade, one the Portuguese would soonreverse and surpass). Around 1450 the Portuguese developed a lighter ship, thecaravel based on North African fishing boats.[citation needed] Caravels could sail further and faster than previous vessels,[4] were highly maneuverable, and could sailinto the wind.
Enabled by new maritime technology, and with the added incentive to find an alternative "Silk Road" after thefall of Constantinople in 1453 to theOttoman Empire effectively closed profitable trade-routes between Asia and Europe, earlyEuropean exploration of Africa was followed by the Spanish exploration of theAmericas, further exploration along the coasts ofAfrica, and explorations ofWest Asia (also known as theMiddle East),South Asia, andEast Asia.
Theconquest of the Canary Islands by theCrown of Castile, from 1402 to 1496, was an early instance of Europeansettler colonialism in Africa.[5] In 1462 the Portuguese established thefirst European settlement in the tropics by peopling the previously uninhabitedCape Verde archipelago, which thereafter became a site ofJewish exile during the height of the Portuguese andSpanish Inquisitions in the 1490s; the Portuguese soon also brought slaves from theWest African coast. Because of theeconomics of plantations, especiallysugar, much European colonial expansion andslavery would remain linked into the 19th century. The use ofexile topenal colonies would also continue.
The European "discovery" of theNew World (as named byAmerigo Vespucci in 1503) opened another colonial chapter, beginning with thecolonization of the Caribbean in 1493 withHispaniola (later to becomeHaiti and theDominican Republic). ThePortuguese andSpanish Empires were the first trans-oceanicglobal empires: they were the first to stretch across different continents (discountingEurasianempires and those with land in Africa along the Mediterranean), covering vast territories around the globe. Between 1580 and 1640, the Portuguese and Spanish empires were both ruled by theSpanish monarchs inpersonal union. During the late 16th and 17th centuries,England,France, and theDutch Republic also established their own overseas empires, each in direct competition with the other European expansionists. Meanwhile theTsardom of Russia expanded overland: RussianSiberian,Central Asian and East colonies eventually extended toAlaska andCalifornia.
The end of the 18th and mid-19th century saw the first era ofdecolonization, when most of the European colonies in the Americas, notably those of Spain,New France, and theThirteen Colonies, gained their independence from their respectivemetropoles. TheKingdom of Great Britain (unitingScotland and England), France, Portugal, and the Dutch turned their attention to the Old World, particularly South Africa and South Asia (particularlySoutheast Asia), where coastalenclaves had already been established.
In the 19th century, theSecond Industrial Revolution led to what has been termed the era ofNew Imperialism, when the pace of colonization rapidly accelerated, the height of which was theScramble for Africa, in which Belgium, Germany, and Italy also participated. The newly-westernizedEmpire of Japan established theJapanese colonial empire in eastern Asia (notablyTaiwan, Korea, andManchukuo) from the late-19th century.Nazi Germany pursued theLebensraum concept of settler colonialism in Eastern Europe, andFascist Italypursued colonialism in Africa. All three are viewed ascauses of World War II.
There were deadly battles between colonizing states and revolutions in colonized areas, shaping areas of control and establishing independent nations. During the 20th century, the colonies of the defeatedCentral Powers ofWorld War I were distributed amongst the victors asmandates, but it was not until after the end ofWorld War II that the second phase of decolonization began in earnest.
Some commentators identify three waves of European colonialism.[6]
The two main countries in thefirst wave of European colonialism werePortugal andSpain.[7] The Portuguese started the long age of European colonization with the conquest of Ceuta, Morocco in 1415, and the conquest and discovery of other African territories and islands, this would also start the movement known as the Age of Discoveries. The Spanish and Portuguese launched thecolonization of the Americas, basing their territorial claims on theTreaty of Tordesillas of 1494. This treaty demarcated the respective spheres of influence of Spain and Portugal.[8]
The expansion achieved by Spain and Portugal caught the attention of Britain, France, and the Netherlands.[9] The entrance of these three powers into the Caribbean and North America perpetuated European colonialism in these regions.[10]
The second wave of European colonialism commenced with Britain's involvement in Asia in support of theBritish East India Company; other countries such as France, Portugal and the Netherlands also had involvement in European expansion in Asia.[11][12]
Thethird wave ("New Imperialism") consisted of theScramble for Africa regulated by the terms of theBerlin Conference of 1884–1885. The conference effectively divided Africa among the European powers. Vast regions of Africa came under the sway of Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and Spain.[13][14]
Gilmartin argues that these three waves of colonialism were linked tocapitalism. The first wave of European expansion involved exploring the world to find new revenue and perpetuating Europeanfeudalism. The second wave focused on developing themercantile capitalism system and the manufacturing industry in Europe. The last wave of European colonialism solidified all capitalistic endeavors by providing new markets and raw materials.[15]
As a result of these waves of European colonial expansion, only thirteen present-day independent countries escaped formal colonization by European powers:Afghanistan,Bhutan,Iran,Japan,Liberia,Mongolia,Nepal,China,North Korea,Saudi Arabia,South Korea,Thailand, andTurkey[a] as well asNorth Yemen.[19]
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European colonization of bothEastern andWestern Hemispheres has its roots in Portuguese exploration. There were financial and religious motives behind this exploration. By finding the source of the lucrativespice trade, the Portuguese could reap its profits for themselves. They would also be able to probe the existence of the fabled Christian kingdom ofPrester John, with an eye to encircling the IslamicOttoman Empire, itself gaining territories and colonies in Eastern Europe. The first foothold outside of Europe was gained with the conquest ofCeuta in 1415. During the 15th century, Portuguese sailors discovered the Atlantic islands ofMadeira,Azores, andCape Verde, which were duly populated, and pressed progressively further along the west African coast untilBartolomeu Dias demonstrated it was possible to sail around Africa by rounding theCape of Good Hope in 1488, paving the way forVasco da Gama to reach India in 1498.[20]
Portuguese successes led to Spanish financing of a mission byChristopher Columbus in 1492 to explore an alternative route to Asia, by sailing west. When Columbus eventually made landfall in the CaribbeanAntilles he believed he had reached the coast of India, and that the people he encountered there were Indians with red skin. This is whyNative Americans have been called Indians or red-Indians. In truth, Columbus had arrived on a continent that was new to the Europeans, theAmericas. After Columbus' first trips, competing Spanish and Portuguese claims to new territories and sea routes were solved with theTreaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which divided the world outside of Europe in two areas of trade and exploration, between the Iberian kingdoms of Castile and Portugal along a north-south meridian, 370 leagues west ofCape Verde. According to this international agreement, the larger part of the Americas and thePacific Ocean were open to Spanish exploration and colonization, while Africa, theIndian Ocean, and most of Asia were assigned to Portugal.[21]
The boundaries specified by the Treaty of Tordesillas were put to the test in 1521 whenFerdinand Magellan and his Spanish sailors (among other Europeans), sailing for the Spanish Crown became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean,[22] reachingGuam and the Philippines, parts of which the Portuguese had already explored, sailing from the Indian Ocean. The two by now global empires, which had set out from opposing directions, had finally met on the other side of the world. The conflicts that arose between both powers were finally solved with theTreaty of Zaragoza in 1529, which defined the areas of Spanish and Portuguese influence in Asia, establishing the anti-meridian, or line of demarcation on the other side of the world.[23]
During the 16th century the Portuguese continued to press both eastwards and westwards into the Oceans. Towards Asia they made the first direct contact between Europeans and the peoples inhabiting present day countries such asMozambique,Madagascar,Sri Lanka,Malaysia,Indonesia,East Timor (1512), China, and finally Japan. In the opposite direction, the Portuguese colonized the huge territory that eventually became Brasil, and the Spanishconquistadors established the vast Viceroyalties ofNew Spain andPeru, and later ofRío de la Plata (Argentina) andNew Granada (Colombia). In Asia, the Portuguese encountered ancient and well populated societies, and established a seaborne empire consisting of armed coastal trading posts along their trade routes (such asGoa,Malacca andMacau), so they had relatively little cultural impact on the societies they engaged. In the Western Hemisphere, the European colonization involved the emigration of large numbers of settlers, soldiers and administrators intent on owning land and exploiting the apparently primitive (as perceived by Old World standards)indigenous peoples of the Americas. The result was that the colonization of the New World was catastrophic: native peoples were no match for European technology, ruthlessness, or their diseases which decimated theindigenous population.[24]
Spanish treatment of the indigenous populations caused a fierce debate, theValladolid Controversy, over whether Indians possessed souls and if so, whether they were entitled to the basic rights of mankind.Bartolomé de Las Casas, author ofA Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, championed the cause of the native peoples, and was opposed by "Juan Ginés deSepúlveda", who claimedAmerindians were "natural slaves".[25]
TheRoman Catholic Church played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities. TheDominicans,Jesuits, andFranciscans, notablyFrancis Xavier in Asia andJunípero Serra in North America were particularly active in this endeavor. Many buildings erected by the Jesuits still stands. Buildings such as theCathedral of Saint Paul in Macau and theSantisima Trinidad de Paraná inParaguay, the latter an example of theJesuit Reductions. The Dominican and Franciscan buildings ofCalifornia's missions andNew Mexico's missions stand restored, such asMission Santa Barbara inSanta Barbara, California andSan Francisco de Asis Mission Church inRanchos de Taos, New Mexico.[26]
As characteristically happens in any colonialism, European or not, previous or subsequent, both Spain and Portugal profited handsomely from their newfound overseas colonies: the Spanish from gold and silver from mines such asPotosí andZacatecas inNew Spain, the Portuguese from the huge markups they enjoyed as trade intermediaries, particularly during theNanbanJapan trade period. The influx of precious metals to the Spanish monarchy's coffers allowed it to finance costlyreligious wars in Europe which ultimately proved its economic undoing: the supply of metals was not infinite and the large inflow caused inflation and debt, and subsequently affected the rest of Europe.[27]
It was not long before the exclusivity of Iberian claims to the Americas was challenged by other up and coming European powers, primarily the Netherlands, France and England: the view taken by the rulers of these nations is epitomized by the quotation attributed toFrancis I of France demanding to be shown the clause in Adam's will excluding his authority from the New World. This challenge initially took the form of piratical attacks (such as those byFrancis Drake) on Spanish treasure fleets or coastal settlements.[28] Later the Northern European countries began establishing settlements of their own, primarily in areas that were outside of Spanish interests, such as what is now the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, or islands in the Caribbean, such asAruba,Martinique, andBarbados, that had been abandoned by the Spanish in favor of the mainland and larger islands.[29]
Whereas Spanish colonialism was based on the religious conversion and exploitation of local populations viaencomiendas (many Spaniards emigrated to the Americas to elevate their social status, and were not interested in manual labor), Northern European colonialism was bolstered by those emigrating for religious reasons (for example, theMayflower voyage). The motive for emigration was not to become an aristocrat or to spread one's faith but to start a new society afresh, structured according to the colonist's wishes. The most populous emigration of the 17th century was that of the English, who after a series of wars with the Dutch and French came to dominate theThirteen Colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States and other colonies such as Newfoundland andRupert's Land in what is now Canada.[30]
However, the English, French and Dutch were no more averse to making a profit than the Spanish and Portuguese, and whilst their areas of settlement in the Americas proved to be devoid of the precious metals found by the Spanish, trade in other commodities and products that could be sold at a massive profit in Europe provided another reason for crossing the Atlantic, in particular, furs from Canada, tobacco, and cotton grown inVirginia and sugar in the islands of the Caribbean and Brazil. Due to the massive depletion of indigenous labor, plantation owners had to look elsewhere for manpower for these labor- intensive crops. They turned to the centuries-old slave trade of west Africa and began transporting Africans across the Atlantic on a massive scale – historians estimate that theAtlantic slave trade brought between 10 and 12 million black African slaves to the New World. The islands of the Caribbean soon came to be populated by slaves of African descent, ruled over by a white minority of plantation owners interested in making a fortune and then returning to their home country to spend it.[31]
From its very outset, Western colonialism was operated as a joint public-private venture. Columbus' voyages to the Americas were partially funded by Italian investors, but whereas the Spanish state maintained a tight rein on trade with its colonies (by law, the colonies could only trade with one designated port in the mother country and treasure was brought back in specialconvoys), the English, French and Dutch granted what were effectively trademonopolies tojoint-stock companies such as theEast India Companies and theHudson's Bay Company.[32]
Imperial Russia had no state-sponsored expeditions or colonization in the Americas, but did charter the first Russian joint-stock commercial enterprise, theRussian America Company, which did sponsor those activities in its territories.[33]
In May 1498, thePortuguese set foot inKozhikode inKerala, making them the first Europeans to sail to India. Rivalry among reigning European powers saw the entry of theDutch,English,French,Danish and others. The kingdoms ofIndia were gradually taken over by the Europeans and indirectly controlled by puppet rulers. In 1600, QueenElizabeth I accorded acharter, forming theEast India Company to trade with India and eastern Asia. The English landed in India inSurat in 1612. By the 19th century, they had assumeddirect andindirect control over most of India.
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Aftera period of political instability, theRomanovs came to power in 1613 and the expansion-colonization process ofRussia continued. While western Europe colonized the New World, Russia expanded overland – to the east, north and south. This continued for centuries; by the end of the 19th century, theRussian Empire reached from theBlack Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and for some timeincluded colonies in theAlaska (1732–1867) and a short-livedunofficial colony in Africa (1889) in present-dayDjibouti.[34]The acquisition of new territories, especially in the Caucasus, had an invigorating effect on the rest of Russia. According to two Russian historians:
The first stage to 1650 was an expansion eastward from theUral Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.[36][37] Geographical expeditions mapped much of Siberia. The second stage from 1785 to 1830 looked south to the areas between theBlack Sea and theCaspian Sea. The key areas wereArmenia andGeorgia, with some better penetration of the Ottoman Empire, andPersia. By 1829, Russia controlled all of theCaucasus as shown in theTreaty of Adrianople of 1829. The third era, 1850 to 1860, was a brief interlude jumping to the East Coast, annexing the region from theAmur River toManchuria. The fourth era, 1865 to 1885 incorporated Turkestan, and the northern approaches to India, sparking British fears of a threat to India in theGreat Game.[38]
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During the five decades following 1770, Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal lost many of their possessions in the Americas.
After the conclusion of theSeven Years' War in 1763, Britain had emerged as the world's dominant power but found itself mired in debt and struggling to finance the Navy and Army necessary to maintain a global empire. TheBritish Parliament attempt to raise taxes from North American colonists raised fears among the Americans that their rights as "Englishmen", and particularly their rights of self-government, were in danger.[39]
From 1765, a series of disputes with Parliament over taxation led to theAmerican Revolution, first to informalcommittees of correspondence among the colonies, then to coordinated protest and resistance, with an important event in 1770, theBoston Massacre. Astanding army was formed by theUnited Colonies, andindependence was declared by the SecondContinental Congress on 4 July 1776. A new nation was born, theUnited States of America, and all royal officials were expelled. On their own the Patriots captured a British Invasion army and France recognized the new nation, formed a military alliance, declared war on Britain, and left the superpower without any major ally. TheAmerican War of Independence continued until 1783 when theTreaty of Paris was signed. Britain recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by theBritish possessions to the North,Florida to the South, and the Mississippi River to the west.[40]
TheHaitian Revolution, a slave revolt led byToussaint L'Ouverture in the French colony ofSaint-Domingue, establishedHaïti as a free, blackrepublic, the first of its kind. Haiti became the second independent nation that was a former European colony in theWestern Hemisphere after the United States. Africans and people of African ancestry freed themselves from slavery and colonization by taking advantage of the conflict among whites over how to implement the reforms of theFrench Revolution in this slave society. Although independence was declared in 1804, it was not until 1825 that it was formally recognized byKing Charles X of France.[41]
The gradual decline of Spain as an imperial power throughout the 17th century was hastened by theWar of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), as a result of which it lost its European imperial possessions. The death knell for the Spanish Empire in the Americas was Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 1808. With the installation of his brotherJoseph on the Spanish throne, the main tie between the metropole and its colonies in the Americas, the Spanish monarchy, had been cut, leading the colonists to question their continued subordination to a declining and distant country. With an eye on the events of the American Revolution forty years earlier, revolutionary leaders began bloody wars of independence against Spain, whose armies were ultimately unable to maintain control. By 1831, Spain had been ejected from the mainland of the Americas, leaving a collection of independent republics that stretched from Chile and Argentina in the south to Mexico in the north. Spain's colonial possessions were reduced toCuba,Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and a number of small islands in the Pacific, all of which she was to lose to the United States in the 1898Spanish–American War or sell to Germany shortly thereafter.[42]
Brazil was the only country in Latin America to gain its independence without bloodshed.[43] The invasion of Portugal by Napoleon in 1808 had forced KingJoão VI to escape to Brazil and establish his court in Rio de Janeiro. For thirteen years, Portugal was ruled from Brazil (the only instance of such a reversal of roles between colony and metropole) until his return to Portugal in 1821. His son,Dom Pedro, was left in charge of Brazil and in 1822 he declared independence from Portugal and himself the Emperor of Brazil. Unlike Spain's former colonies which had abandoned the monarchy in favor of republicanism, Brazil, therefore retained its links with its monarchy, theHouse of Braganza.
Vasco da Gama's maritime success to discover for Europeans a new sea route to India in 1498 paved the way for direct Indo-European commerce.[44] The Portuguese soon set up trading-posts inGoa,Daman,Diu andBombay. The next to arrive were theDutch, theEnglish—who set up a trading post in the west-coast port ofSurat in 1619—and the French. The internal conflicts among Indian Kingdoms gave opportunities to the European traders to gradually establish political influence and appropriate lands. Although these continental European powers were to control various regions of southern and eastern India during the ensuing century, they would eventually lose all their territories in India to the British, with the exception of the French outposts ofPondicherry andChandernagore, the Dutch port inTravancore, and the Portuguese colonies ofGoa,Daman, andDiu.
TheEnglish East India Company had been given permission by the Mughal emperorJahangir in 1617 to trade in India.[45] Gradually the company's increasing influence led thede jure Mughal emperorFarrukh Siyar to grant themdastaks or permits for duty-free trade inBengal in 1717.[46] TheNawab of BengalSiraj Ud Daulah, thede facto ruler ofMughal Bengal, opposed British attempts to use these permits. This led to theBattle of Plassey in 1757, in which thearmies of the East India Company, led byRobert Clive, defeated the Nawab's forces. This was the first political foothold with territorial implications that the British had acquired in India. Clive was appointed by the company as its first Governor of Bengal in 1757.[47] This was combined with British victories over the French atMadras,Wandiwash andPondicherry that, along with widerBritish successes during the Seven Years' War, reduced French influence in India. After theBattle of Buxar in 1764, the company acquired the civil rights of administration in Bengal from the Mughal EmperorShah Alam II; it marked the beginning of its formal rule, which was to engulf eventually most of India and extinguish theMoghul rule and dynasty itself in less than a century.[48]The East India Company monopolized the trade of Bengal. They introduced a land taxation system called thePermanent Settlement which introduced afeudal-like structure (SeeZamindar) in theBengal Presidency. By the 1850s, the East India Company controlled most of theIndian subcontinent, which included present-day Pakistan andBangladesh. Their policy was sometimes summed up asDivide and Rule, taking advantage of the enmity festering between various princely states and social and religious groups.
The first major movement against the British Company's high-handed rule resulted in theIndian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the "Indian Mutiny" or "Sepoy Mutiny" or the "First War of Independence". After a year of turmoil, and reinforcement of the East India Company's troops withBritish Army soldiers, the Company overcame the rebellion. The nominal leader of the uprising, the last Mughal emperorBahadur Shah Zafar, was exiled to Burma, his children were beheaded and the Moghul line was abolished. In the aftermath all power was transferred from the East India Company to theBritish Crown, which began to administer most of India as a colony; the company's lands were controlled directly and the rest through the rulers of what it called thePrincely states. There were 565 princely states when the Indian subcontinent gained independence from Britain in August 1947.[49]
During period of theBritish Raj,famines in India, often attributed toEl Nino droughts and failed government policies, were some of the worst ever recorded, including theGreat Famine of 1876–78, in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died and theIndian famine of 1899–1900, in which 1.25 to 10 million people died.[50] TheThird Plague Pandemic started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading plague to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone.[51] Despite persistent diseases and famines, however, the population of theIndian subcontinent, which stood at about 125 million in 1750, had reached 389 million by 1941.[52]
Like the other European colonists, the French began their colonization via commercial activities, starting with the establishment of a factory in Surat in 1668. The French started to settle down in India in 1673, beginning with the purchase of land at Chandernagore from the Mughal Governor of Bengal, followed by the acquisition of Pondicherry from the Sultan of Bijapur the next year. Both became the centers of the maritime commercial activities that the French conducted in India.[53] The French also had trading posts in Mahe,Karikal andYanaon. Similar to the situation inTahiti andMartinique, the French colonial administrative area was insular, but, in India, the French authority was isolated on the peripheries of a British-dominated territory.[54]
By the early eighteenth century, the French had become the chief European rivals of the British. During the eighteenth century, it was highly possible for the Indian subcontinent to have succumbed to French control, but the defeat inflicted on them in the Seven Years War (1756–1763) permanently curtailed French ambitions. TheTreaty of Paris of 1763 restored the original five to the French while making it clear that France could not expand its control beyond these areas.[55]
The beginning of the Portuguese occupation of India can be traced back to the arrival of Vasco da Gama near Calicut on 20 May 1498. Soon after this, other explorers, traders and missionaries followed. By 1515, the Portuguese were the strongest naval power in the Indian Ocean and theMalabar Coast was dominated by them.[56]
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The policy and ideology of European colonial expansion between the 1870s (circa opening ofSuez Canal andSecond Industrial Revolution) and the outbreak ofWorld War I in 1914 are often characterized as the "New Imperialism". The period is distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of what has been termed "empire for empire's sake," aggressive competition for overseas territorial acquisitions, and the emergence in colonizing countries of doctrines of racial superiority which denied the fitness of subjugated peoples for self-government.[57][58]
During this period, Europe's powers added nearly 8,880,000 square miles (23,000,000 km2) to their overseas colonial possessions. As it was mostly unoccupied by the Western powers as late as the 1880s, Africa became the primary target of the "new" imperialist expansion (known as theScramble for Africa), although conquest took place also in other areas – notably south-east Asia and the East Asian seaboard, where Japan joined the European powers' scramble for territory.[59]
TheBerlin Conference (1884–1885) mediated the imperial competition among Britain, France, and Germany, defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of colonial claims and codifying the imposition ofdirect rule, accomplished usually through armed force.
In Germany, risingpan-Germanism was coupled to imperialism in theAlldeutsche Verband ("Pan-Germanic League"), which argued that Britain's world power position gave the British unfair advantages on international markets, thus limiting Germany's economic growth and threatening its security.[60]
Asking whether colonies paid, economic historian Grover Clark argues an emphatic "No!" He reports that in every case the support cost, especially the military system necessary to support and defend the colonies outran the total trade they produced. Apart from the British Empire, they have not favored destinations for the immigration of surplus populations.[61]
Africa was the target of the third wave of European colonialism, after that of the Americas and Asia.[62] Many European statesmen and industrialists wanted to accelerate theScramble for Africa, securing colonies before they strictly needed them. As a champion ofRealpolitik,Bismarck disliked colonies and thought they were a waste of time, but his hand was forced by pressure from both the elites and the general population which considered the colonization a necessity for German prestige. German colonies inTogoland,Samoa,South-West Africa andNew Guinea had corporate commercial roots, while the equivalent German-dominated areas in East Africa and China owed more to political motives. The British also took an interest in Africa, using theEast Africa Company to take over what is now Kenya and Uganda. The British crown formally took over in 1895 and renamed the area the East Africa Protectorate.
Leopold II of Belgium personally owned theCongo Free State from 1885 to 1908, under his rulemany atrocities were committed.[63] Round after round of international scandal regarding the brutal treatment of native workers forced the Belgium government to take full ownership and responsibility.
TheDutch Empire continued to hold theDutch East Indies, which was one of the few profitable overseas colonies.
In the same manner,Italy tried to conquer its "place in the sun," acquiringSomaliland in 1899–90,Eritrea and 1899, and, taking advantage of the "Sick man of Europe," theOttoman Empire, also conqueredTripolitania andCyrenaica (modernLibya) with the 1911Italo–Turkish War. The conquest ofEthiopia, which had remained the last African independent territory, had to wait until theSecond Italo–Abyssinian War in 1935–36 (theFirst Italo–Ethiopian War in 1895–96 had ended in defeat for Italy).
ThePortuguese andSpanish colonial empire were smaller, mostly legacies of past colonization. Most of their colonies had acquired independence during theLatin American revolutions at the beginning of the 19th century.
In Asia, theGreat Game, which lasted from 1813 to 1907, opposed theBritish Empire againstImperial Russia for supremacy inCentral Asia.China was opened to Western influence starting with theFirst andSecond Opium Wars (1839–1842; 1856–1860). After the visits of CommodoreMatthew Perry in 1852–1854, Japan opened itself to the Western world during theMeiji period (1868–1912).
Imperialism also took place inBurma,Indonesia (Netherlands East Indies),Malaya and thePhilippines. Burma had been under British rule for nearly a hundred years, however, it was always considered an "imperial backwater". This accounts for the fact that Burma does not have an obvious colonial legacy and is not a part of the Commonwealth. In the beginning, in the mid-1820s, Burma was administered from Penang in Britain'sStraits Settlements. However, it was soon brought within British India, of which it remained a part until 1937.[64] Burma was governed as a province of India, not considered very important, and barely any accommodation was made to Burmese political culture or sensitivities. As reforms began to move India towards independence, Burma was simply dragged along.[65]
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The colonial map was redrawn following the defeat of theGerman Empire and theOttoman Empire after theWorld War I (1914–18). Colonies from the defeated empires were transferred to the newly foundedLeague of Nations, which itself redistributed it to the victorious powers as"mandates". The secret 1916Sykes–Picot Agreement partitioned the Middle East between Britain and France. French mandates includedSyria andLebanon, whilst the British were grantedIraq andPalestine. The bulk of theArabian Peninsula became the independent Kingdom ofSaudi Arabia in 1922. The discovery of the world's largest easily accessible crude oil deposits led to an influx of Westernoil companies that dominated the region's economies until the 1970s, and making the emirs of the oil states immensely rich, enabling them to consolidate their hold on power and giving them a stake in preserving Western hegemony over the region. During the 1920 and 1930sIraq,Syria andEgypt moved towards independence, although the British and French did not formally depart the region until they were forced to do so after World War II.[66]
For Japan, the second half of the nineteenth century was a period of internal turmoil succeeded by a period of rapid development.[67] After being closed for centuries to Western influence, Japan was forced by the United States to open itself to the West during theMeiji Era (1868–1912), characterized by swift modernization and borrowings from European culture (in law, science, etc.) This, in turn, helped make Japan the modern power that it is now, which was symbolized as soon as the 1904–1905Russo–Japanese War: this war marked the first victory of an Asian power against a European imperial power, and led to widespread fears among European populations. During the first part of the 20th century, while China was still subject to various European imperialisms, Japan became an imperialist power, conquering what it called a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".
With the final revision of treaties in 1894, Japan may be considered to have joined the family of nations on a basis of equality with the western states. From this same time imperialism became a dominant motive in Japanese policy.
Imperial Japan won conflicts against theQing dynasty and gained control of Korea and Taiwan when theTreaty of Shimonoseki was concluded in 1895. In 1910, Korea was formally annexed by theEmpire of Japan. TheJapanese colonization of Korea saw rapid modernization of the peninsula and there was brutal treatment of civilians such as Koreancomfort women who were forced to serve in brothels for theImperial Japanese Armed Forces.[68]
In 1931 Japanese army units based inManchuria seized control of the region and created the puppet state ofManchukuo.Full-scale war with China followed in 1937, drawing Japan toward an overambitious bid for Asian hegemony (Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere), which ultimately led to defeat and the loss of all its overseas territories after World War II (see Japanese expansionism and Japanese nationalism). TheImperial Japanese Army committed atrocities exemplified by the Nanjing Massacre.[69]
Lebensraum (German pronunciation:[ˈleːbənsˌʁaʊm]ⓘ,lit. 'living space') is a German concept ofexpansionism andVölkisch nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901,[73]Lebensraum became ageopolitical goal of theGerman Empire inWorld War I (1914–1918), as the core element of theSeptemberprogramm of territorial expansion.[74] The most extreme form of this ideology was promoted and initiated by theNazi Party, that had ruledNazi Germany, whose ultimate goal of which was to establish aGreater German Reich.Lebensraum was a leading motivation of Nazi Germany to initiateWorld War II, and it would continue this policy untilthe end of the conflict.[75]
FollowingAdolf Hitler's rise to power,Lebensraum became an ideological principle ofNazism and provided justification for the German territorial expansion intoCentral and Eastern Europe.[76] The Nazi policyGeneralplan Ost (lit. 'Master Plan for the East') was based on its tenets. It stipulated that Germany required aLebensraum necessary for its survival and that most of the populations of Central and Eastern Europe would have to be removed permanently (either through mass deportation toSiberia, extermination, or enslavement), includingPolish,Ukrainian,Russian,Belarusian,Czech, and otherSlavic nations considered non-Aryan. The Nazi government aimed at repopulating these lands with Germanic colonists in the name ofLebensraum during and following World War II.[77][78][79][80] Entire populations wereravaged by starvation; any agricultural surplus was used to feed Germany.[77] TheJewish population was to beexterminated outright.
Hitler's strategic program for Greater Germany was based on the belief in the power ofLebensraum, especially when pursued by a racially superior society.[78] People deemed to be part of non-Aryan races, within the territory ofLebensraum expansion, were subjected to expulsion or destruction.[78] Theeugenics ofLebensraum assumed it to be the right of the German Aryanmaster race (Herrenvolk) to remove the indigenous people in the name of their own living space. They took inspiration for this concept from outside Germany, particularly theEuropean colonization of North America.[78] Hitler and Nazi officials took a particular interest inmanifest destiny, and attempted to replicate it in occupied Europe.[80] Nazi Germany also supported otherAxis powers' expansionist ideologies such asFascist Italy'sspazio vitale and theEmpire of Japan'shakkō ichiu.[81]
Anti-colonialist movements had begun to gain momentum after the close of World War I, which had seen colonial troops fight alongside those of the metropole, and U.S. PresidentWoodrow Wilson's speech on theFourteen Points. However, it was not until the end of World War II that they were fully mobilized. British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill and U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt's 1941Atlantic Charter declared that the signatories would "respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live". Though Churchill subsequently claimed this applied only to those countries under Nazi occupation, rather than the British Empire, the words were not so easily retracted: for example, the legislative assembly of Britain's most important colony, India, passed a resolution stating that the Charter should apply to it too.[85]
In 1945, theUnited Nations (UN) was founded when 50 nations signed theUN Charter,[86] which included a statement of its basis in the respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. In 1952, demographerAlfred Sauvy coined the term "Third World" in reference to the FrenchThird Estate.[87] The expression distinguished nations that aligned themselves with neither theWest nor theSoviet Bloc during theCold War. In the following decades, decolonization would strengthen this group which began to be represented at the United Nations. The Third World's first international move was the1955 Bandung Conference, led byJawaharlal Nehru forIndia,Gamal Abdel Nasser forEgypt andJosip Broz Tito forYugoslavia. The Conference, which gathered 29 countries representing over half the world's population, led to the creation of theNon-Aligned Movement in 1961.[88]
Although the U.S. had first opposed itself to colonial empires, the Cold War concerns about Soviet influence in the Third World caused it to downplay its advocacy of popular sovereignty and decolonization. France thus received financial support in theFirst Indochina War (1946–54) and the U.S. did not interfere in theAlgerian War of Independence (1954–62). Decolonization itself was a seemingly unstoppable process. In 1960, after a number countries gained independence, the UN had reached 99 members states: thedecolonization of Africa was almost complete. In 1980, the UN had 154 member states, and in 1990, afterNamibia's independence, 159 states.[89]Hong Kong andMacau transferred sovereignty toChina in 1997 and 1999 finally marked the end of European colonial era.
TheSoviet Union was a main supporter of decolonization movements and communist parties across the world that denounced imperialism and colonization.[90] While theNon-Aligned Movement, created in 1961 following theBandung 1955 Conference, was supposedly neutral, the "Third World" being opposed to both the "First" and the "Second" Worlds,geopolitical concerns, as well as the refusal of the U.S. to support decolonization movements against its NATO European allies, led the national liberation movements to look increasingly toward the East. However, China's appearance on the world scene, under the leadership ofMao Zedong, created a rupture between the Soviet and Chinese factions in Communist parties around the world, all of which opposed imperialism.[91]Cuba, with Soviet financing, send combat troops to help left-wing independence movements inAngola andMozambique.[92]
Globally, the non-aligned movement, led byJawaharlal Nehru (India),Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia) andGamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt) tried to create a block of nations powerful enough to be dependent on neither the United States nor the Soviet Union, but finally tilted towards the Soviet Union, while smaller independence movements, both by strategic necessity and ideological choice, were supported either by Moscow or by Beijing. Few independence movements were totally independent of foreign aid.[93] In the 1960s and 1970s,Leonid Brezhnev andMao Zedong gave influential support to those newly African governments which many became one-party socialist states.
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According to Dietmar Rothermund, there is a lack of public awareness about the colonial history in Britain and France.[94]
Postcolonialism is a term used to recognize the continued and troubling presence and influence of colonialism within the period designated as after-the-colonial. It refers to the ongoing effects that colonial encounters, dispossession and power have in shaping the familiar structures (social, political, spatial, uneven global interdependencies) of the present world. Postcolonialism, in itself, questions the end of colonialism.[95]
Neocolonialism is the control by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominallyindependent state (usually, a former colony) through indirect means.[96][97][98] The termneocolonialism was first used after World War II to refer to the continuing dependence of former colonies on foreign countries, but its meaning soon broadened to apply, more generally, to places where the power of developed countries was used to produce a colonial-like exploitation.[98]
Neocolonialism takes the form ofeconomic imperialism,globalization,cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence or control a developing country instead of the previouscolonial methods ofdirect military control or indirect political control (hegemony). Neocolonialism differs from standard globalisation anddevelopment aid in that it typically results in a relationship of dependence, subservience, or financial obligation towards the neocolonialist nation.
Coined by the French philosopherJean-Paul Sartre in 1956,[99][100] it was first used byKwame Nkrumah in the context ofAfrican countries undergoing decolonisation in the 1960s. Neocolonialism is discussed in Sartre's works such asColonialism and Neocolonialism, 1964)[101] andNoam Chomsky'sThe Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, 1979.[102]This book approaches the history of Europe in the High Middle Ages [...] by concentrating on conquest, colonization and associated cultural change in Europe and the Mediterranean in the period 950-1350. It analyzes the establishment of states by conquest and the peopling of distant countries by immigrants along the peripheries of the continent: English colonialism in the Celtic world, the movement of Germans into eastern Europe, the Spanish Reconquest and the activities ofcrusaders and colonists in the eastern Mediterranean.
Prawer [...] remarked on the shift of interest from 'the crusades as a movement to the history of Crusader establishments in the East' and to 'the European colonies on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean' [...]. [...] there has been a vigorous debate over the question of whether or not the Latin states should be regarded as colonies in the modern (and characteristically pejorative) sense of the term.
The conquest of the Canary Islands was the learning ground and laboratory of European settler colonialism, later developed on a far larger scale in the Americas, starting in the Caribbean.
Commentators have identified three broad waves of European colonial and imperial expansion, connected with specific territories. The first targeted the Americas, North and South, as well as the Caribbean. The second focused on Asia, while the third wave extended European control into Africa.