History of colonialism

The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time.
Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Han
Chinese, and Arabs.

Extent of colonization by European, American, Ottoman, and

Japanese powers, 1492-1991

Map of the year each country achieved independence.

Colonialism in the modern sense began with the "Age of Discovery", led by the Portuguese, who
became increasingly expansionist following the conquest of Ceuta in 1415, aiming to control
navigation through the Strait of Gibraltar, spread Christianity, amass wealth and plunder, and
suppress predation on Portuguese populations by Barbary pirates as part of a longstanding African
slave trade; at that point a minor trade, one the Portuguese would soon reverse and surpass. Around
1450, based on North African fishing boats, a lighter ship was developed, the caravel, which could
sail further and faster,[1] was highly maneuverable, and could sail "into the wind".

Enabled by new nautical technology, with the added incentive to find an alternative "Silk Road" after
the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Empire effectively closed profitable trade routes
with Asia, early European exploration of Africa was followed by the Spanish exploration of the
Americas, further exploration along the coasts of Africa, and explorations of West Asia (also known
as the Middle East), South Asia, and East Asia.
The conquest of the Canary Islands by the Crown of Castile, from 1402 to 1496, has been described
as the first instance of European settler colonialism in Africa. In 1462, the previously uninhabited
Cape Verde archipelago became the first European settlement in the tropics, and thereafter a site of
Jewish exile during the height of the Spanish Inquisition in the 1490s; the Portuguese soon also
brought slaves from the West African coast. Because of the economics of plantations, especially
sugar, European colonial expansion and slavery would remain linked into the 1800s. The use of exile
to penal colonies would also continue.

The European "discovery" of the New World, as named by Amerigo Vespucci in 1503, opened
another colonial chapter, beginning with the colonization of the Caribbean in 1493 with Hispaniola
(later to become Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The Portuguese and Spanish Empires were the
first global empires because they were the first to stretch across different continents (discounting
Eurasian empires 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
the Spanish monarchs in personal union. During the late 16th and 17th centuries, England, France,
and the Dutch Republic also established their own overseas empires, in direct competition with one
another.

The end of the 18th and mid 19th century saw the first era of decolonization, when most of the
European colonies in the Americas, notably those of Spain, New France, and the Thirteen Colonies,
gained their independence from their metropole. The Kingdom of Great Britain (uniting Scotland and
England), France, Portugal, and the Dutch turned their attention to the Old World, particularly South
Africa and South Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, where coastal enclaves had already been
established.

In the 19th century, the Second Industrial Revolution led to what has been termed the era of New
Imperialism, when the pace of colonization rapidly accelerated, the height of which was the
Scramble for Africa, in which Belgium, Germany, and Italy were also participants.

There were deadly battles between colonizing states and revolutions from colonized areas shaping
areas of control and establishing independent nations. During the 20th century, the colonies of the
defeated central powers in World War I were distributed amongst the victors as mandates, but it
was not until the end of World War II that the second phase of decolonization began in earnest.
Periodisation

Colonial powers and their expansion since 1492.

Some commentators identify three waves of European colonialism.[2]

The two main countries in the first wave of European colonialism were Portugal and Spain.[3] 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 the
colonization of the Americas, basing their territorial claims on the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. This
treaty demarcated the respective spheres of influence of Spain and Portugal.[4]

The expansion achieved by Spain and Portugal caught the attention of Britain, France, and the
Netherlands.[5] The entrance of these three powers into the Caribbean and North America
perpetuated European colonialism in these regions.[6]

The second wave of European colonialism commenced with Britain's involvement in Asia in support
of the British East India Company; other countries such as France, Portugal and the Netherlands
also had involvement in European expansion in Asia.[7][8]

The third wave ("New Imperialism") consisted of the Scramble for Africa regulated by the terms of
the Berlin 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.[9][10]

Gilmartin argues that these three waves of colonialism were linked to capitalism. The first wave of
European expansion involved exploring the world to find new revenue and perpetuating European
feudalism. The second wave focused on developing the mercantile capitalism system and the
manufacturing industry in Europe. The last wave of European colonialism solidified all capitalistic
endeavours by providing new markets and raw materials.[11]
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, and Turkey as well
as North Yemen, the former independent country which is now part of Yemen.[12]

Colonialism in ancient times (3200 BC – 7th century AD)

Arab colonization: North Africa and the Middle East (7th

century–8th century)

Portuguese and Spanish colonial hegemony: the Americas

(15th century–1770)

A map with Elmina Castle ("Mina"),

Ghana, one in a chain of about fifty
fortified factories to enforce
Portuguese trade rule along the coast,
1563.
 Preperations before the Fall of
Tenochtitlan, Codex Durán.

European colonization of both Eastern and Western Hemispheres has its roots in Portuguese
exploration. There were financial and religious motives behind this exploration. By finding the source
of the lucrative spice trade, the Portuguese could reap its profits for themselves. They would also be
able to probe the existence of the fabled Christian kingdom of Prester John, with an eye to
encircling the Islamic Ottoman Empire, itself gaining territories and colonies in Eastern Europe. The
first foothold outside of Europe was gained with the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. During the 15th
century, Portuguese sailors discovered the Atlantic islands of Madeira, Azores, and Cape Verde,
which were duly populated, and pressed progressively further along the west African coast until
Bartolomeu Dias demonstrated it was possible to sail around Africa by rounding the Cape of Good
Hope in 1488, paving the way for Vasco da Gama to reach India in 1498.[13]

Portuguese successes led to Spanish financing of a mission by Christopher Columbus in 1492 to

explore an alternative route to Asia, by sailing west. When Columbus eventually made landfall in the
Caribbean Antilles he believed he had reached the coast of India, and that the people he
encountered there were Indians with red skin. This is why Native Americans have been called
Indians or red-Indians. In truth, Columbus had arrived on a continent that was new to the Europeans,
the Americas. After Columbus' first trips, competing Spanish and Portuguese claims to new
territories and sea routes were solved with the Treaty 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 of Cape Verde. According to this
international agreement, the larger part of the Americas and the Pacific Ocean were open to Spanish
exploration and colonization, while Africa, the Indian Ocean, and most of Asia were assigned to
Portugal.[14]

The boundaries specified by the Treaty of Tordesillas were put to the test in 1521 when Ferdinand
Magellan and his Spanish sailors (among other Europeans), sailing for the Spanish Crown became
the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean,[15] reaching Guam 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 the Treaty 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.[16]

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 as Mozambique, 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 Spanish conquistadors established the vast
Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru, and later of Río de la Plata (Argentina) and New 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 as Goa, Malacca and Macau), 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 the indigenous
population.[17]

Spanish treatment of the indigenous populations caused a fierce debate, the Valladolid Controversy,
over whether Indians possessed souls and if so, whether they were entitled to the basic rights of
mankind. Bartolomé de Las Casas, author of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,
championed the cause of the native peoples, and was opposed by Sepúlveda, who claimed
Amerindians were "natural slaves".[18]

The Roman Catholic Church played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities. The
Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans, notably Francis Xavier in Asia and Junípero Serra in North
America, were particularly active in this endeavour. Many buildings erected by the Jesuits still stand,
such as the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Macau and the Santisima Trinidad de Paraná in Paraguay, the
latter an example of the Jesuit Reductions. The Dominican and Franciscan buildings of California's
missions and New Mexico's missions stand restored, such as Mission Santa Barbara in Santa
Barbara, California and San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico.[19]
 Map indicating the territories
colonized by the European powers
over the Americas in 1750 (mainly
Spain, Portugal, and France at the
time).

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 as Potosí and Zacatecas in New Spain, the Portuguese from the
huge markups they enjoyed as trade intermediaries, particularly during the Nanban Japan trade
period. The influx of precious metals to the Spanish monarchy's coffers allowed it to finance costly
religious 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.[20]

Northern European challenges to the Iberian hegemony

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 to Francis 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 by Francis Drake) on Spanish treasure
fleets or coastal settlements.[21] 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 as
Aruba, Martinique, and Barbados, that had been abandoned by the Spanish in favor of the mainland
and larger islands.[22]
Whereas Spanish colonialism was based on the religious conversion and exploitation of local
populations via encomiendas (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, the Mayflower 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 the Thirteen Colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States and other
colonies such as Newfoundland and Rupert's Land in what is now Canada.[23]

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 in Virginia 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 labour-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 the Atlantic 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.[24]

Role of companies in early colonialism

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 special convoys), the
English, French and Dutch granted what were effectively trade monopolies to joint-stock companies
such as the East India Companies and the Hudson's Bay Company.[25]

Imperial Russia had no state-sponsored expeditions or colonization in the Americas, but did charter
the first Russian joint-stock commercial enterprise, the Russian America Company, which did
sponsor those activities in its territories.[26]
European colonies in India

Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar at

the Battle of Plassey in 1757, painted
by Francis Hayman

In May 1498, the Portuguese set foot in Kozhikode in Kerala, making them the first Europeans to sail
to India. Rivalry among reigning European powers saw the entry of the Dutch, English, French,
Danish and others. The kingdoms of India were gradually taken over by the Europeans and indirectly
controlled by puppet rulers. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I accorded a charter, forming the East India
Company to trade with India and eastern Asia. The English landed in India in Surat in 1612. By the
19th century, they had assumed direct and indirect control over most of India.

Colonialism within Europe (16th–20th century)

Imperial Russia: Central Asia and Siberia (16th–20th century)

Territorial evolution of Russia from 1547 to 1725

After a period of political instability, the Romanovs came to power in 1613 and the expansion-
colonization process of Russia 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, the Russian Empire reached from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and for some
time included colonies in the Alaska (1732–1867) and a short-lived unofficial colony in Africa (1889)
in present-day Djibouti.[27] The acquisition of new territories, especially in the Caucasus, had an
invigorating effect on the rest of Russia. According to two Russian historians:

the culture of Russia and that of the Caucasian peoples interacted in a reciprocally beneficial
manner. The turbulent tenor of life in the Caucasus, the mountain peoples' love of freedom, and
their willingness to die for independence were felt far beyond the local interaction of the
Caucasian peoples and coresident Russians: they injected a potent new spirit into the thinking
and creative work of Russia's progressives, strengthened the liberationist aspirations of Russian
writers and exiled Decembrists, and influenced distinguished Russian democrats, poets, and
prose writers, including Alexander Griboyedov, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, and Leo
Tolstoy. These writers, who generally supported the Caucasian fight for liberation, went beyond
the chauvinism of the colonial autocracy and rendered the Caucasian peoples' cultures accessible
to the Russian intelligentsia. At the same time, Russian culture exerted an influence on Caucasian
cultures, bolstering positive aspects while weakening the impact of the Caucasian peoples'
reactionary feudalism and reducing the internecine fighting between tribes and clans.[28]

Expansion into Asia

The first stage to 1650 was an expansion eastward from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific
Ocean.[29][30] Geographical expeditions mapped much of Siberia. The second stage from 1785 to
1830 looked south to the areas between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The key areas were
Armenia and Georgia, with some better penetration of the Ottoman Empire, and Persia. By 1829,
Russia controlled all of the Caucasus as shown in the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829. The third era,
1850 to 1860, was a brief interlude jumping to the East Coast, annexing the region from the Amur
River to Manchuria. The fourth era, 1865 to 1885 incorporated Turkestan, and the northern
approaches to India, sparking British fears of a threat to India in the Great Game.[31]

Maritime South–East Asia and the Dutch East India Company

(16th–20th century)

First decolonization: Independence in the Americas (1770–

1820)

During the five decades following 1770, Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal lost many of their
possessions in the Americas.
Britain and the Thirteen Colonies

After the conclusion of the Seven 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. The British Parliament's 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.[32]

From 1765, a series of disputes with Parliament over taxation led to the American Revolution, first to
informal committees of correspondence among the colonies, then to coordinated protest and
resistance, with an important event in 1770, the Boston Massacre. A standing army was formed by
the United Colonies, and independence was declared by the Second Continental Congress on 4 July
1776. A new nation was born, the United 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.
The American War of Independence continued until 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed.
Britain recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by the British
possessions to the North, Florida to the South, and the Mississippi River to the west.[33]

France and the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804)

The Haitian Revolution, a slave revolt led by Toussaint L'Ouverture in the French colony of Saint-
Domingue, established Haïti as a free, black republic, the first of its kind. Haiti became the second
independent nation that was a former European colony in the Western 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 the French
Revolution in this slave society. Although independence was declared in 1804, it was not until 1825
that it was formally recognized by King Charles X of France.[34]
Spain and the Wars of Independence in Latin America

Independent states in the Americas,

c. 1830.

The gradual decline of Spain as an imperial power throughout the 17th century was hastened by the
War 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 brother Joseph 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 to Cuba, 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 1898
Spanish–American War or sell to Germany shortly thereafter.[35]

Portugal and Brazil

Brazil was the only country in Latin America to gain its independence without bloodshed. The
invasion of Portugal by Napoleon in 1808 had forced King João 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, the House of Braganza.
Indian subcontinent and the British Raj (18th century–1947)

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.[36] The Portuguese soon set up trading-posts in
Goa, Daman, Diu and Bombay. The next to arrive were the Dutch, the English—who set up a trading
post in the west-coast port of Surat 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 of Pondicherry and Chandernagore,
the Dutch port in Travancore, and the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Daman, and Diu.

The British in India

The British Indian Empire and

surrounding countries in 1909

The English East India Company had been given permission by the Mughal emperor Jahangir in
1617 to trade in India.[37] Gradually the company's increasing influence led the de jure Mughal
emperor Farrukh Siyar to grant them dastaks or permits for duty-free trade in Bengal in 1717.[38] The
Nawab of Bengal Siraj Ud Daulah, the de facto ruler of Mughal Bengal, opposed British attempts to
use these permits. This led to the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which the armies of the East India
Company, led by Robert 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.[39] This was combined with British victories over the French at
Madras, Wandiwash and Pondicherry that, along with wider British successes during the Seven
Years' War, reduced French influence in India. After the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the company
acquired the civil rights of administration in Bengal from the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II; it
marked the beginning of its formal rule, which was to engulf eventually most of India and extinguish
the Moghul rule and dynasty itself in less than a century.[40] The East India Company monopolized
the trade of Bengal. They introduced a land taxation system called the Permanent Settlement which
introduced a feudal-like structure (See Zamindar) in the Bengal Presidency. By the 1850s, the East
India Company controlled most of the Indian subcontinent, which included present-day Pakistan and
Bangladesh. Their policy was sometimes summed up as Divide 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 the Indian
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 with
British Army soldiers, the Company overcame the rebellion. The nominal leader of the uprising, the
last Mughal emperor Bahadur 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 the British 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 the Princely states. There were
565 princely states when the Indian subcontinent gained independence from Britain in August
1947.[41]

During period of the British Raj, famines in India, often attributed to El Nino droughts and failed
government policies, were some of the worst ever recorded, including the Great Famine of 1876–78,
in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died and the Indian famine of 1899–1900, in which 1.25
to 10 million people died.[42] The Third 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.[43]
Despite persistent diseases and famines, however, the population of the Indian subcontinent, which
stood at about 125 million in 1750, had reached 389 million by 1941.[44]

Other European empires in India

European settlements in India (1501–

1739)

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.[45]
The French also had trading posts in Mahe, Karikal and Yanaon. Similar to the situation in Tahiti and
Martinique, the French colonial administrative area was insular, but, in India, the French authority
was isolated on the peripheries of a British-dominated territory.[46]

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. The Treaty 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.[47]

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 the
Malabar Coast was dominated by them.[48]

Colonization of Oceania and the Pacific Islands (18th–20th

century)

New Imperialism: Africa and East Asia (1870–1914)

Empires of the world in 1910

The policy and ideology of European colonial expansion between the 1870s (circa opening of Suez
Canal and Second Industrial Revolution) and the outbreak of World 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.[49][50]

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 the Scramble
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.[51]

The Berlin 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 of direct rule, accomplished usually through armed force.

In Germany, rising pan-Germanism was coupled to imperialism in the Alldeutsche Verband

("Pangermanic 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.[52]

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.[53]

The Scramble for Africa

European territories in Africa, 1914,

following the Scramble for Africa.
 Satirical drawing: "The modern
civilization of Europeː France in
Morocco & England in Egypt", A.H.
Zaki, 1908-1914

Africa was the target of the third wave of European colonialism, after that of the Americas and
Asia.[54] Many European statesmen and industrialists wanted to accelerate the Scramble for Africa,
securing colonies before they strictly needed them. As a champion of Realpolitik, 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 in Togoland, Samoa, South-West Africa and New 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 the East 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 the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, under his rule
many atrocities were committed.[55] Round after round of international scandal regarding the brutal
treatment of native workers forced the Belgium government to take full ownership and
responsibility.

The Dutch Empire continued to hold the Dutch East Indies, which was one of the few profitable
overseas colonies.

In the same manner, Italy tried to conquer its "place in the sun," acquiring Somaliland in 1899–90,
Eritrea and 1899, and, taking advantage of the "Sick man of Europe," the Ottoman Empire, also
conquered Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (modern Libya) with the 1911 Italo-Turkish War. The conquest
of Ethiopia, which had remained the last African independent territory, had to wait until the Second
Italo-Abyssinian War in 1935–36 (the First Italo-Ethiopian War in 1895–96 had ended in defeat for
Italy).

The Portuguese and Spanish colonial empire were smaller, mostly legacies of past colonization.
Most of their colonies had acquired independence during the Latin American revolutions at the
beginning of the 19th century.

Imperialism in Asia

In Asia, the Great Game, which lasted from 1813 to 1907, opposed the British Empire against
Imperial Russia for supremacy in Central Asia. China was opened to Western influence starting with
the First and Second Opium Wars (1839–1842; 1856–1860). After the visits of Commodore
Matthew Perry in 1852–1854, Japan opened itself to the Western world during the Meiji period
(1868–1912).

Imperialism also took place in Burma, Indonesia (Netherlands East Indies), Malaya and the
Philippines. 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's Straits Settlements. However, it was soon brought within
British India, of which it remained a part until 1937.[56] 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.[57]

Interwar period (1918–1939)

The colonial map was redrawn following the defeat of the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire
after the World War I (1914–18). Colonies from the defeated empires were transferred to the newly
founded League of Nations, which itself redistributed it to the victorious powers as "mandates". The
secret 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement partitioned the Middle East between Britain and France. French
mandates included Syria and Lebanon, whilst the British were granted Iraq and Palestine. The bulk
of the Arabian Peninsula became the independent Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1922. The discovery
of the world's largest easily accessible crude oil deposits led to an influx of Western oil 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 1930s Iraq, Syria and Egypt
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.[58]
Japanese imperialism

The Japanese Empire in 1939

For Japan, the second half of the nineteenth century was a period of internal turmoil succeeded by a
period of rapid development.[59] After being closed for centuries to Western influence, Japan was
forced by the United States to open itself to the West during the Meiji 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 1904–1905 Russo-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 the Qing dynasty and gained control of Korea and Taiwan
when the Treaty of Shimonoseki was concluded in 1895. In 1910, Korea was formally annexed by
the Japanese Empire. The Japanese colonization of Korea saw rapid modernization of the
peninsula and there was brutal treatment of civilians such as Korean comfort women who were
forced to serve in brothels for the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces.[60]

In 1931 Japanese army units based in Manchuria seized control of the region and created the
puppet state of Manchukuo. 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). The Imperial Japanese Army committed atrocities
exemplified by the Nanjing Massacre.[61]
Ottoman colonialism

Second decolonization: Worldwide (1945–1999)

Dates of independence of African

countries.

Anticolonialist 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. President Woodrow Wilson's
speech on the Fourteen Points. However, it was not until the end of World War II that they were fully
mobilised. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941
Atlantic 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.[62]

In 1945, the United Nations (UN) was founded when 50 nations signed the UN Charter,[63] which
included a statement of its basis in the respect for the principle of equal rights and self-
determination of peoples. In 1952, demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the term "Third World" in
reference to the French Third Estate.[64] The expression distinguished nations that aligned
themselves with neither the West nor the Soviet Bloc during the Cold 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 the 1955 Bandung Conference, led by Jawaharlal
Nehru for India, Gamal Abdel Nasser for Egypt and Josip Broz Tito for Yugoslavia. The Conference,
which gathered 29 countries representing over half the world's population, led to the creation of the
Non-Aligned Movement in 1961.[65]
 World map of colonization at the end of the Second
World War in 1945

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 the First Indochina War (1946–54) and the
U.S. did not interfere in the Algerian 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: the decolonization of Africa was almost complete. In 1980, the UN
had 154 member states, and in 1990, after Namibia's independence, 159 states.[66] Hong Kong and
Macau transferred sovereignty to China in 1997 and 1999 finally marked the end of European
colonial era.

Role of the Soviet Union and China

The Soviet Union was a main supporter of decolonization movements and communist parties
across the world that denounced imperialism and colonization.[67] While the Non-Aligned
Movement, created in 1961 following the Bandung 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 of Mao Zedong, created a rupture between the
Soviet and Chinese factions in Communist parties around the world, all of which opposed
imperialism.[68] Cuba, with Soviet financing, send combat troops to help left-wing independence
movements in Angola and Mozambique.[69]

Globally, the non-aligned movement, led by Jawaharlal Nehru (India), Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia)
and Gamal 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.[70] In the 1960s and 1970s, Leonid Brezhnev and Mao Zedong gave influential support
to those newly African governments which many became one-party socialist states.

Public awareness

According to Dietmar Rothermund, there is a lack of public awareness about the colonial history in
Britain and France.[71]

Postcolonialism

Map of the European Union in the world,

with Overseas Countries and Territories
and Outermost Regions.

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.[72]

See also

Settler colonialism

Analysis of Western European colonialism and colonization

Western imperialism in Asia

Historiography of the British Empire

Neocolonialism

American imperialism

Soviet empire
 Zionism as settler colonialism

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Osterhammel, Jürgen: Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, (M. Wiener, 1997).

Page, Melvin E. et al. eds. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia
(3 vol 2003)

Panikkar, K. M. Asia and Western dominance, 1498–1945 (1953)

Porter, Andrew N. European Imperialism, 1860–1914 (Macmillan International Higher Education,

2016).

Priestley, Herbert Ingram. France overseas: a study of modern imperialism (Routledge, 2018).

Stern, Jacques. The French Colonies (1944) online (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.18

3864) , comprehensive history

Thomas, Hugh. Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire (2010)

Townsend, Mary Evelyn. European colonial expansion since 1871 (1941).

Primary sources
Melvin E. Page, ed. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (2003)
vol 3 pp 833–1209 contains major documents.

Bonnie G. Smith, ed. Imperialism: A History in Documents (2000) for middle and high schools