Colonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies In politics and in history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception. The metropolitan state is the state that owns in one territory by people from another territory. Colonialism is a process whereby sovereignty Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided. The concept has been discussed, debated and questioned throughout history, from the time of the Romans through to the present day, over the colony is claimed by the metropole The metropole, from the Greek Metropolis 'mother city' was the name given to the British metropolitan centre of the British Empire, i.e. the United Kingdom itself. This was even extended, such that London became the metropole of the British Empire, insofar as its politicians and businessmen determined the economic, diplomatic, and military and social structure Social structure is a term used in the social sciences to refer to patterned social arrangements which form the society as a whole, and which determine, to some varying degree, the actions of the individuals socialised into that structure. Whereas 'structure' refers to "the macro", "agency" refers to "the micro", government A government is the organization, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects and economics Economics is the social science that is concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek οἰκονομία from οἶκος (oikos, "house") + νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the house(hold)". Current within the territory of the colony are changed by the colonists. Colonialism is a certain set of unequal relationships, between metropole and colony and between colonists and the indigenous population Indigenous peoples are people, communities, and nations who claim a historical continuity and cultural affinity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies which sprung up on their original territories, and therefore consider themselves distinct from societies of the majority culture/s that have contested their cultural sovereignty and self-.

Colonialism normally refers to a period of history from the 15th to the 20th century when people from Europe Europe is one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean and established colonies on other continents. The reasons for the practice of colonialism at this time include:

• The profits In neoclassical economics, economic profit, or profit, is the difference between a firm's total revenue and its opportunity costs. In classical economics profit is the return to the employer of capital stock in any productive pursuit involving labor. These two definitions are actually the same. In both instances economic profit is the return to an to be made.
• To expand the power Power in international relations is defined in several different ways. Political scientists, historians, and practitioners of international relations have used the following concepts of political power: of the metropole.
• To escape persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms in the metropole.
• To spread the colonists way of life including religion Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or in general a set of beliefs explaining the existence of and giving meaning to the universe, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs and political philosophy Political philosophy is the study of such as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a.

Some colonists also felt they were helping the indigenous population by bringing them civilization Civilization is a term used to describe a certain kind of development of a human society. A civilized society is often characterized by advanced agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism. Aside from these core elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a. However, the reality was often subjugation, displacement or death.

Colonialism and imperialism Imperialism, as defined by The Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." Imperialism has been described as a primarily western concept that employs " were ideologically linked with mercantilism Mercantilism is an economic theory, thought to be a form of economic nationalism, that holds that the prosperity of a nation is dependent upon its supply of capital, and that the global volume of international trade is "unchangeable". Economic assets are represented by bullion (gold, silver, and trade value) held by the state, which is.^[1]

Definitions of colonialism

Collins English Dictionary defines colonialism as "the policy of acquiring and maintaining colonies, especially for exploitation."^[2]

The Merriam-Webster Merriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language Dictionary offers four definitions including "something characteristic of a colony" and "control by one power over a dependent area or people".^[3]

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a freely-accessible online encyclopedia of philosophy maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from over 65 academic institutions worldwide. Authors contributing to the Encyclopedia give Stanford University the permission to "uses the term colonialism to describe the process of European settlement and political control over the rest of the world, including Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia." It discusses the distinction between colonialism and imperialism and states that "Given the difficulty of consistently distinguishing between the two terms, this entry will use colonialism as a broad concept that refers to the project of European political domination from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries that ended with the national liberation movements of the 1960s."^[4]

In his preface to Colonialism: a theoretical overview by Jürgen Osterhammel, Roger Tignor states that "For Osterhammel, the essence of colonialism is the existence of colonies, which are by definition governed differently from other territories such as protectorates or informal spheres of influence."^[5] In the book itself, Osterhammel asks "How can colonialism be defined independently from colony?" ^[6] He determines on a three-sentence definition.

Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonisers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.^[7]

Types of colonialism

Historians often distinguish between two forms of colonialism, chiefly based on the number of people from the colonising country who settle in the colony:

• Settler colonialism Settler colonialism is a specific colonial formation whereby foreign family units move into a region and reproduce. Land is thus the key resource in settler colonies, whereas natural and human (e.g. labour, existing trade networks, convertible souls) resources are the main motivation behind other forms of colonialism. Colonialism typically ends, involved a large number of colonists, typically seeking fertile land to farm.
• Exploitation colonialism Exploitation colonialism is the policy of conquering distant lands to exploit its natural and human resources. This practice contrasts with settler colonialism, a policy of conquering distant lands not with the intention of exploiting its resources, but rather to send settlers in order to shape its demographic similarly as in the metropole. A involved fewer colonists, typically interested in extracting resources to export to the metropole The metropole, from the Greek Metropolis 'mother city' was the name given to the British metropolitan centre of the British Empire, i.e. the United Kingdom itself. This was even extended, such that London became the metropole of the British Empire, insofar as its politicians and businessmen determined the economic, diplomatic, and military. This category includes trading posts A trading post is a place or establishment where the trading of goods takes place. The preferred travel route to a trading post or between trading posts, is known as a trade route but it also includes much larger colonies where the colonists would provide much of the administration and own much of the land and other capital In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital are factors of production used to create goods or services that are not themselves significantly consumed in the production process. Capital goods may be acquired with money or financial capital but rely on indigenous people for labour Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the market for labour. Labour markets function through the interaction of workers and employers. Labour economics looks at the suppliers of labour services , the demanders of labour services (employers), and attempts to understand the resulting pattern of wages, employment, and.

There is a certain amount of overlap between these models of colonialism. In both cases people moved to the colony and goods were exported to the metropole.

A plantation colony is normally considered to fit the model of exploitation colonialism. However, in this case there may be other immigrants to the colony - slaves Slavery is a system in which people are the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand wages. In some societies it was legal for an owner to kill a slave; in others it was a crime to kill a slave to grow the cash crop The term is used to differentiate from subsistence crops, which are those fed to the producer's own livestock or grown as food for the producer's family. In earlier times cash crops were usually only a small part of a farm's total yield, while today, especially in the developed countries, almost all crops are mainly grown for cash. In non- for export.

In some cases, settler colonialism took place in substantially pre-populated areas and the result was either an culturally mixed population (such as the mestizos Christianity ; and other religions of the Americas The Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America. The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total), or a racially divided population, such as in French Algeria French rule of Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, known as colons and later, as pieds-noirs. However, indigenous Muslims remained a majority of the territory's population or Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. Since its independence and the institution of a majority African government, the area has been re-named Zimbabwe.

A League of Nations mandate A League of Nations mandate refers to a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League. These were of the nature of a treaty or convention and contained minority rights was legally very different from a colony. However, there was some similarity with exploitation colonialism in the mandate system.

History of colonialism

Activity that could be called colonialism has a long history. The Egyptians Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history, Phoenicians Phoenicia was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, Syria and Israel. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean during the period 1550 BC to 300 BC. Though ancient boundaries of such city-, Greeks Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian and Romans Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world all built colonies in antiquity Colonies in antiquity were city-states founded from a mother-city, not from a territory-at-large. Bonds between a colony and its metropolis remained often close, and took specific forms. However, unlike in the period of European colonialism, ancient colonies were usually sovereign and self-governing from their inception. The word "metropole" comes from the Greek metropolis [Greek: "μητρόπολις"] - "mother city". The word "colony" comes from the Latin colonia – "a place for agriculture". European have engaged in colonialism in two main historical periods:

The first took place between (250 BC - 480 AD) during classical antiquity Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world. It is the period in which Greek and Roman literature (such as Aeschylus, Ovid, Homer and others) flourished when the Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries who culturally (and so historically) were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of the ancient empire actively enagaged in politico-cultural and socioeconomic Socioeconomics or socio-economics or social economics is an umbrella term with different usages. 'Social economics' may refer broadly to the "use of economics in the study of society." More narrowly, contemporary practice considers behavioral interactions of individuals and groups through social capital and social "markets" and expansion. Note that during this time, this empire relied upon developing strong political alliances with the already established principalities of "new imperial territories" in order to extend its dominion. Therefore, many (not all) of these alliances were between the empire and other, similar colonial protagonists, which was essentially how the birth of feudal Feudalism is a political and military system between a feudal aristocracy , and his vassals. In its most classic sense, feudalism refers to the Medieval European political system composed of a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. Although Europe began^{[citation needed]}—after the fall of Byzantium Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas (Greek: Βύζας, Býzas, genitive Βύζαντος, Býzantos). The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion. The city was later renamed Constantinople and briefly became the imperial residence of the as "the one and only" imperial base. Because imperial expansion within Europe did not contest territories in terms of such vast cultural difference as those in places like the Middle East The Middle East is a region that encompasses southwestern Asia and Egypt. In some contexts, the term has recently been expanded in usage to sometimes include Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and North Africa. It's often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population (and later in the Americas The Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America. The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total and the Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific or Apac is the part of the world in or near the Western Pacific Ocean. The area includes much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania. Sometimes the term Asia-Pacific includes South Asia[citation needed], though Pakistan, India and their neighbours are on or near the Indian Ocean rather than the Pacific Ocean. The term may region), alliances with wider European populations were easier to establish and culturally more befitting in the eyes of the empire.^{[citation needed]}

The second phase of colonialism or modern colonialism started with the Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration, was a period in history starting in the 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century, during which Europeans and their descendants intensively explored and mapped the world. Historians often refer to the 'Age of Discovery' as the period of Portuguese and Spanish pioneer oceanic between the 15th and 20th centuries and tended to involve European powers competing with each other for sequestering new territories rather than alliance-building in the discrete sense - as was commonly done in the classical era. It could be said however that the Eoropean powers maintained an unspoken alliance when it came to spreading the influences of empire and thereby establishing rather sophisticated imperial networks globe-wide. During this time Portugal Portugal /ˈpɔɹtʃʉɡəl/ (Portuguese: Portugal, Mirandese: Pertual), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa; Mirandese: República Pertuesa), is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and and Spain discovered new lands across the oceans and built trading posts. For some people^[which?], it is this building of colonies across oceans that differentiates colonialism from other types of expansionism. These new lands were divided between the Portuguese Empire and Spanish Empire, first by the papal bull Inter caetera and then by the Treaty of Tordesillas and the Treaty of Zaragoza (1529). The seventeenth century saw the creation of the first British Empire, the French colonial empire and the Dutch Empire. It also featured the establishment of some Swedish overseas colonies and a Danish colonial empire. The spread of colonial empires slowed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries due to the American Revolutionary War and the Latin American wars of independence. However, new and old powers continued to establish new colonies after this period, including for the German colonial empire and for the Belgian colonial empire. In the late nineteenth century, many European powers became involved in the Scramble for Africa.

The Russian Empire and Ottoman Empire existed at the same time as the above empires, but these are often not considered^{[by whom?]} colonial because they did not expand over oceans. Rather, these empires expanded through the more traditional route of conquest of neighbouring territories. There was, though, some Russian colonization of the Americas across the Bering Strait. The Empire of Japan modelled itself on European colonial empires. The United States of America gained overseas territories after the Spanish-American War and the term "American Empire" was coined^{[by whom?]}.

After the First World War, the victorious allies divided up the German colonial empire and much of the Ottoman Empire between themselves as League of Nations mandates. These territories were divided into three classes according to how quickly it was deemed that they would be ready for independence.^{[citation needed]} However, decolonisation outside the Americas lagged until after the Second World War. In 1962 the United Nations set up a Special Committee on Decolonization, often called the Committee of 24, to encourage this process.

Anti-colonialism

Some think-tanks such as the CEE Council have argued that early 20th century progressive US academics such as Reverend James Augustin Brown Scherer and Rabbi Judah Magnes were contrarian thinkers who foresaw the eventual decline of European colonialism in the Middle-East and Asia and the correlated rise of America- notably through the development of US institutions of higher learning abroad. ^[8]

Neocolonialism

The term neocolonialism has been used to refer to a variety of things since the decolonisation efforts after World War II. Generally it does not refer to a type of colonialism but rather colonialism by other means - residual effects or aftershocks of old colonialism or a contemporary extension thereof in more subtle and seemingly unobtrusive ways. Specifically, the accusation that the relationship between stronger and weaker countries is similar to exploitation colonialism, without the stronger country having to build or maintain colonies. Such accusations typically focus on economic relationships and interference in the politics of weaker countries by stronger countries.

Colonialism and the history of thought

Colonialism and geography

Settlers acted as the link between the natives and the imperial hegemony, bridging the geographical gap between the colonizers and colonized. Painter, J. and Jeffrey, A. affirm that certain advances aided the expansion of European states. With tools such as cartography, shipbuilding, navigation, mining and agricultural productivity colonizers had an upper hand. Their awareness of the Earth's surface and abundance of practical skills provided colonizers with a knowledge that, in turn, created power.

Painter and Jeffrey argue that geography was not and is not an objective science, rather it is based on assumptions of the physical world. It may have given “The West” an advantage when it came to exploration, however it also created zones of racial inferiority. Geographical beliefs such as environmental determinism, the view that some parts of the world are underdeveloped because of the climate, legitimized colonialism and created notions of skewed evolution.^[9] These are now seen as elementary concepts. Political geographers maintain that colonial behavior was reinforced by the physical mapping of the world, visually separating “them” and “us”. Geographers are primarily focused on the spaces of colonialism and imperialism, more specifically, the material and symbolic appropriation of space enabling colonialism.^[10]

Colonialism and imperialism

A colony is part of an empire and so colonialism is closely related to imperialism. The initial assumption is that colonialism and imperialism are interchangeable, however Robert Young suggests that imperialism is the concept while colonialism is the practice. Colonialism is based on an imperial outlook, thereby creating a consequential relationship between the two. Through an empire, colonialism is established and capitalism is expanded, on the other hand a capitalist economy naturally enforces an empire. In the next section Marxists make a case for this mutually reinforcing relationship.

Marxist view of colonialism

Marxism views colonialism as a form of capitalism, enforcing exploitation and social change. Working within the global capitalist system, colonialism is closely associated with uneven development, he thought. It is an “instrument of wholesale destruction, dependency and systematic exploitation producing distorted economies, socio-psychological disorientation, massive poverty and neocolonial dependency.” ^[11] Colonies are constructed into modes of production. The search for raw materials and the current search for new investment opportunities is a result of inter-capitalist rivalry for capital accumulation. Lenin regarded colonialism as the root cause of imperialism, as imperialism was distinguished by monopoly capitalism via colonialism.^[12]

Liberalism, capitalism and colonialism

Classical liberals generally opposed colonialism and imperialism, including Adam Smith, Frederik Bastiat, Richard Cobden, John Bright, Henry Richard, Herbert Spencer, H. R. Fox Bourne, Edward Morel, Josephine Butler, W. J. Fox and William Ewart Gladstone. Moreover, American revolution was the first anti-colonial rebellion, inspiring others.^[1][13]

Adam Smith wrote in Wealth of Nations that Britain should liberate all of its colonies and also noted that it would be economically beneficial for British people in the average, although the merchants having mercantilist privileges would lose.^[1]

The farmers in India under British colonial rule were also forced to grow certain crops, sell them to Britain, to pay oppressive taxes etc.^[13][14]

Post-colonialism

Post-colonialism (a.k.a. post-colonial theory) refers to a set of theories in philosophy and literature that grapple with the legacy of colonial rule. In this sense, postcolonial literature may be considered a branch of Postmodern literature concerned with the political and cultural independence of peoples formerly subjugated in colonial empires. Many practitioners take Edward Said's book Orientalism (1978) to be the theory's founding work (although French theorists such as Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon made similar claims decades before Said).

Edward Said analyzed the works of Balzac, Baudelaire and Lautréamont, exploring how they were both influenced by and helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority. Post-colonial fictional writers interact with the traditional colonial discourse, but modify or subvert it; for instance by retelling a familiar story from the perspective of an oppressed minor character in the story. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's Can the Subaltern Speak? (1998) gave its name to the Subaltern Studies.

In A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999), Spivak explored how major works of European metaphysics (e.g., Kant, Hegel) not only tend to exclude the subaltern from their discussions, but actively prevent non-Europeans from occupying positions as fully human subjects. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) is famous for its explicit ethnocentrism, in considering the Western civilization as the most accomplished of all, while Kant also allowed some traces of racialism to enter his work.

Impact of colonialism and colonization

Debate about the perceived negative and positive aspects (spread of virulent diseases, unequal social relations, exploitation, enslavement, infrastructures, medical advances, new institutions, technological advancements etc.) of colonialism has occurred for centuries, amongst both colonizer and colonized, and continues to the present day.^[15] The questions of miscegenation; the alleged ties between colonial enterprises, genocides — see the Herero Genocide and the Armenian Genocide — and the Holocaust; and the questions of the nature of imperialism, dependency theory and neocolonialism (in particular the Third World debt) continue to retain their actuality.

Impact on health

Encounters between explorers and populations in the rest of the world often introduced new diseases, which sometimes caused local epidemics of extraordinary virulence.^[16] For example, Smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, and others were unknown in pre-Columbian America.^[17]

Disease killed the entire native (Guanches) population of the Canary Islands in the 16th century. Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox. Smallpox also ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone, including the emperor, and Peru in the 1530s, aiding the European conquerors. Measles killed a further two million Mexican natives in the 1600s. In 1618–1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans.^[18] Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians.^[19] Some believe that the death of up to 95% of the Native American population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases.^[20] Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the indigenous peoples had no such immunity.^[21]

Smallpox decimated the native population of Australia, killing around 50% of Indigenous Australians in the early years of British colonisation.^[22] It also killed many New Zealand Māori.^[23] As late as 1848–49, as many as 40,000 out of 150,000 Hawaiians are estimated to have died of measles, whooping cough and influenza. Introduced diseases, notably smallpox, nearly wiped out the native population of Easter Island.^[24] In 1875, measles killed over 40,000 Fijians, approximately one-third of the population.^[25] Ainu population decreased drastically in the 19th century, due in large part to infectious diseases brought by Japanese settlers pouring into Hokkaido.^[26]

Researchers concluded that syphilis was carried from the New World to Europe after Columbus's voyages. The findings suggested Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions of Europe.^[27] The disease was more frequently fatal than it is today. Syphilis was a major killer in Europe during the Renaissance.^[28] The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. 10,000 British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic.^[29] Between 1736 and 1834 only some 10% of East India Company's officers survived to take the final voyage home.^[30] Waldemar Haffkine, who mainly worked in India, was the first microbiologist who developed and used vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague.

As early as 1803, the Spanish Crown organized a mission (the Balmis expedition) to transport the smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies, and establish mass vaccination programs there.^[31] By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans.^[32] Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination in India.^[33] From the beginning of the 20th century onwards, the elimination or control of disease in tropical countries became a driving force for all colonial powers.^[34] The sleeping sickness epidemic in Africa was arrested due to mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk.^[35] In the 20th century, the world saw the biggest increase in its population in human history due to lessening of the mortality rate in many countries due to medical advances.^[36] World population has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to an estimated 6.7 billion today.^[37]

Some believe that discussion of how diseases were spread has been scuttled by descendants of colonialists to conceal actual origins of how indigenous populations were inoculated with these new diseases. An argument here is that once European colonists discovered indigenous populations were not immune to certain diseases, they deliberately spread diseases to gain military advantages and subjugate local peoples. The most infamous case involves suggestions by Lord Jeffery Amherst,^[38] though history is mute on whether his barbaric suggestions were carried out. Many scholars have argued that evidence that supports this practice as having been executed on a larger scale across north America is weak. Yet, growing evidence is showing that other indigenous communities were purposefully inoculated, citing oral history from the descendants of said peoples. It has been regarded as one of the first instances of bio-terrorism or use of biological weapons in the history of warfare. For further information see^[39] and ^[40] There is, however, only one documented case of germ warfare, involving British commander Jeffrey Amherst.^[41] It is uncertain whether this documented British attempt successfully infected the Indians.^[42]

Food security

After 1492, a global exchange of previously local crops and livestock breeds occurred. Key crops involved in this exchange included the tomato, maize, potato and manioc going from the New World to the Old. At the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368, China's population was reported to be close to 60 million, and toward the end of the dynasty in 1644 it might have approached 150 million.^[43] New crops that had come to Asia from the Americas via the Spanish colonizers in the 16th century, including maize and sweet potatoes, contributed to the population growth.^[44] Although it was initially considered to be unfit for human consumption, the potato became an important staple crop in northern Europe.^[45] Maize (corn) was introduced to Europe in the 15th century. Due to its high yields, it quickly spread through Europe, and later to Africa and India. Maize was probably introduced into India by the Portuguese in the 16th century.^[46]

Since being introduced by Portuguese traders in the 16th century,^[47] maize and manioc have replaced traditional African crops as the continent’s most important staple food crops.^[48] Manioc (cassava) is sometimes described as the ‘bread of the tropics'.^[49] Alfred W. Crosby speculated that increased production of maize, manioc, and other American crops "enabled the slave traders drew many, perhaps most, of their cargoes from the rain forest areas, precisely those areas where American crops enabled heavier settlement than before."^[50]

Slave trade

Slavery has existed to varying extents, forms and periods in almost all cultures and continents.^[51] Between the 7th and 20th centuries, Arab slave trade (also known as slavery in the East) took approximately 18 million slaves from Africa via trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean routes.^[52] Between the 15th and the 19th centuries, the Atlantic slave trade took up to 12 million slaves to the New World.^[53]

From 1654 until 1865, slavery for life was legal within the boundaries of the present United States.^[54] According to the 1860 U.S. census, nearly four million slaves were held in a total population of just over 12 million in the 15 states in which slavery was legal.^[55] Of all 1,515,605 families in the 15 slave states, 393,967 held slaves (roughly one in four),^[55] amounting to 8% of all American families.^[56]

In 1807, the United Kingdom became one of the first nations to end its own participation in the slave trade.^[57] Furthermore, between 1808 and 1860, the British West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.^[58] This was done "to sweep the African and American Seas of the atrocious Commerce with which they are now infested".^[59] Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.^[60] In 1827, Britain declared the slave trade piracy, punishable by death.^[61]

See also

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Liberal Anti-Imperialism, professor Daniel Klein, 1.7.2004
2. ^ "Colonialism". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. 2010. http://www.collinslanguage.com/results.aspx?context=3&reversed=False&action=define&homonym=0&text=colonialism. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
3. ^ "Colonialism". Merriam-Webbster. Merriam-Webster. 2010. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colonialism. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
4. ^ Margaret Kohn (2006). "Colonialism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
5. ^ Tignor, Roger (2005). preface to Colonialism: a theoretical overview. Markus Weiner Publishers. p. x. ISBN 1558763406, 9781558763401. http://books.google.com/?id=CMfksrnWaUkC&pg=PR10#v=onepage. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
6. ^ Osterhammel, Jürgen (2005). Colonialism: a theoretical overview. trans. Shelley Frisch. Markus Weiner Publishers. p. 15. ISBN 1558763406, 9781558763401. http://books.google.com/?id=CMfksrnWaUkC&pg=PA15#v=onepage. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
7. ^ Osterhammel, Jürgen (2005). Colonialism: a theoretical overview. trans. Shelley Frisch. Markus Weiner Publishers. p. 16. ISBN 1558763406, 9781558763401. http://books.google.com/?id=CMfksrnWaUkC&pg=PA16#v=onepage. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
8. ^ (English) Turkey's Ascendancy, the Russification of Israel & the Future of the Middle-East, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Turkey-s-Ascendancy-the-R-by-M-Nicolas-Firzli-100616-463.html, retrieved 2010-06-15
9. ^ "Painter, J. & Jeffrey, A., 2009. Political Geography 2nd ed., Sage. “Imperialism” pg 23 (GIC)
10. ^ Gallaher, C. et al., 2008. Key Concepts in Political Geography, Sage Publications Ltd. "Imperialism/Colonialism" pg 5 (GIC)
11. ^ Dictionary of Human Geography, "Colonialism"
12. ^ Young (2001)
13. ^ ^{a b} Johannorberg.net 2004-9-4
14. ^ Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, Mike Davis, 2000
15. ^ Come Back, Colonialism, All is Forgiven
16. ^ Kenneth F. Kiple, ed. The Cambridge Historical Dictionary of Disease (2003)
17. ^ Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (1974)
18. ^ Smallpox The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge, David A. Koplow
19. ^ "The first smallpox epidemic on the Canadian Plains: In the fur-traders' words", National Institutes of Health
20. ^ The Story Of... Smallpox – and other Deadly Eurasian Germs
21. ^ Stacy Goodling, "Effects of European Diseases on the Inhabitants of the New World"
22. ^ "Smallpox Through History". Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1257008292443871.
23. ^ New Zealand Historical Perspective
24. ^ How did Easter Island's ancient statues lead to the destruction of an entire ecosystem?, The Independent
25. ^ Fiji School of Medicine
26. ^ Meeting the First Inhabitants, TIMEasia.com, 21 August 2000
27. ^ Genetic Study Bolsters Columbus Link to Syphilis, New York Times, January 15, 2008
28. ^ Columbus May Have Brought Syphilis to Europe, LiveScience
29. ^ Cholera's seven pandemics. CBC News. December 2, 2008
30. ^ Sahib: The British Soldier in India, 1750-1914 by Richard Holmes
31. ^ Dr. Francisco de Balmis and his Mission of Mercy, Society of Philippine Heath History
32. ^ Lewis Cass and the Politics of Disease: The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832
33. ^ Smallpox History - Other histories of smallpox in South Asia
34. ^ Conquest and Disease or Colonialism and Health?, Gresham College | Lectures and Events
35. ^ WHO Media centre (2001). Fact sheet N°259: African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs259/en/index.html.
36. ^ The Origins of African Population Growth, by John Iliffe, The Journal of African HistoryVol. 30, No. 1 (1989), pp. 165-169
37. ^ World Population Clock - Worldometers
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39. ^ Ann F. Ramenofsky, Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1987):
40. ^ Robert L. O'Connell, Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression (NY and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)
41. ^ Diamond, Jared (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-03891-2.
42. ^ Dixon, Never Come to Peace, 152–55; McConnell, A Country Between, 195–96; Dowd, War under Heaven, 190. For historians who believe the attempt at infection was successful, see Nester, Haughty Conquerors", 112; Jennings, Empire of Fortune, 447–48.
43. ^ Ming Dynasty. MSN.com. Archived 2009-10-31.
44. ^ China's Population: Readings and Maps. Columbia University, East Asian Curriculum Project
45. ^ The Impact of the Potato. History Magazine
46. ^ Antiquity of maize in India. Rajendra Agricultural University
47. ^ Super-Sized Cassava Plants May Help Fight Hunger In Africa. The Ohio State University
48. ^ Maize Streak Virus-Resistant Transgenic Maize: an African solution to an African Problem. Scitizen. August 7, 2007
49. ^ http://www.springerlink.com/index/t514426365436ur2.pdf
50. ^ Savoring Africa in the New World by Robert L. Hall Millersville University
51. ^ Historical survey > Slave-owning societies, Encyclopædia Britannica
52. ^ Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History, Encyclopædia Britannica
53. ^ Focus on the slave trade, BBC
54. ^ The shaping of Black America: forthcoming 400th celebration reminds America that Blacks came before The Mayflower and were among the founders of this country.(BLACK HISTORY)(Jamestown, VA)(Interview)(Excerpt) - Jet | Encyclopedia.com
55. ^ ^{a b} 1860 Census Results, The Civil War Home Page.
56. ^ American Civil War Census Data
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58. ^ Sailing against slavery. By Jo Loosemore BBC
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60. ^ The West African Squadron and slave trade
61. ^ Anti-slavery Operations of the US Navy

References

• Guy Ankerl, Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western, (2000) ISBN 2881550045
• Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) (second chapter on Imperialism examines ties between colonialism and totalitarianism)
• Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness, 1899
• Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, Pref. by Jean-Paul Sartre. Translated by Constance Farrington. London : Penguin Book, 2001
• Gobineau, Arthur de, An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, 1853–55
• Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation, 1971
• Kipling, Rudyard, The White Man's Burden, 1899
• Las Casas, Bartolomé de, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542, published in 1552)
• LeCour Grandmaison, Olivier, Coloniser, Exterminer - Sur la guerre et l'Etat colonial, Fayard, 2005, ISBN 2213623163
• Lindqvist, Sven, Exterminate All The Brutes, 1992, New Press; Reprint edition (June 1997), ISBN 978-1-56584-359-2
• Maria Petringa, Brazza, A Life for Africa (2006), ISBN 978-1-4259-1198-0
• Jürgen Osterhammel, Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, Princeton, NJ: M. Wiener, 1997.
• Said, Edward, Orientalism, 1978; 25th-anniversary edition 2003 ISBN 978-0-394-74067-6
• Whaites, Alan, "States in Development," DFID, London 2007[2]

External links

• Liberal opposition to colonialism, imperialism and empire (pdf) - by professor Daniel Klein
• "Colonialism" article by Margaret Kohn in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Globalization (and the metaphysics of control in a free market world) - an online video on globalization, colonialism, and control.

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