Colonialism and Colonies

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History of Colonialism

The Greeks and the Romans both had colonies, which they dominated by establishing military posts in conquered territory. The Greeks controlled most of the islands in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and later the Romans controlled the whole area from Constantinople (now İstanbul) in Turkey, to Palestine and North Africa, to Gaul (France) and Britain. The Romans developed a theory of colonization. They believed that a garrison (military post) must include women who could work in fields and bear children. The post could then become a settlement capable of supporting and reproducing itself. Centuries later, English settlers put this theory into practice in their colonies in Ireland and Virginia.

The Vikings, people from what is now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, established colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland, but the settlements failed because the Vikings were unable to supply them. The Vikings were more successful in establishing colonies in parts of Europe, including northern France, Sicily, England, and Ireland. Eventually the people who settled in these areas were called Normans.

From the 11th century to the 13th century, Christian Europeans launched military expeditions, called Crusades, against the Muslims in Palestine. The Europeans wanted to recapture Jerusalem and other places to which Christians made religious pilgrimages. The Crusades were the first military expeditions that Western Christians undertook far from home. They also marked the first time that significant numbers of European Christians carried their culture and religion beyond Europe.

In the steppe (grassy plains) regions of Central Asia, the Mongols created a vast empire during the 13th and early 14th centuries. The Mongol Empire controlled the expanse of territory from the Ural Mountains in Russia across Asia to the Pacific Ocean. Every adult male was a mounted warrior, and the Mongols were a nation of cavalry. The Ottoman Turks were also originally a steppe people. They took over most of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkan Peninsula. The Ottoman Empire, founded in the late 13th century, was a significant world power until the early 20th century.

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There were also militarily aggressive peoples in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Americas. The Fulani in the western Sudan established a series of kingdoms in the 19th century, and the Zulu dominated much of southern Africa during the early part of that century. In the Americas, the Inca and Aztec peoples dominated large geographic areas when Europeans arrived.

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Age of Exploration (1450-1700)

In the 15th century, Europe was divided into a number of emerging nation states that competed intensely with one another. This competition was one factor that drove these states to expand. In contrast, during the same time period, China was a strong, unified power that possessed both the technology and the economic base for expansion, but did not do so. China had conducted overseas voyages but decided to end them after a bitter debate at the imperial court in the early 15th century. In contrast, Europe was not a single entity, and its various states competed fiercely for advantage over their neighbors.

Each of the European states ventured beyond its borders at different times: first Portugal, then Spain, then the Netherlands, England, and France. Their attempts to expand overseas were linked very closely with their struggles for political and economic power. Trade was considered a form of war, and trading stations were called forts. The search for a variety of products to trade drove the Europeans’ explorations.

The Portuguese began a race to build a commercial empire in the early 15th century by exploring the coast of West Africa. There they established a trade in gold and slaves; by the 16th century African slaves were commonplace throughout southern and western Europe. Other trade items encouraged exploration of other areas. In the North Atlantic Ocean, an enormously valuable trade in fish encouraged boats of all European nations to search for fishing grounds farther from Europe. Spices drew explorers around the tip of Africa to Southeast Asia. Europeans, lacking refrigeration, needed spices to preserve the meat they ate. By trading directly with the East, Europeans could avoid costly customs duties, or taxes, charged by the rulers of every country between Egypt and Europe for letting spice shipments pass through.

Religion also played an important role in the increase of exploration. Early modern Europeans, especially Catholics, gave high priority to converting people with other beliefs. The Spaniards in particular incorporated religion as a vital part of their colonial movements, and they sent many missionaries to the Americas, as did the Portuguese. In early English and Dutch settlements, chaplains primarily ministered to the settlers instead of converting the indigenous peoples. The British missionary movement did not develop significantly until about 1800, although some early settlers left England for the Americas so that they could be free to practice their particular religious beliefs. For example, Plymouth Colony, in what is now Massachusetts, was founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, a group of Puritans who had been persecuted in England for their religious beliefs.

A pivotal point in European expansion occurred at the end of the 15th century. In 1492 Italian navigator Christopher Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic in an effort to reach Asia by a new route. Basing his voyage on his calculation of the earth’s size (an estimate that turned out to be wrong), Columbus reached the Caribbean islands off what would later be called North and South America. On that journey as well as others that followed, Columbus claimed the areas and established outposts for Spain, which financed his voyages. Although at first he insisted the area was part of Asia, Columbus eventually realized that he was exploring what he called a “New World,” as yet unknown to Europeans.

In late 1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and in the spring of 1498 became the first European to reach India by a sea route. Columbus’s and da Gama’s explorations helped spur a vast movement towards exploration and European colonialism during the 16th century.

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Spanish Colonies

Within a few years, Spanish conquistadors (conquerors) overwhelmed the powerful Aztec and Inca Empires in what are now Mexico and Peru. These conquistadors claimed the land for Spain, and settlements were soon established. This was the beginning of the Spanish Empire, which became the most powerful empire of its day.

Individual Spanish settlers received large areas of land called encomiendas, as well as the right to control the labor of the people who lived on the land. On these encomiendas, the Spaniards raised cattle and sheep, but the most important product of New Spain, as the Spaniards called their claims in the Americas, was silver. The indigenous people, overseen by the Spaniards, mined silver in the mountains of Peru and in Mexico, often at great risks that resulted in death. The silver that reached Spain helped finance that country’s trade with other European nations, and it fueled massive inflation in the price of goods that lasted until well after 1600 throughout Europe.

Much of the silver from the New World ended up in India and China. Europeans could not sell their goods in Asia, because Asian manufactured goods, particularly textiles, were more advanced than those of the Europeans. For this reason, Europeans used the gold and silver acquired from their colonies to pay for Asian spices, silk, and cotton cloth.

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Portuguese Colonies

Meanwhile, the Portuguese were starting settlements in Brazil. Like the Spaniards in other parts of the Americas, they took over land and forced the native population to work it. Also, Portuguese explorers were establishing a very different sort of commercial empire in the Indian Ocean. This system was based on trade and war, rather than on taking large amounts of land and dominating its people. At first the Portuguese had no competition: the Chinese had called their fleets home; Indian and Arab ships did not carry guns; and other European nations had not yet entered the field.

By the early 16th century the Portuguese had established a string of strategic bases, including Hormuz at the tip of the Persian Gulf, Goa on the western coast of India, and the Straits of Molucca, the gateway between the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. From these bases, the Portuguese could control and monitor the sea-going trade of the entire region. Portuguese power, however, was entirely naval, and they were unable to threaten the internal strength of land-based empires. Moreover, when larger European nations arrived in the area, Portuguese naval supremacy vanished.

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Dutch Colonies

By the early 17th century, the Dutch had replaced the Portuguese as the primary European colonial power in Asia. They took control of the Moluccas (now part of the Republic of Indonesia) and instituted a new system that would have great significance for areas in other parts of the world: the plantation system. The Dutch plantations in Indonesia were like Spanish encomiendas in that they employed native labor. There were, however, important differences. Plantations were usually more compact and were dedicated to the production of a single cash crop, a crop produced primarily for market. The plantation was much like a modern factory; it was an early and highly profitable form of industrial capitalism. On a plantation, labor was a commodity, a cost of producing a crop; consequently, slave labor, the most mobile system of labor, quickly became associated with the plantation system.

The Dutch also colonized parts of North America. They based their claims on the explorations of Henry Hudson, an English mariner employed by the Dutch East India Company. In 1609 Hudson entered present-day New York Bay and explored the river that now bears his name. During the next few years the Dutch dispatched several trading vessels to the region, which they named New Netherland. A few permanent colonists began to arrive in 1624, when a trade outpost was built. The town was named New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1626, and the first large wave of settlement there occurred the same year.