Colonialism

"People need ground for his activity, of ground for his food. No people need some as much as the German people (...), whose old habitat became dangerously narrow. If we do not acquire soon new territories, we will inevitably go to an alarming catastrophe. That is in Brazil, in Siberia, in Anatolia or in the south of the Africa, it does not matter, provided that we can again drive us with complete freedom and fresh energy, provided that we can again offer to our children of the light and the air of excellent quality and abondante." quantity;

Albrecht Wirth , Volkstum und Weltmacht in der Geschichte , 1904.

Strategic motivations

• To prevent the expansion of concurrent powers (e.g.: France in North America, Conference of Berlin in 1885, Morocco).

• To acquire or improve a strategic position (e.g.: Djibouti, Colony of the Cape, Singapore).

• To ensure the safety of sea transport by removing a hearth of piracy (North Africa).

Ideological motivations

• To increase the power and the prestige of the nation (e.g.: colonial empires French, Italy N, German, Russian, British).

"Dear Sirs, in Europe such as it is made, in this competition of so much of rivals than we see growing around us, the policy of meditation or of abstention, it is quite simply main road of the décadence"

Jules Ferry , Speech in front of the House of Commons , July 28th 1885.

• To achieve a " mission civilisatrice" , resulting from the Humanism of the lights or in a spirit positivist (e.g.: Africa, North America).

"Does a country like France, when it poses the foot on a foreign and barbarian ground, have to exclusively propose for goal the extension of its trade and to be satisfied with this single mobile, the lure of gain? This generous nation whose opinion governs civilized Europe and whose ideas conquered the world, received Providence a higher mission, that of the emancipation, call with the light and the freedom of the races and people still slaves of ignorance and despotisme."

Francis Garnier , the French Cochinchine in 1864 , E. Dentu ED., 1864, pp. 44-45.

"It should be said openly that the higher races have a right with respect to the lower races. I repeat that there is for the higher races a right because there is a duty for them. They have the duty to civilize the races inférieures".

Jules Ferry , Speech in front of the House of Commons , July 28th 1885.

"We admit the right and even the duty of the higher races to attract with them those which did not arrive at the same degree of culture and to call them with the progress made thanks to the efforts of science or the industrie."

Leon Blum , Short speech with the House of Commons , July 9th, 1925.

• To establish the domination of a race considered to be higher on others considered to be lower (racial ideologies of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century).

"The question of the natives must be only solved in the direction of the natural evolution of the universal history, i.e. higher morality must have the step on lower civilization. The modern State, as a colonial power, makes with respect to its subjects largest of the crimes, when being let hypnotize and dominate by confused humane ideas, it saves at the expense of its own nationals of the dedicated negro races with disparaître."

Kopsch , Speech with the Reichstag. History 3rd , Bordered, 1971, p 175.

• To spread a religion (e.g.: Christian evangelization in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa).

• To prohibit slavery (e.g.: Zanzibar).

Other quotations

• Joseph Chamberlain, Speech, Minister for the colonies in 1895.
• Georges Clémenceau, Speech in front of the House of Commons , July 30th, 1885.
• Aime Césaire, p. 11-12 Speech on Colonialism , 1950.
• Aime Césaire, p. 21-22 Speech on Colonialism , 1950.

History of colonialism

Ancient and medieval colonialisms

Roman Empire

See also: Colony (Rome)

The Roman colonies were establishments created by the State Roman and intended for the control of a recently conquered territory, for the difference of the punic colonies , commercial counters, or Greek colonies, colonies of settlement. It mixes in the same urban framework, religious and institutional the Roman citizens and the autochtones overcome, slaves, Affranchi S and Pérégrin S. Initially military garrisons at the 4th century before J.C, they become colonies of settlement offering of the grounds to the proletarians as from the 3rd century before J.C., and to the veterans demobilized starting from Sylla, which offers the grounds confiscated to them with proscribed.

The Arab Conquest

Started by Mahomet and its successors against the nonMoslem world, under the name of " Djihad" (holy war), the Arab conquest developed successfully against the Christian territories (the Middle East, North Africa, Spain and franque Gaulle) and pagan or animist (Black Africa, Central Asia and South-East Asia). The colonized people are submitted to the statute of the Dhimmi.

See also: Dar Al-Islam, History of the Moslem conquest

Latin States of Raising

The Christians who settle then with the Raising remain numerically very weak. They are especially the noble ones without ground acquiring of the land fields, or the merchants installed in the coastal towns. The Christian and Moslem companies manage to cohabit peacefully in these States, and the commercial exchanges or cultural develop. However, they remain distinctly separate, the interbreedings remaining rare, and the external military pressure is constant. The warlike chief Kurdish Saladin drives out the crusaders of Jerusalem first once in 1167, and the last city, Acre, are evacuated in 1291. Meanwhile, the Fourth crusade was diverted in 1204 by the Vénitiens towards Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire and the orthodoxe Christian . The crusaders found new States in Greece and minor Asia, as well as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, which resists the Byzantine reconquest until in 1261.

The Croisades (or the Spanish Reconquista, also directed against the Muslim world) were also a source of inspiration at the time of the later European movements of colonization, in particular in the Nouveau World.

The Drang nach Osten

A Germanic settlement was spread more peacefully in several areas of the Central Europe, by the installation of peasants, of merchants and craftsmen. It continues more slightly, until the 18th century, in particular within the framework of the Empire of Austria-Hungary. The Germans become majority in areas of Tchèquie (Sudètes) or of Poland (Silesia, Poméranie). In these two last areas, the policy of germanisation, resulting in the obligatory use of the German Language and the land domination of the noble Prussians ( Junkers ), was applied to the 19th century by the kingdom of Prussia, then the Second Reich. The Germans also constitute important communities in Transylvania, Hungary, ex-Yugoslavia or in the Baltic States.

The near total of these populations, whose presence had served as a pretext for the doctrines pangermanists, was expelled at the end of the Second world war.

Colonialism at the time modern (15th-18th centuries)

Great Discoveries

In May 1493, the pope Alexandre Borgia promulgates the bubble Inter Coetera, modified by the Traité of Tordesillas, dividing the world to be discovered between Castille (Western hemisphere, Americas) and Portugal (hemisphere Is, the Africa and the Asia). These arrangements, while legitimating the future conquests in the name of Christendom, also made it possible to avoid a direct confrontation between the two Iberian powers.

The Portuguese expansion

In first half of the 16th century, the Portuguese ensure the control of the Indian Ocean, after having overcome the fleets of the Moslem States, by establishing a series of counter strengthened, Mozambique with the Moluques while passing by the Malabar Coast (Cochin, Goa). This expansion is justified by the very lucrative trade of spices (Poivre, Cloves, Nutmeg, grooves).
Au Brazil, officially discovered by Pedro Alvares Cabral in 1500, the first establishments permanent date from the years 1530. Several vague successive pionnières related to the exploitation of a resource (canes with sugar, gold, coffee, cattle, etc) accompany until our days the territorial expansion. The conquest of the interior of the country is primarily the fact of forwardings of the inhabitants of the coastal establishments ( Bandeirante S ), generally Métis and relatively autonomous with respect to the metropolis.

The decline of the Portuguese colonial empire is inevitable, taking into account the demographic limits (a million inhabitants) and economic of the metropolis compared to the extent of its empire. Of 1580 with 1640, Portugal is annexed to the crown of Spain, and the lately independent Dutchmen benefit from it to seize many counters and Portuguese colonies. Until 1822, the Brésil is the principal colony of Portugal under British influence. Then, the African possessions (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau) are developed. In the years 1960, the dictatorship of Salazar vainly tries to preserve them in spite of wars of independence, which are completed in 1975, after the Révolution of the eyelets.

The Spanish expansion

After a refusal of the king of Portugal, the Génois Christophe Colomb manages to convince the catholic Kings, Isabelle de Castille and Ferdinand d' Aragon, to finance a forwarding which must make it possible to reach the the Indies and its richnesses by the West. In October 1492, Colomb reaches the island of San Salvador (the Bahamas), then founds the first colonial establishment of the Nouveau World with Hispaniola. It is named " viceroy of Indes" (1493 - 1500) by the Spanish kings with very important privileges; its government appears disastrous, for the colonists who clash between them, but especially for the autochtones of Hispaniola whose population crumbles because of the exactions of the conquerors. During three other voyages until in 1504, Christophe Colomb explores the the Antilles and the littoral of the Central America, but it is with another Génois, Amerigo Vespucci which is allotted, in 1507, the discovery of a new continent, the America, after three voyages between 1499 and 1504.

The conquest of the New World by the Conquistadors is fast. In 1511, the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico) are conquered. Certain legends, in particular that of the Eldorado, push adventurers often resulting from the minor nobility poor Castilian of Estrémadure, to risk itself in perilous the, remote ones and frequently mortals forwardings.
C' is with a few hundreds of men that Hernán the Cortes conquers the Mexico on the Aztèques in 1519 - 1521, and that Francisco Pizarro conquers the Peru on the Incas in 1532 - 1534. The technological superiority and the audacity of the Spaniards, as well as demoralization (in which take part of the beliefs like the myth of Quetzalcoatl) and them divisions of the Amerindian have allowed these exceptional conquests.
Starting from Mexico, the Spaniards colonize the Filipino (years 1560), where they run up against the Eastern limits of the colonial Empire Portuguese.

In 1503, the authorities Castilians create, with Seville, the Casa of Contratación, an organism in charge to regulate the traffic between Spain and the new colonies. It is charged to take a tax corresponding to the fifth commercial with the New World (Quinto Real) and to collect information on the discoveries of the explorers. In 1524, the Council of the Indies ( Consejo de Indias ) is equipped with the capacity of administration, relayed on the spot by eleven audiencias (courts), the first having been established with Saint-Domingue in 1511.
the Spanish colonists grow rich with the system by the Encomienda (right of seigniory on the Indian communities). The great agricultural properties ( Latifundia ) develop especially as from the 17th century. In parallel, the metropolis intensively exploits the rich person layers of Or (in Colombia) and of money (Zacatecas in Mexico, Potosí in Bolivia).

The human costs of this expansion are very heavy. The Amerindian population crumbles, passing from approximately 80 million inhabitants at the beginning of the 16th century with approximately 12 million hundred years later. The massacres, the forced labor, the deportations, the destructuration of the indigenous companies, and especially the diseases brought by Europeans are responsible for this désastre.
the exactions of the Spanish Conquistador S were denounced at the time by the monk Dominicain Bartolomé de Las Put. In 1550, at the time of the Controverse of Valladolid which opposes it to the Théologie N Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, it manages to impose the idea that the Amerindian have a heart. The king of Spain Charles Quint had in addition started to restrict the system of the Encomienda .
Au 17th century, the Jésuites establish missions or Reducciones , in particular with the Paraguay with the Guaranis, in Bolivia, with the Peru or the Brésil. These are true small republics, of which the goal is of évangéliser the Amerindians. With this intention, the Jesuits reproduce the organization of the Spanish cities, but adapt to the lifestyle and accommodate the Amerindians who flee slavery. Their presence thus irritates strongly the colonists, who through intrigues manage to make them prohibit by the pope, Spain and Portugal in the years 1750-1760.

The strong demographic fall of the Amerindian results in to deprive the colonists of a major part of their labor. The Spaniards then turn to the Traite Blacks, practiced by Portugais.
Malgré the ill treatments inflicted to the Amerindians and with the Blacks, the Latin America, including Portuguese Brazil, becomes a single example of métissée colonial company.

The decline of the Spanish colonial power is perceptible at the beginning of the 17th century, in spite of (or because of) the military domination under development Europe and of colonies of settlement. The policy of accumulation of Noble metals, at once spent to honor the debts towards the suppliers and Banking S with Germany (Fugger, Welser) or with Italy (banking génois), does not support the development of the metropolis. This one, not only suffers from the lack of investment which is combined with strong a Inflation, but tends also to be depopulated for the benefit of the New World. The choice of one domination at the same time overseas and in Europe (against the Protestant , in Italy and with the Netherlands) generates expensive military expenditure. In 1627, Spain cannot avoid a Banqueroute.

Economic domination of the dissatisfied metropolis the elites creole S (white born in the colonies). Following the example Simón Bolívar, they take as a starting point the French revolution, and benefit from the occupation of Spain by Napoleon I {{er}} in 1808 to proclaim the independence of the countries of Latin America. Those intervene in spite of Spanish repression and after several military confrontations, between 1811 and 1825.
En 1898, during the War Spanish-American, the imperialism of the the United States attacks the Spanish colonial empire, which loses Cuba, Filipino Puerto Rico and the .
L' Spain controls nothing any more but some African possessions, of which the Moroccan Rif, asset at the beginning of the 20th century, and preserved at the prices of bloody fights counter insurgency against Abd el-Krim, in 1921 - 1926, with the assistance of French troops ordered by the marshal Pétain. Spanish Morocco is after the Canaries, the first base of the insurrection Franquiste in July 1936, and provides with the troops (colonial Moors, and troops, the Banderas del Tercio or foreign legion), of which the use appears decisive in the war of Spain. This colony is reassigned with the Morocco in 1956, but Ceuta and Melilla remains Spanish.
En 1975, after the death of Free, Spain leaves the the Western Sahara.

The expansion mercantilist

Between 16th and 18th centuries, the economic thinking mercantilist develops in Europe. This theory recommends a national enrichment thanks to the development of the foreign trade combined with a protectionist role of the State which encourages exports.
Allant against the influence of the Catholic church which rejected enrichment and the mechanisms inherent in the Capitalisme like the Prêt (standardized by the Italian and German bankers of the Renaissance), the European sovereigns have like objective to accumulate a maximum of Noble metals (gold, money).

The Mercantilisme was declined in several alternatives according to the countries. The Spanish mercenary attitude (Bullionisme) concentrates on the accumulation of noble metals; the French mercenary attitude (Colbertisme) is more turned towards industrialization; and the English or Dutch mercenary attitude (Commercialisme) is more open on the foreign trade.

This period is also characterized by the economy of the triangular Commerce, practiced both by France and by England and the Netherlands, at the beginning of the 17th century. These maritime powers (official capacity and ship-owners) seek to be established, following Spain in the New World, in particular in the the Antilles, which pay to the metropolis of important incomes thanks to cultures of export (Sucre, Café, indigo). The colonies of the New World are exploited thanks to a esclavagized labor taken on the African littoral where are established the European slave traders. At the same period, counters start develop in North America and in the Indies.

Netherlanders

The Dutchmen show a great commercial dynamism and the individual initiative is encouraged. The Dutch Company of the Eastern Indies ( Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie ), which obtains a commercial monopoly with the the Indies, east creates in 1602. The Dutch Company of the Western Indies ( West-Indische Compagnie ), which obtains a commercial monopoly with Americas, east creates in 1621. The Bank of Amsterdam, which holds a monopoly of the exchanges, is founded in 1609. The Dutch capital becomes the international center of the noble metals and the largest market of capital.

The New Amsterdam (future New York) is founded in 1624 by a group of colonists seeking to establish counters for the trade of the fur. It becomes the principal establishment of an area called New-Country-Low ( Nieuw-Nederland ), corresponding to the valley of the Hudson between current the New Jersey and Connecticut. On behalf of the Company Dutchwoman of the Western Indies, Peter Stuyvesant develops and strengthens the colony between 1647 and 1664.

In South America, the Company settles with the Guyana starting from 1616 and in the Dutch West Indies, starting from 1634. It conquers territories with the Brésil starting from 1624, between the Sergipe and Maranhão and baptizes them News-Holland, but they are recovered by the Portuguese in 1654. In 1652, the Company Dutchwoman of the Eastern Indies, founds the the Cape in South Africa (Colonie of the Cape starting from 1791). In the Eastern Indies (future Indonesia), the Dutchmen after being itself installed with Bantam, on the island of Java, in 1596, and with Amboine in 1605, found Batavia (future Djakarta) in 1619, and take possession of Malacca in 1641. More in north, they settle with Formosa (future Taiwan) in 1624 before being dislodged by the Chinese in 1662. With the Japan, after first contacts with the Portuguese, the Shogun had refused, about 1590, the access to the country with the European tradesmen, fearing the first steps of a military invasion. The Netherlanders are thereafter the only Westerners to be obtained, in 1641, a counter with Nagasaki. In 1658, the Dutchmen are established with Ceylon. In the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch Company of the Eastern Indies is the richest world company.

The decline of the maritime and commercial empire Dutch is consecutive with the rise of the English competitors during the 17th century. The Dutch Company of the Western Indies, after the catch of the New Amsterdam by the English in 1664, is reduced mainly to some West-Indian islands before these territories are not definitively managed directly by the metropolis starting from 1791. In the East, the Netherlanders preserve the the Eastern Indies but yield Ceylon, as well as the Colonie of the Cape to the British during the Napoleonean Guerres.

British

The expansion overseas of the England starts under the reign of the queen Élizabeth I {{Re}} (1558 - 1603), although the Venetian explorer John Cabot already reached, in 1497, for the account of Henry VII, North America, by redécouvrant Newfoundland. The same king had also given a decisive impulse to the rise of the English merchant navy, which continued to exploit bonds with continental Europe developed by the trade of wool.

In 1577 - 1580, the corsair Francis Drake carries out the second round of the world. The Invincible Armada is destroyed in 1588, putting thus fine at the naval hegemony of the Spain. The colonial establishment in North America is tried first once by Walter Raleigh in Virginia in 1584, before being succeeded in a permanent way in the same area by John Smith in 1607. The pilgrims Puritains of the Mayflower, who unload in 1620 in New England (in the Massachusetts), flee religious persecutions in England.

In 1651, Oliver Cromwell promulgates the Navigation Act , which holds for the English navy an almost complete monopoly on the English foreign trade, in particular with the American and West-Indian colonies under development. The English thus inaugurate a system mixing liberalism and protectionism.

In North America, the 13 colonies have various statutes. The Pennsylvania, the Delaware and the Maryland were granted by royal Charte S private owners. In the case of the Pennsylvania, they were colonists Quaker S carried out by William PEN in 1681. The Rhode Island and the Connecticut were granted by Charte S groups of colonists. The New Hampshire, the Massachusetts, the New York, the New Jersey, the Virginia, the North Carolina, the South Carolina, and the Georgia are royal colonies, properties of the crown. These installations run up against the Amerindian people and are the cause of Indian Guerres as of the 17th century. With the Canada, the British seize the French possessions, initially the Acadie (1713), then the Quebec (1763).

The English Company of the Eastern Indies, company with action, is founded following a royal charter granted by Élizabeth I {{Re}} in 1600. In 1609, it obtains the monopoly of the trade with the the Eastern Indies. In 1612, it starts to be established in counters in India, where it installs its Manufacture S, initially with Surat, then with Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, which becomes fortified towns following an agreement with the emperor Moghol Jahangir. In 1670, the king Charles II grants to the Company the right to acquire new territories, to strike currency, to order armed troops and to exert justice on its possessions. It uses in a very effective way divisions of the princes and the sets of alliances to sit its own capacity in a India where the empire Moghol declines unrelentingly. After the victory of Robert Cleaves with the Bataille of Plassey, the Company takes the control of the Bengal, then évince the French at the conclusion of the Seven Year old Guerre in 1763.

In spite of the autonomous and private statute of the Company, the British Parliament exerts a right to watch on its possession colonial. In 1773, the Regulating Act imposes economic reforms to him and administrative, and in 1784, a law allots to the crown the government of the Indies, the Company preserving its commercial monopoly.

In Australia, the beginning of British colonization begins in 1788 in the form of a penitentiary establishment, with the arrival of a convoy of convicts ( convicts ) in News-Wales of the South.

French

Colonialism with 19th and 20th centuries

See also: Division of Africa

Western imperialism

.

This specific dimension of the companies of Colonisation as well remains a very significant subject in the contemporary companies, on the side of old the Colonisateur S as on the side of ex-colonized. It is the subject of political and historiographic controversies.

Assessments of colonialism

Population balances

Colonialism also caused important shifts in population, which deeply modified the population of many areas of the world. One can distinguish:

• the voluntary emigration of the metropolises (and sometimes of other European countries) towards the colonies.
• the emigration forced slaves, especially African, towards the American colonies (see Slavery, Treats Blacks).
• the more or less voluntary emigration from one colony to another. There were movements at short distance (Mossis of the Burkina Faso towards the Ivory Coast, Bengali towards the Burma…) and others much longer (Indo-Pakistani towards the British colonies, Lebanese towards the French Africa).

In fact, colonization moved much more migrants African S and Asian, voluntary or forced, that Europeans. The fourth flow, more recent, that of colonized and ex-is colonized towards the old metropolis.

Economic assessments

The colonizing powers could make safe their imports of Raw materials, or agricultural produce, in particular during the wars.

• the Cane with sugar or the Banana in the Caribbean (Cuba, Lesser Antilles, Jamaica, Santo Domingo), exploited in particular thanks to slaves, imported by the Spain, the England and then British, the France or the Netherlands.

• the Gold of South America, which financed the military domination of the Spain on Europe until the beginning of the XVIIe century.
• the Coffee and the Cocoa American or African, marketed inter alia by the French company Banania.

However the concomitance of colonialism and the economic growth is not so obvious in the facts. The great colonial empires that were the Spain and the Portugal for example did not experience the development of industrial capitalism before the 20th century. On the contrary, of the nations like Germany and Japan knew to develop an effective capitalism although practically not having colonies.

Political assessments

The colonial system is associated with the application of a political, military and economic domination of the old colonies by the European powers; it left the memory of a system per uneven principle.

With regard to the old French colonies, it should be noted that Algeria is one of the countries where rancour is largest. Thus, the Algerian government highly criticized the French law which officially introduced “the positive role” of colonization through its article 4 which was finally repealed. This Algerian position is explained by the violence of the colonial conquest, the application in Algeria of the code of the indigénat and by the memory of the war of decolonization.

However, other countries do not have same rancour. The international organization of the francophonie, created on the initiative of old French colonies, and the France-Africa tops, attest diplomatic good relationships of France with the majority of her old colonies, even if these last also expressed their hostility in article 4 of the law of February 23rd, 2005.

In the same way, the the Commonwealth joins together the the United Kingdom and its old colonies.

Other governments are particularly critical with respect to their old colonial powers: the government of the Zimbabwe (Robert Mugabe) with respect to the the United Kingdom, part of the government of the Ivory Coast (Laurent Gbagbo) with respect to the France.

Cultural assessments

The first cultural assessment is linguistic. Indeed, as of antiquity, Latin is propagated in Europe with the detriments of the Langue S Slavic S and Saxon born. Later, the Spanish and the Portuguese impose the use of their Langue in the Nouveau world.

Lastly, last colonizations also imposed their Langue S in the colony S.

The Controverse of Valladolid confirms the pontifical bubble Sublimis Deus which prohibits the slavery of the Indians of South America as well as the letter Veritas ipsa recognizing the humanity of the Indians. This controversy allows the transcription of the pontifical bubble in the Spanish right.

The teaching of colonialism

alive Geography of Onésime Recluse, preparatory course and CM1, in 1926

French law n° 2005-158

“ the Nation expresses its recognition with the women and the men who took part in the work achieved by France in the old French departments of Algeria, in Morocco, in Tunisia and Indo-China like in the territories placed before under French sovereignty. ”

“ the school programs recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence overseas, in particular in North Africa and grant to the history and the sacrifices combatants of the French Army resulting from these territories the eminent place to which they have right. ”

This assertion of a “positive role” caused a sharp debate in the French company, in metropolis and overseas. See on this subject:

• Claude Liauzu, '' a law against the history ''. Diplomatic Le Monde, April 2005, page 28.

• detailed Article: French Law of February 23rd, 2005

• I will not inspect the " time béni" colonies!

• Call of the professors of history of the secondary

• Call of children of harkis against articles 4 and 13 of the law of February 23rd, 2005

• related Article: French colonial Ideology

See too