European colonization 1750-2000
Chapter 1: Introduction
Part 1: Introduction
INTRODUCTION
European empires grew by a lot throughout the years
European expansion
- Widespread
o 16% of the planet’s surface colonized the rest of the world
- Non colonized states
o Japan, Korea
o Ethiopia
o Afghanistan
o Liberia
o Parts of China
o Most of Arabian Peninsula
o Iran
o Abyssinia
PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS
People like Chirstopher Columbus, James Cook and Henry Morton Stanley
are well known, but people like Breffu, Tacky or Toussain L’Ouverture not
so well.
These 3 were leaders of the slave revolt
- Breffu: in Caribbean
- Tacky: in Jamaica
- Toussaint: the Haitian revolution
1
,Michael-Rolph Trouillot (1949-2012)
- Had a book of facts and stories about the facts of these stories
- Not neutral
o Had illusions of objectivity
o Stayed silent about people
- Dominant stories
o Power relations and ideology
o Often written by Victors
2
,Part 2: Definitions
DEFINITIONS
CONCEPTUAL HISTORY
Etymology
- Colonia: agrarian settlement
- Imperare: dominate
- Evolutions of the meaning
o 16th century: Dominate, conquests, barbarism
o 17th century: commerce, trade, plantation, private domain
o Until 1870s: only used for ‘settler colonization’
EXPANSION
- no colonization
o Colonization is a form of expansion
o Exodus: No controlling center remains behind
o Emigration: integration into existent societies
More individual
- Colonization
o Border colonization: countries expanding their borders
Ex.: US in their start phase
Expansion not against Spain and France but the
Native Americans now the minority
o Overseas colonization:
Naval networks
Overseas settlements
COLONY
A colony is a political organization, created by invasion
- De buitenlandse heersers zijn afhankelijk van een geografisch
verafgelegen 'moederland' of imperiaal centrum, dat exclusieve
rechten op 'bezit' van de kolonie claimt.
- By definition is the US not a colony because its in their own country,
but its still counts as one
COLONIALISM
3
,= a relationship of domination between a majority and a minority of
foreign ivaders
- The fundamental decisions that affect the lives of the colonized
population are made by the colonial rulers and driven by interest
determined in a distant metropolis
- Colonizers reject cultural compromises with population and are
convinced of their superiority
COLONIZATION
- Goes hand in hand with colony and colonialism, but
o Colonies without colonization
Ex.: only through military conquest
o Colonization without colonies
Ex.: border colonization
Border colonization: Russia
= Russia was colonized
Kievan-Rus empire with Kiev as its capital conquered by the tartars
later an expansion of territory
- Russia expanded in the same centuries as the western European
metropoles
- Conquest: timeline and mechanisms
o Private funding
Cossacks were paid by merchants
They had to fight battles against the native people
o Violence
- Economy: trade and natural resources
o All their profits go to Moscow from producing diamonds
- Demography: extermination and settling
o Urkun: uprising against the inscription of Muslims
exterminations by Russians
o Holodomor: Famine in 1930s by Stalin against Kulaks and
Ukrainian population
o Indigenous peoples of Siberia/ ethnic groups in USSR
o Soviet 1920s ethnic policy: promoting non-Russian culture and
languages to legitimize the new socialist state
o But: Pseudo-federation, Russification, divide and rule strategy
- Superiority feeling orientation and racism
DOMESTIC COLONIZATION
4
, - Rural colonies for specific groups
o Outsiders of society
o Transform and utilize ‘backward’ people: poor, disabled, …
o Reintegrating by Isolation and segregation
- Through forced agrarian labour
o Improvement of ‘waste’ land
- Book of B. Arneil challenges contemporary definitions of colonialism
o Not overseas
o No racial domination
- Co-insighted with overseas colonization
INTERNAL COLONIZATION
- Resembles overseas colonization
- Example: Brazil
o Does not mean it controls al of its borders
o Shows how Brazil took control of the amazon
Expansion in own territoria
SUBCOLONIAL RELATIONS
- Between one colony and another colony of the empire
- Example: South-Africa
DIFFERENT TYPES OF COLONIES
- Administration and legal statues
o Viceroyalties, audiencias, protectorates, Crown colonies, free
states, overseas provinces, League of Nation mandates, UN
trusteeship territories, …
- Economy and population
o Pure settlement colonies, plantation colonies, exploitation
colonies, trading settlements,
maritime enclaves, …
- Formal empires
o Several peripheries are subordinated to the center
o Ex.: Portugal, Spain, Dutch Republic, France, Britain
The 5 formal empires
- Semi-empires
o Colonial powers without empires
o Ex.: Spain post 1820, Belgium
- Informal empires
o Pursue interests beyond a acquisition of territory
5
, o Ex.: 19th-century Britain in Latin America
IMPERIALISM
- Very closely related to colonialism but has different connotations
o Imperari= dominate bigger than colonialism
o No clear-cut definitions
- Compromises all forces and activities contributing to the
construction and maintenance of empires
- Imperialism is more comprehensive than colonialism
- Colonialism is a special manifestation of imperialism
EXAMPLES
Imperialism vs colonization
- Relationship between metropole and conquered areas
- The roman empire (150 AD)
- The Tatar empire
- Austrian Habsburg Empire
- Ottoman empire 1683
- Difference between roman and Tatar empire and west-European
empires
o European colonies have colonies all over the world, the
Ottoman empire is border colorizations
- Plethora (overvloed) of empires in world history
o China under Han, Jin, Tang, Yan, Ming and Qing
o Japanese empire
o Precolonial empires in Western Africa
o Inca Empire
o Abassid Empire (763-809)
Colonization vs European overseas colonization
- Vikings in the 8th-11th century
- Crusader states
- German colonization of central Europe / in the Baltic area
o Germans were not subordinate to metropole
- Greek colonies
- Phoenician colonies
- Empire of Alexander the Great
- The Diadochi
- Scale of European overseas colonization
Voyages
- Christopher Columbus (1492-1504
6
, - James Cook (1768-1779)
- The travels of Ibn Battuta (1325-1356)
- Difference between Columbus, James Cook and Battuta
o Ibn traveled within one cultural sphere
- The travel of Ma Huan (1413-1415)
- Cheng-ho/ Zeng He (1405-1431)
o No permanent transformation of the destinations
o Didn’t settle there, sometimes trade
PERIODIZATION
When did European colonization start?
- David Landes
o “For the last thousand years, Europe (the West) has been the
prime mover of development and modernity”
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN
- 16th century: rise of one single capitalist world economy
o North-western Europe: core
o Rest of Europe: semi-periphery
o Rest of the world: periphery
KENNETH POMERANZ
- Core areas in the 18th c. Old World
o NW Europe & Chinese and Japanese cores
- Many parallels
o Life expectancy, consumption, markets, ...
o Asian GNP vs. European GNP
1750: 130% - 1800: 100% - 1870: 50%
- Divergence in early 19th century
o Between Asia and Europe
o European shortage of energy
Timber -> coal -> steam -> Industrial Revolution
o East Asian hinterlands boomed
Prevented need for innovation
PRASANNAN PARTHASARATHI
- Parallels before 18th century
7
, - Divergence from mid-18th century
- Different causes
o India as a competitor in textile production
Triggers development of new technology
o Role of the state
Active in crushing Indian production
DAVID ABERNETHY
- Distinctions between 5 phases of colonization
o Expansion (1415-1773)
Establishment of Portuguese settlement 1st
Portuguese settlement of Europe
o First decolonization (1775-1824)
When the Spanish were defeated for the last time
o Second decolonization (1824-1912)
Further European expansion following decolonization
Ended when the issue of Morocco was dealt with
o Consolidation (1914-1939)
o Second decolonization (1940-1980)
Many became independent
ANTONY HOPKINS
- All historians have different definitions
- Four stages
o Archaic globalized networks
o Proto globalization (1600-1800)
o High imperialism
o Postcolonial era
- Early starters: Landes and Wallerstein
- Critics: Pomeranz, Parthasarathi and Darwin
- Compromises: Abernethy and Hopkins
8
,Part 3: Causes of colonization
GEOGRAPHY
- Peninsula surrounded by water
o Particularities: Portugal – Spain – Republic – England
- Protection from steppe imperialism
o Vs. Eastern Europe (Tatars, Ottomans and Russians)
o Vs. India (Afghans, Persians & Turkic people)
o Vs. China (Tatars & Manchu)
o Had to protect themselves from invasions most of W-Europe
did not have these concerns and could focus on overseas
expansion
- Narrowness of the Atlantic Ocean
o Vs. China and the Pacific Ocean
- Need tot circumvent Africa for trade with India
o New World ‘discovered’ by Europeans
o While looking for new roads
JARED DIAMOND
- Distinguishes Eurasia between one continent and the other
- Eurasia: long east-west distances
o Vs. different climates in Africa
o Vs. different latitudes in America
- Benefits
o More exchange and wheat varieties
o More domesticated animal species
o Food supply dense population division of labour
horse
TECHNOLOGY
- Early inventions
o Eyeglasses, mechanical clocks, printing, …
o All account for Europe’s differences
- Communication and transportation
o Caravels, galleons, horses / steamships
- Science and medicine
o Vitc C (scurvy)/ malaria
- Military superiority
9
, o Gunpowder / Maxim guns
TONIO ANDRADE
- Invented by Chinese, not Europeans
- Long-standing Chinese superiority
o Song developed gunpowder weapons
o Ming first gunpowder empire
o Europe: classic gun in 14th century
o China prevailed in all early conflicts
- Great Military Divergence: 1760-1840
o Europe increasingly innovated
Ships, Renaissance fortress, Industrial Revol.
o China lost position
Peace under Ming and High Qing
Dysfunctional state under late Qing
ECONOMY
- Capitalism
o Property rights
o Competition and profit motive
o Capital accumulation you make more profits
- Industrial Revolution
o Need of raw materials and recources
o Need of markets and investments
o Social transformation and population pressure
- Great diversity
o Not all business milieus enthusiastic
o Not all colonization economically motivated
John hobson
- “Imperialism is the endeavour of the great controllers of industry to
broaden the channel for the flow of their surplus wealth by seeking
foreign markets and foreign investments to take off the goods and
capital they cannot sell or use at home.”
Vladimir Ilich Lenin
- Thinks in terms of stages in world history
10
Chapter 1: Introduction
Part 1: Introduction
INTRODUCTION
European empires grew by a lot throughout the years
European expansion
- Widespread
o 16% of the planet’s surface colonized the rest of the world
- Non colonized states
o Japan, Korea
o Ethiopia
o Afghanistan
o Liberia
o Parts of China
o Most of Arabian Peninsula
o Iran
o Abyssinia
PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS
People like Chirstopher Columbus, James Cook and Henry Morton Stanley
are well known, but people like Breffu, Tacky or Toussain L’Ouverture not
so well.
These 3 were leaders of the slave revolt
- Breffu: in Caribbean
- Tacky: in Jamaica
- Toussaint: the Haitian revolution
1
,Michael-Rolph Trouillot (1949-2012)
- Had a book of facts and stories about the facts of these stories
- Not neutral
o Had illusions of objectivity
o Stayed silent about people
- Dominant stories
o Power relations and ideology
o Often written by Victors
2
,Part 2: Definitions
DEFINITIONS
CONCEPTUAL HISTORY
Etymology
- Colonia: agrarian settlement
- Imperare: dominate
- Evolutions of the meaning
o 16th century: Dominate, conquests, barbarism
o 17th century: commerce, trade, plantation, private domain
o Until 1870s: only used for ‘settler colonization’
EXPANSION
- no colonization
o Colonization is a form of expansion
o Exodus: No controlling center remains behind
o Emigration: integration into existent societies
More individual
- Colonization
o Border colonization: countries expanding their borders
Ex.: US in their start phase
Expansion not against Spain and France but the
Native Americans now the minority
o Overseas colonization:
Naval networks
Overseas settlements
COLONY
A colony is a political organization, created by invasion
- De buitenlandse heersers zijn afhankelijk van een geografisch
verafgelegen 'moederland' of imperiaal centrum, dat exclusieve
rechten op 'bezit' van de kolonie claimt.
- By definition is the US not a colony because its in their own country,
but its still counts as one
COLONIALISM
3
,= a relationship of domination between a majority and a minority of
foreign ivaders
- The fundamental decisions that affect the lives of the colonized
population are made by the colonial rulers and driven by interest
determined in a distant metropolis
- Colonizers reject cultural compromises with population and are
convinced of their superiority
COLONIZATION
- Goes hand in hand with colony and colonialism, but
o Colonies without colonization
Ex.: only through military conquest
o Colonization without colonies
Ex.: border colonization
Border colonization: Russia
= Russia was colonized
Kievan-Rus empire with Kiev as its capital conquered by the tartars
later an expansion of territory
- Russia expanded in the same centuries as the western European
metropoles
- Conquest: timeline and mechanisms
o Private funding
Cossacks were paid by merchants
They had to fight battles against the native people
o Violence
- Economy: trade and natural resources
o All their profits go to Moscow from producing diamonds
- Demography: extermination and settling
o Urkun: uprising against the inscription of Muslims
exterminations by Russians
o Holodomor: Famine in 1930s by Stalin against Kulaks and
Ukrainian population
o Indigenous peoples of Siberia/ ethnic groups in USSR
o Soviet 1920s ethnic policy: promoting non-Russian culture and
languages to legitimize the new socialist state
o But: Pseudo-federation, Russification, divide and rule strategy
- Superiority feeling orientation and racism
DOMESTIC COLONIZATION
4
, - Rural colonies for specific groups
o Outsiders of society
o Transform and utilize ‘backward’ people: poor, disabled, …
o Reintegrating by Isolation and segregation
- Through forced agrarian labour
o Improvement of ‘waste’ land
- Book of B. Arneil challenges contemporary definitions of colonialism
o Not overseas
o No racial domination
- Co-insighted with overseas colonization
INTERNAL COLONIZATION
- Resembles overseas colonization
- Example: Brazil
o Does not mean it controls al of its borders
o Shows how Brazil took control of the amazon
Expansion in own territoria
SUBCOLONIAL RELATIONS
- Between one colony and another colony of the empire
- Example: South-Africa
DIFFERENT TYPES OF COLONIES
- Administration and legal statues
o Viceroyalties, audiencias, protectorates, Crown colonies, free
states, overseas provinces, League of Nation mandates, UN
trusteeship territories, …
- Economy and population
o Pure settlement colonies, plantation colonies, exploitation
colonies, trading settlements,
maritime enclaves, …
- Formal empires
o Several peripheries are subordinated to the center
o Ex.: Portugal, Spain, Dutch Republic, France, Britain
The 5 formal empires
- Semi-empires
o Colonial powers without empires
o Ex.: Spain post 1820, Belgium
- Informal empires
o Pursue interests beyond a acquisition of territory
5
, o Ex.: 19th-century Britain in Latin America
IMPERIALISM
- Very closely related to colonialism but has different connotations
o Imperari= dominate bigger than colonialism
o No clear-cut definitions
- Compromises all forces and activities contributing to the
construction and maintenance of empires
- Imperialism is more comprehensive than colonialism
- Colonialism is a special manifestation of imperialism
EXAMPLES
Imperialism vs colonization
- Relationship between metropole and conquered areas
- The roman empire (150 AD)
- The Tatar empire
- Austrian Habsburg Empire
- Ottoman empire 1683
- Difference between roman and Tatar empire and west-European
empires
o European colonies have colonies all over the world, the
Ottoman empire is border colorizations
- Plethora (overvloed) of empires in world history
o China under Han, Jin, Tang, Yan, Ming and Qing
o Japanese empire
o Precolonial empires in Western Africa
o Inca Empire
o Abassid Empire (763-809)
Colonization vs European overseas colonization
- Vikings in the 8th-11th century
- Crusader states
- German colonization of central Europe / in the Baltic area
o Germans were not subordinate to metropole
- Greek colonies
- Phoenician colonies
- Empire of Alexander the Great
- The Diadochi
- Scale of European overseas colonization
Voyages
- Christopher Columbus (1492-1504
6
, - James Cook (1768-1779)
- The travels of Ibn Battuta (1325-1356)
- Difference between Columbus, James Cook and Battuta
o Ibn traveled within one cultural sphere
- The travel of Ma Huan (1413-1415)
- Cheng-ho/ Zeng He (1405-1431)
o No permanent transformation of the destinations
o Didn’t settle there, sometimes trade
PERIODIZATION
When did European colonization start?
- David Landes
o “For the last thousand years, Europe (the West) has been the
prime mover of development and modernity”
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN
- 16th century: rise of one single capitalist world economy
o North-western Europe: core
o Rest of Europe: semi-periphery
o Rest of the world: periphery
KENNETH POMERANZ
- Core areas in the 18th c. Old World
o NW Europe & Chinese and Japanese cores
- Many parallels
o Life expectancy, consumption, markets, ...
o Asian GNP vs. European GNP
1750: 130% - 1800: 100% - 1870: 50%
- Divergence in early 19th century
o Between Asia and Europe
o European shortage of energy
Timber -> coal -> steam -> Industrial Revolution
o East Asian hinterlands boomed
Prevented need for innovation
PRASANNAN PARTHASARATHI
- Parallels before 18th century
7
, - Divergence from mid-18th century
- Different causes
o India as a competitor in textile production
Triggers development of new technology
o Role of the state
Active in crushing Indian production
DAVID ABERNETHY
- Distinctions between 5 phases of colonization
o Expansion (1415-1773)
Establishment of Portuguese settlement 1st
Portuguese settlement of Europe
o First decolonization (1775-1824)
When the Spanish were defeated for the last time
o Second decolonization (1824-1912)
Further European expansion following decolonization
Ended when the issue of Morocco was dealt with
o Consolidation (1914-1939)
o Second decolonization (1940-1980)
Many became independent
ANTONY HOPKINS
- All historians have different definitions
- Four stages
o Archaic globalized networks
o Proto globalization (1600-1800)
o High imperialism
o Postcolonial era
- Early starters: Landes and Wallerstein
- Critics: Pomeranz, Parthasarathi and Darwin
- Compromises: Abernethy and Hopkins
8
,Part 3: Causes of colonization
GEOGRAPHY
- Peninsula surrounded by water
o Particularities: Portugal – Spain – Republic – England
- Protection from steppe imperialism
o Vs. Eastern Europe (Tatars, Ottomans and Russians)
o Vs. India (Afghans, Persians & Turkic people)
o Vs. China (Tatars & Manchu)
o Had to protect themselves from invasions most of W-Europe
did not have these concerns and could focus on overseas
expansion
- Narrowness of the Atlantic Ocean
o Vs. China and the Pacific Ocean
- Need tot circumvent Africa for trade with India
o New World ‘discovered’ by Europeans
o While looking for new roads
JARED DIAMOND
- Distinguishes Eurasia between one continent and the other
- Eurasia: long east-west distances
o Vs. different climates in Africa
o Vs. different latitudes in America
- Benefits
o More exchange and wheat varieties
o More domesticated animal species
o Food supply dense population division of labour
horse
TECHNOLOGY
- Early inventions
o Eyeglasses, mechanical clocks, printing, …
o All account for Europe’s differences
- Communication and transportation
o Caravels, galleons, horses / steamships
- Science and medicine
o Vitc C (scurvy)/ malaria
- Military superiority
9
, o Gunpowder / Maxim guns
TONIO ANDRADE
- Invented by Chinese, not Europeans
- Long-standing Chinese superiority
o Song developed gunpowder weapons
o Ming first gunpowder empire
o Europe: classic gun in 14th century
o China prevailed in all early conflicts
- Great Military Divergence: 1760-1840
o Europe increasingly innovated
Ships, Renaissance fortress, Industrial Revol.
o China lost position
Peace under Ming and High Qing
Dysfunctional state under late Qing
ECONOMY
- Capitalism
o Property rights
o Competition and profit motive
o Capital accumulation you make more profits
- Industrial Revolution
o Need of raw materials and recources
o Need of markets and investments
o Social transformation and population pressure
- Great diversity
o Not all business milieus enthusiastic
o Not all colonization economically motivated
John hobson
- “Imperialism is the endeavour of the great controllers of industry to
broaden the channel for the flow of their surplus wealth by seeking
foreign markets and foreign investments to take off the goods and
capital they cannot sell or use at home.”
Vladimir Ilich Lenin
- Thinks in terms of stages in world history
10
