Chapter 2: Understanding colonialism
Introduction: colonialism and imperialism
Colonialism is essentially a political process. Colonies were acquired for motives other than the
economic imperative for material resources, labour or markets.
Much of the development literature conceptualises the global expansion of capitalism as
imperialism rather than colonialism.
Colonialism is often defined as a system of government which seeks defend an unequal system
of commodity exchange. Said maintains that colonialism existed in order to impose superiority
of the European way of life on that of the Oriental.
Perceptions of the non-European world
Preston’s simplistic sequence of ways in which Europeans represented the Non-European
world: first as exotic cultural equals, then as representatives of innocence and noble savagery
during the Age of Enlightenment, subsequently as the ‘uncivilised savages’ of the nineteenth
century who had to be controlled, then improved and eventually guided to independence.
This sequence if not untrue, this suggests a set of ideologies that were uniform over space and
through time. The reality was very different, particularly over the long period from the early
sixteenth to the early nineteenth century.
‘Waves’ of colonialism
Taylor has set out very clearly a sequence of waves or phases in which imperialism and
colonialism combine to produce a series of long and short waves or cycles of development the
long waves coincide with major economic systems: feudalism, mercantilism and industrial
capitalism. The shorter waves (‘Kondratieff waves’) are said to fit into the long waves in roughly
50-year cycles. All the waves are characterised by phases of growth and stagnation; during the
stagnation phases economic restructuring occurs in order to re-establish economic strength.
The acquisition of colonies formed part of this restructuring process by giving access to
materials, food and labour. The long waves of mercantilism and industrial colonials can be seen
to coincide with the rise and fall of major cycles of colonialism (Figure 2.2)
The phases of colonialism were common to most parts of the non-European world, but the
chronology, rationale and reactions involved varied enormously. Clapham: ‘the Americas, bot
rich and easy to control; Asia, rich but difficult to control; Africa, for the most part poor and s
scarcely worth controlling’
Post-colonialism
Post-colonialism: the effects of the process of colonisation on cultures and societies.
‘Subaltern’ studies: Subaltern are marginalised and oppressed people
Orientalism (Said): the West versus the East (or the Rest or the Orient). Dichotomies between
both whereby the West dominate the East
Hybridity: Europeans took their culture with them to the colonies. This had effect on the culture
of the indigenous people. The end product was a culture encounter (mixed culture of both).
Mimicry: aspects of each other’s cultures are adopted
, Ambivalence: the relationship between colonizers and colonized are complex and contradictory
Phases of colonialism
Mercantile colonialism
The predominant features of this first phases of colonialism were commerce and trade.
The plantation system and slave labour
The plantation system and the massive demand for slave labour had a very significant impact
on economy and society in Africa and the Americas for the late sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The growing popularity of sugar in Europe, led to a massive demand for labour to
work the plantations in the Americas. The ‘triangular trade’ linked West Africa with the
Caribbean and the cities of western Europe.
The intensification of trading links
The mercantile phase of colonialism in Asia and Africa lasted for some considerable time
without extensive European settlement and with no uniform sign of the dominant subordinate
relationship which was to come later.
In North America and the Caribbean, the colonizers were heavily involved in the production
process and were much more extensive settled in the Americas than in Asia and Africa.
However, as trade with these two continents grew in both volume and value, so it became more
organised in it structure, usually within the context of trading company. The European colonizers
were physical present in the trading region. But the physical presences was still relatively small
in much of the non-European world outside the Americas. However the limited European
settlement had increasingly drawn many parts and people of the non-European world into the
capitalist system.
The transition to industrial colonialism
The mercantile colonial period merged into the era of industrial colonialism in a highly
differentiated transition period. Europe offered new and lucrative profits for the reinvestment of
accumulated merchant capital in its accelerating industrial transformation. Mercantile
colonialism begun to fade, its impact was already fuelling the Industrial Revolution and the
renewed burst of colonialism that began in the 19th century.
Industrial colonialism
Certain changes characterised the colonialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The
first was related to the dynamics of capitalism itself. Manufacturers themselves were eager to
find methods of expanding production, or at least stabilising costs and extending their profits.
Two obvious ways were to seek expanded and/or cheaper sources of raw materials and to find
new markets overseas. A further development was to expand the production of cheap food
overseas, thus lowering the cost of labour production. All of these and more were made
available in the restructured colonies of the nineteenth century.
The reason for the colonial project itself was also provided by a consolidation of the ideology of
justifiable intervention and occupation of what had become traditional groups.
Introduction: colonialism and imperialism
Colonialism is essentially a political process. Colonies were acquired for motives other than the
economic imperative for material resources, labour or markets.
Much of the development literature conceptualises the global expansion of capitalism as
imperialism rather than colonialism.
Colonialism is often defined as a system of government which seeks defend an unequal system
of commodity exchange. Said maintains that colonialism existed in order to impose superiority
of the European way of life on that of the Oriental.
Perceptions of the non-European world
Preston’s simplistic sequence of ways in which Europeans represented the Non-European
world: first as exotic cultural equals, then as representatives of innocence and noble savagery
during the Age of Enlightenment, subsequently as the ‘uncivilised savages’ of the nineteenth
century who had to be controlled, then improved and eventually guided to independence.
This sequence if not untrue, this suggests a set of ideologies that were uniform over space and
through time. The reality was very different, particularly over the long period from the early
sixteenth to the early nineteenth century.
‘Waves’ of colonialism
Taylor has set out very clearly a sequence of waves or phases in which imperialism and
colonialism combine to produce a series of long and short waves or cycles of development the
long waves coincide with major economic systems: feudalism, mercantilism and industrial
capitalism. The shorter waves (‘Kondratieff waves’) are said to fit into the long waves in roughly
50-year cycles. All the waves are characterised by phases of growth and stagnation; during the
stagnation phases economic restructuring occurs in order to re-establish economic strength.
The acquisition of colonies formed part of this restructuring process by giving access to
materials, food and labour. The long waves of mercantilism and industrial colonials can be seen
to coincide with the rise and fall of major cycles of colonialism (Figure 2.2)
The phases of colonialism were common to most parts of the non-European world, but the
chronology, rationale and reactions involved varied enormously. Clapham: ‘the Americas, bot
rich and easy to control; Asia, rich but difficult to control; Africa, for the most part poor and s
scarcely worth controlling’
Post-colonialism
Post-colonialism: the effects of the process of colonisation on cultures and societies.
‘Subaltern’ studies: Subaltern are marginalised and oppressed people
Orientalism (Said): the West versus the East (or the Rest or the Orient). Dichotomies between
both whereby the West dominate the East
Hybridity: Europeans took their culture with them to the colonies. This had effect on the culture
of the indigenous people. The end product was a culture encounter (mixed culture of both).
Mimicry: aspects of each other’s cultures are adopted
, Ambivalence: the relationship between colonizers and colonized are complex and contradictory
Phases of colonialism
Mercantile colonialism
The predominant features of this first phases of colonialism were commerce and trade.
The plantation system and slave labour
The plantation system and the massive demand for slave labour had a very significant impact
on economy and society in Africa and the Americas for the late sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The growing popularity of sugar in Europe, led to a massive demand for labour to
work the plantations in the Americas. The ‘triangular trade’ linked West Africa with the
Caribbean and the cities of western Europe.
The intensification of trading links
The mercantile phase of colonialism in Asia and Africa lasted for some considerable time
without extensive European settlement and with no uniform sign of the dominant subordinate
relationship which was to come later.
In North America and the Caribbean, the colonizers were heavily involved in the production
process and were much more extensive settled in the Americas than in Asia and Africa.
However, as trade with these two continents grew in both volume and value, so it became more
organised in it structure, usually within the context of trading company. The European colonizers
were physical present in the trading region. But the physical presences was still relatively small
in much of the non-European world outside the Americas. However the limited European
settlement had increasingly drawn many parts and people of the non-European world into the
capitalist system.
The transition to industrial colonialism
The mercantile colonial period merged into the era of industrial colonialism in a highly
differentiated transition period. Europe offered new and lucrative profits for the reinvestment of
accumulated merchant capital in its accelerating industrial transformation. Mercantile
colonialism begun to fade, its impact was already fuelling the Industrial Revolution and the
renewed burst of colonialism that began in the 19th century.
Industrial colonialism
Certain changes characterised the colonialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The
first was related to the dynamics of capitalism itself. Manufacturers themselves were eager to
find methods of expanding production, or at least stabilising costs and extending their profits.
Two obvious ways were to seek expanded and/or cheaper sources of raw materials and to find
new markets overseas. A further development was to expand the production of cheap food
overseas, thus lowering the cost of labour production. All of these and more were made
available in the restructured colonies of the nineteenth century.
The reason for the colonial project itself was also provided by a consolidation of the ideology of
justifiable intervention and occupation of what had become traditional groups.
