Information AboutColonialism |
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Colonialism is the extension of a nation's Sovereignty over Territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either Settler Colonies or administrative dependencies in which Indigenous Populations are Directly Ruled or Displaced . Colonizers generally dominate the Resources , Labor , and Markets of the Colonial Territory and may also impose socio-cultural, religious and linguistic structures on the conquered population; this has led critics of colonialism to call it Imperialism . However, if colonialism is often used interchangeably with imperialism, the latter is broader as it covers control exercised informally (via influence) as well as formally. The term of colonialism also refers to a set of beliefs used to legitimize or promote this system, especially the belief that the Mores of the colonizer are superior to those of the colonized. Such beliefs have often been criticized as a form of Racism , and where indeed codified in a form of Scientific Racism at the end of the 19th century. Types of colonialism Different types of colonialism may be distinguished, according to the form of colonization and also the date. , where the colonizers did not arrive as part of a mass emigration, but rather as administrators over existing sizeable native populations, exercising control by use or threat of force. Examples in this category include the British Raj , Egypt , the Dutch East Indies and the Japanese Colonial Empire . In some cases large-scale colonial settlement was attempted in substantially pre-populated areas and the result was either an ethnically mixed population (such as the Mestizo s of the Americas ), or racially divided, such as in French Algeria or Southern Rhodesia . A fourth category may be considered for ''' Plantation ''' colonies such as Barbados , Saint-Domingue and Jamaica where the white colonizers Imported Black Slaves who rapidly began to outnumber their owners, leading to minority rule, similar to a dependency. '''Trading posts''', such as Macau , Malacca , Deshima and Singapore constitute a fifth category, where the primary purpose of the colony was to engage in trade rather than as a staging post for further colonization of the hinterland. Furthermore, the British model of colonization, based on " (''Nos ancêtres les Gaulois''). The European colonization of the Americas See Also: European colonization of the Americas Indian Removal The year 1492 marked the discovery of the Americas by modern Europeans and it was not long after this that Castile began the conquest of South America and the Caribbean . However, western colonisation has its roots in Portuguese trips, these Portuguese went from Lisbon to the Cape Of Good Hope before reaching India in 1498 . Originally there was very little colonisation other than the soldiers and adventurers who had come to these areas seeking wealth (many of whom returned to Europe as rich men), however as time went by and the natives began to die out via the new disease pool from Europe and oppression by cruel landlords, leaving a lot of vacant space open for colonisation by Europeans. Despite this the Spanish mode of colonisation still mostly consisted of young men who found native wives leading to the creation of a hybrid native/European culture. The 17th Century saw other European nations beginning to colonise the Americas (mainly the Netherlands , France and England however many other nations attempted colonies) and these Europeans largely saw conventional movements of families into new lands. At the same time, England "planted" nearby Ireland extensively with English and Scottish settlers (see Plantations Of Ireland ). The desire for labour in the Americas by the various European nations also led to the booming of the African Slave Trade leading to black 'colonisation' of the Americas- today this is especially apparent in the Caribbean where the largest ethnic group is of African descent. The European Colonization Of The Americas was also the theater of the use of Detention centers, Population Transfers (leading to the Seminole Wars in Florida at the beginnning of the 19th century) and "unvoluntary extermination" (through diseases). In the United States , the 1830 Indian Removal treaty was a policy seeking to relocate American Indian (or "Native American") tribes living east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river. In the decades following the American Revolution (1763-1783), the rapidly increasing population of the United States resulted in numerous treaties in which lands were purchased from Native Americans. Eventually, the U.S. government began encouraging Indian tribes to sell their land by offering them land in the West, outside the boundaries of the then-existing U.S. states, where the tribes could resettle. This process was accelerated with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which provided funds for President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) to conduct land-exchange ("removal") treaties. An estimated 100,000 American Indians eventually relocated in the West as a result of this policy, most of them emigrating during the 1830s, settling in what was known as the " Indian Territory ". The first large-scale confinement of a specific ethnic group in detention centers began in the summer of 1838, when President Martin Van Buren (1837-1841) ordered the U.S. Army to enforce the December 29 , 1835 Treaty Of New Echota (an Indian Removal treaty) by rounding up the Cherokee into prison camps before relocating them. Although these camps were not intended to be Extermination Camps , and there was no official policy to kill people, some Indians were raped and/or murdered by US soldiers. Many more died in these camps due to disease, which spread rapidly because of the close quarters and bad sanitary conditions. This event, known as the Trail Of Tears (or ''Nunna daul Isunyi'' - "The Trail Where We Cried" in Cherokee), resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee Indians. Throughout the remainder of the Indian Wars , various populations of Native Americans were rounded up, trekked across country and put into detention, some for as long as 27 years. In South America , colonization was also criticized, for example in Eduardo Galeano 's famous 1971 book, ''The Open Veins of Latin America ''. Colonization in Africa and in Asia See Also: New Imperialism Rise of the New Imperialism Scramble for Africa .]] The latter half of 19th century saw the transition from an "informal" empire of control through military and economic dominance to direct control, marked from the created the Commonwealth and used Indirect Rule , allowing the local elites to govern the colonies, under the supervision of the colonial administration; on the other hand, the French Republic directly ruled the colonies, claiming they were integrally part of the French Republic. Thus, the Crémieux Decrees provided for representation of the French Department Of Algeria in the National Assembly . The Crémieux Decrees also granted blanket French citizenship to Algerian Jews, who then numbered about 40,000. This act set them apart from Muslims, in whose eyes they were identified thereafter with the colons. The measure had to be enforced, however, over the objections of the colons, who made little distinction between Muslims and Jews. This classic opposition between the British model of colonization and the French model, based on its Universalist Conception of the Republic, was doubled by a second opposition, between the colonial administration, which displayed open contempt for the Indigenous people, which it considered as hardly superior to beasts, and the Metropole , where colonialism sometimes met with opposition (e.g. Gladstone or Clemenceau ) and where the Parliaments considered the Empire to be full part of the Nation, and thus the colonized people to be full citizens. Hannah Arendt's reasonment ultimately leads her to show that the Human Rights are in fact dependent of Civil Rights , and not the reverse as would let believe the 1789 Declaration Of The Rights Of Man And Of The Citizen . Colonial abuse was criticized in the metropole on behalf of the colonized people's supposed citizenship, while it was justified in the colonies because of their non-membership to the nation. In Germany, rising Pan-germanism was coupled to imperialism in the '' Alldeutsche Verband '', which argued that Britain's world power position gave the British unfair advantages on international markets, thus limiting Germany's economic growth and threatening its security. Many European statesmen and industrialists wanted to accelerate the Scramble For Africa , securing colonies before they strictly needed them. The inventor of Realpolitik , Bismarck thus pushed a Weltpolitik vision ("World Politic"), which considered the colonization as a necessity for the emerging German power. In Asia, the , French , and German imperialisms opposed themselves to conquer the most territories possible as quickly as could be done. chained during the 1904 rebellion, before the Herero Genocide (1904-07) in German South-West Africa (finally independent, under the name of Namibia , in 1990).]] Leopold II Of Belgium also managed to have a Colonial Empire , while the Dutch had the Dutch East Indies . In the same manner, Italy tried to conquer its " Place In The Sun ", adquiring Somaliland in 1899-90, Eritrea and 1899, and, taking advantage of the "Sick Man of Europe", the Ottoman Empire , also conquered Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (modern Lybia ) after the 1911 Treaty Of Lausanne . The conquest of Ethiopia , which had remained the last African independent territory, had to wait till the Second Italo-Abyssinian War in 1935-36 (the First Italo-Abyssinian War in 1895-96 had been a disaster for Italian troops). The Portuguese and Spanish Colonial Empire were smaller, mostly heritages from past colonization. Most of their colonies had adquired independence during the Latin American Revolutions at the beginning of the 19th century, led by famous '' Libertadores '' such as Simón Bolívar or José De San Martín , while Dom Pedro declared Brazil 's independence in 1822, founding the Brazilian Empire . Japanese imperialism See Also: Japanese imperialism Imperialism in Asia After being closed for centuries to Western influence, ". Allying itself with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy , it would lose its colonies after its final defeat during World War II. The French colonial empire See Also: French colonial empire , working as Propaganda for the Colonial Empire. Carries on a Racist Stereotype of the " Negro " as emotional - he is laughing - but quite slow-thinking. The badly structured sentence ''Y a Bon Banania'' tries to make the racist point that Negroes don't know how to speak properly. ]] In France, the colonial empire wasn't used for massive Emigration , as in the British Empire . In fact, until the Third Republic (1871-1914), apart of the Colonization Of Algeria started on June 12 , 1830 , in the last days of the Restoration , France didn't have yet much colonies. The few ones which it had, such as New Caledonia or French Guiana , were used for Transportation of criminals and '' Communards '' following the defeat of the 1871 Paris Commune . Because of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the "colonial Lobby ", gathering a few politicians, businessmen and geographers favorable to colonialism, was not very popular till World War I. In the 1880s, a debate thus opposed those who opposed the colonization, such as Georges Clemenceau ( Radical ), who declared that colonialism diverted France from the "blue line of the Vosges ", referring to the disputed Alsace-Lorraine region, Jean Jaurès ( Socialist ) or Maurice Barrès (nationalist), to the "colonial lobby", supported by Jules Ferry (moderate Republican ), Léon Gambetta (republican) or Eugène Etienne , the president of the parliamentary colonial group. Prime minister from 1880 to 1881 and 1883 to 1885, Republican Jules Ferry directed the negotiations which led to the establishment of a French Protectorate in Tunis (1881) (the Bardo treaty), prepared the treaty of December 17 , 1885 for the occupation of Madagascar ; directed the exploration of the Congo and of the Niger region; and above all he organized the conquest of Indochina . The excitement caused at Paris by the sudden retreat of the French troops from Lang Son led to his violent denunciation by Clemenceau and other radicals, and his downfall on March 30 , 1885 . Although the Treaty Of Peace With China ( June 9 , 1885 ), in which the Qing Dynasty ceded suzerainty of Annam and Tonkin to France, was the work of his ministry, he would never again serve as premiere. According to Sandrine Lemaire, only 1% of the French population actually visited its colonial empire. Because of this relative unpopularity, until at least World War I, the colonial lobby set up an intensive was one, as the successful 1931 ''Exposition coloniale'' in Paris. Germany and Portugal also had such exhibitions, as well as Belgium 's, which had a ''Foire coloniale'' as late as 1948 . The political scientist Pierre-André Taguieff said about the French Third Republic that it was host to " Racialism or an ideological racism that didn't perceive itself as such, and that called neither for hate, nor for stigmatisation, nor either for segregation, but which found its legitimity in colonial exploitation and domination, and its justification in its thesis of the future evolution of these inferior peoples". Olivier LeCour Grandmaison has argued, for his part, that the techniques used for the French Code in Algeria, the principle of "collective responsibility", the " Scorched Earth " policy, which made of French colonial rule in Algeria a permanent State Of Exception . Internment Camps were also first tested during the 1830 invasion of Algeria, before being used (under the official name of Concentration Camps ) to receive the Spanish Republican Refugees first, than to intern Communist s and, finally, Jews during Vichy France . Concentration camps were also used by the British Empire during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). After World War I, the colonized people were frustrated at France's quasi-total absence of recognition toward the effort provided by the French colonies (resources, but more importantly colonial troups - the famous '' Tirailleurs ''). Although the French government constructed the Great Mosque Of Paris as recognition of these efforts, it had no intention to allow Self-rule , let alone Independence to the colonized people. Thus, Nationalism in the colonies became stronger in between the two wars, leading to Abd El-Krim 's Rif War in Morocco and to the creation of Messali Hadj 's Star Of North Africa in Algeria . However, these movements would gain full potential only after World War II. The October 27 , 1946 Constitution creating the Fourth Republic substituted the French Union to the colonial empire. In the night of March 29 to March 30 , 1947 , a nationalist uprising in Madagascar led the French government led by Paul Ramadier ( Socialist ) to violent repression: one year of bitter fighting, in which 90,000 to 100,000 Malagasy died. In 1954, the states of French Indochina withdraw from the Union, leading to the Indochina War . In 1956, Morocco and Tunisia gained their independence, while the Algerian War is raging (1954-1962). With Charles De Gaulle 's return to power in 1958 amidst turmoil and threats of a right-wing coup d'Etat to protect "French Algeria", the decolonization is completed with the independence of African's colonies in 1960 and the March 19 , 1962 Evian accords, which put an end to the Algerian war. To this day, the Algerian war - officially called until the 1990s a "public order operation" - remains to this day a traumatism both for France and Algeria. Philosopher Paul Ricœur has spoke of the necessity of a "decolonization of memory", starting with the recognition of the 1961 Paris Massacre during the Algerian war and the recognition of the decisive role of Immigrated manpower in the '' Trente Glorieuses '' post-WW II economic growth period. In the 1960s, due to the necessity of reconstruction and of economic growth, French employers actively sought manpower in the colonies, explaining today's Multiethnic Population . Debates about the value of colonialism continue to this day. In France, the vote of the February 23 , 2005 law by the conservative Union For A Popular Movement (UMP), asking teachers and textbooks to "acknowledge and recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa", was met with public uproar and accusations of Historic Revisionism , both inside France and abroad. Abdelaziz Bouteflika , president of Algeria, refused to sign the envisioned "friendly treaty" with France because of this law, which has been since repealed by president Jacques Chirac at the beginning of 2006. Famous writer Aimé Césaire , leader of the '' Négritude '' movement, also refused to meet UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy , leading the later to cancel his visit to Martinique . Impact and evaluation of colonialism and colonization Given that colonialism involves the rule or taking of territory of one people by another and without their consent, it is a highly emotive subject. Debate about the perceived positive and negative aspects of colonialism has occurred for centuries, amongst both colonizer and colonized, and continues to the present day. Different types of colonialism must first be distinguished, as they were spread in time and thus didn't represent the same historic phenomenon. Advocates of colonialism point to such former colonies as the United States Of America , Canada , Australia , New Zealand , Hong Kong and Singapore as examples of Post-colonial success. These nations do not, however, represent the normal course of colonialism in that they are either Settler societies, or Tradepost Cities . Furthermore, critics point out that, in the case of the '' New World '', colonialism involved the Atlantic Slave Trade . Advocates of 19th century colonialism (" New Imperialism ") argue that colonial rule benefited the colonized by developing Transport Infrastructure s such as roads, railroads, ports, etc., necessary to Economic Development . This Modernization , in turn, would lead to Democracy . Rudyard Kipling 's famous poem, '' The White Man's Burden '' (1899), thus claimed that it was the role of the West to bring Civilization to so-called Savage people. This thesis was harshly opposed in '' Heart Of Darkness '' (1899) by Joseph Conrad , who pointed out that Kipling's argument was a form of Ethnocentrism and underlined the obscure and Racist aspect of colonial Exploitation . This was exemplified by Arthur De Gobineau 's '' An Essay On The Inequality Of The Human Races '' (1853-55), Colonial Exhibitions (some of them including Human Zoo s), disdain for the local population, Forced Labor , and even, in some cases, Genocides . However, the debate on the link between Economic Growth and democracy continues to this day (in particular relating to China ). Miscegenation In the Portuguese colonies, Miscegenation was commonplace, and even supported by the court as a way to boost low populations and guarantee a successful settlement. Thus, settlers often released African slaves to become their wives. Some of the children were guaranteed full Portuguese citizenship, possibly based on lighter Skin Color , but not Race . Some former Portuguese colonies have large mixed-race populations, for instance, Brazil , Cape Verde , and São Tomé E Príncipe . Miscegenation was still common in Africa until the independence of the former Portuguese colonies in the 1970s. To the present day, Angola n, Brazilian, and Cape Verdian societies are defined by the degree of Melanin (lighter skin). In Cape Verde, the population is often differentiated by lighter and darker skin (known as ''pele de chocolate'', or "chocolate skin"). Because of White Supremacist institutions and the values they inculcated among the populace, many such miscegenated societies were and remain to this day heavily stratified by color, with darker-skinned citizens assigned the lowest economic and social status. This was demonstrated by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre 's famous ''Casa-Grande & Senzala'' ("The Great House and the Slave Quarters" - 1933). Eduardo Galeano also showed how the profusion of Spanish words to design various types of skin color demonstrated a very precise racial hierarchy in Latin America. In the US, anti-miscegenation laws were passed and Racial Segregation enforced. Genocides and relation to the Holocaust Concerning the Scramble For Africa , for example, most historians tend to describe both positive aspects (infrastructures) and negative aspects (racism, Exploitation , and, in some cases, even Extermination - see for example the Herero Genocide between 1904 and 1907). Several authors, such as Swedish writer Sven Lindqvist (1992 Sven Lindqvist , ''Exterminate All The Brutes'', 1992, New Press ; Reprint edition (June 1997), ISBN 1565843592 ), French historian Olivier LeCour Grandmaison Olivier LeCour Grandmaison , ''Coloniser, Exterminer - Sur la guerre et l'Etat colonial'', Fayard , 2005, ISBN 35251692005 or, in a more moderate way, Hannah Arendt (1951) have linked the possibility and the history of the Holocaust to colonialism. In ''Exterminate All The Brutes'' (a sentence taken from Joseph Conrad 's '' Heart Of Darkness ''), Sven Lindqvist argued that the techniques and inhumanity necessary to the Holocaust were indeed practiced during colonial rule, in which several Ethnic Groups were exterminated. However, this thesis, linking the Holocaust to colonial genocides, has been harshly disputed by others authors. Imperialism and dependency theory , 2001 , the '' Négritude '' movement (gathering Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor ) argue that colonialism does political, psychological, and moral damage to the colonized as well. Indian writer and political activist Arundhati Roy likened debating the pros and cons of colonialism to "debating the pros and cons of rape". Critics of the alleged abuses of economic and political advantages accruing to developed nations via globalised thought that the necessary economic expansion of capitalism automatically led to territorial expansion, in order to find new resources and markets. Decolonization See Also: Decolonization After the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined."); and also the prestige of the 1917 October Revolution , Anti-colonialism and Anti-imperialism spread itself to the colonized people, most notably with Gandhi 's Pacific struggle, founded on Civil Disobedience , in the British Raj . The movement of Decolonization , however, really started only after the Allied victory over the Axis ( Nazi Germany , Fascist Italy and the Japanese Empire which had conquered a so-called Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Japanese imperialism lead to the interesting problem that colonialism and imperialism have not been exclusively an Western endeavour. However, Japanese imperialism did follow the Meiji Era (1868-1912), during which Japan opened up itself to the West and learnt its techniques, assimilating its Rationality , which led to the first victory of coloured people over white people during the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War . Japan's victory at the time surprised the West that it led to fears of the "Yellow Threat" ) and the foundation of the United Nations (UN) on June 26 , 1945 , when 50 nations signed the UN Charter . The 1941 Atlantic Charter , signed by US president Franklin D. Roosevelt , continued the Wilsonian tradition of the 14 Points. In 1952, demograph was almost complete. In 1980 , the UN had 154 member states, and in 1990 , after Namibia 's independence, 159 states 1 Neocolonialism See Also: Neocolonialism Despite the decolonization in the 1960s-70s, former colonies are today for the most part still under strong Western influence (although new imperialism have appeared on stage, namely China in Africa). Critics of this continued Occidental influence talk of Neocolonialism . The exception to this rule being in particular the East Asian Tigers (mainly Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), and the emerging Indian and Chinese powers. However, even in this case colonialism has left scars, apparent in India with the 1984 Bhopal Disaster , in which a pesticide plant released 40 Tonne s of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC), injuring between 150,000 to 600,000 people, at least 15,000 of whom later died. The plant was controlled by the US firm Union Carbide , and didn't benefit from the same protections as in the US. On the other hand, because of the Cold War, the US interfered in various countries, for example by issuing a blocus against Cuba after the 1959 Cuban Revolution or by supporting Pinochet 's September 11, 1973 Coup against Salvador Allende . This interference, in particular in Latin America countries, recalled the 19th century Monroe Doctrine and the Big Stick Diplomacy codified by US president Theodore Roosevelt . References See also
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