|

| |

 
|
  |

|
|
| |
|| ||
! |"|

  | 
 |   |        | #!||
 |

|| 
|
|
i| COLONIALISM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3|
i| þ
INITION: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4
i| è
STUþ
COLONIALISM ---------------------------------------------------------------------5|
i| COLONIALISM IN T LIG T O
AUT ORS ------------------------------------------ 8|
i| T
 S O
COLONI S: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9|
i| T
 S O
COLONI S IN T LIG T O
MAS ----------------------------------------------- 11|
i| ISTOR
O
COLONIALISM: ------------------------------------------------------------------- 13|
i| T IM RIAL CIVILIZING MISSION --------------------------------------------------------- 15|
i| COMM RC ANþ C RISTIANIT
IN COLONIAL ALASKA --------------------------------- 16|
i| COLONIAL T URK STAN ANþ IM RIAL C ITIZ NS I ------------------------------------- 16|
i| ORI NTALISM IN T CAUCASUS R GION -------------------------------------------------- 17|
i| COLONIALISM IN T SOVI T UNION -------------------------------------------------------- 17|
i| T ATLANTIC ISLANþS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 19|
i| SANIS COLONIZATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 19|
i| ORTUGU S C OLONIZATION ----------------------------------------------------------------- 20|
i| COLONI S IN T CARIBB AN ---------------------------------------------------------------- 21|
i| BRITIS COLONIZATION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 21|
i|
R NC COLONIZATON ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 21|
i| þUTC COLONIZATION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 22|
i| A COMARATIV OV RVI è ----------------------------------------------------------------- 22|
i| NATURAL LAè ANþ T AG O
þISCOV R
: -------------------------------------------- 23|
i| LIB RALISM ANþ MIR :----------------------------- RROR! BOOKMARK NOT þ
IN þ |
i| MARXISM ANþ L NINISM: ----------------------------- RROR! BOOKMARK NOT þ
IN þ |
i| OST-COLONIAL T OR
: --------------------------------------------------------------------- 24|
i| IMACT O
COLONIALISM ANþ COLONIZATION : ----------------------------------------- 26|
i| IMACT ON ALT ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 26|
i| SLAV TRAþ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27|
i| ISTOR
O
COLONIALISM AROUNþ T GLOB ------------------------------------------ 29
i| BIBLIOGRA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -38
i| R
R NC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39
i| CONCLUSION:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 32

O|  
  
 

   |
|
|

Colonialism
Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to
another One of the difficulties in defining colonialism is that it is difficult to distinguish it
from imperialism
requently the two concepts are treated as synonyms Like colonialism,
imperialism also involves political and economic control over a dependent territory Turning
to the etymology of the two terms, however, provides some suggestion about how they differ
The term colony comes from the Latin word ð
, meaning farmer This root reminds us
that the practice of colonialism usually involved the transfer of population to a new territory,
where the new arrivals lived as permanent settlers while maintaining political allegiance to
their country of origin Imperialism, on the other hand, comes from the Latin term  ,
meaning to command Thus, the term imperialism draws attention to the way that one country
exercises power over another, whether through settlement, sovereignty, or indirect
mechanisms of control

The legitimacy of colonialism has been a longstanding concern for political and moral
philosophers in the èestern tradition At least since the Crusades and the conquest of the
Americas, political theorists have struggled with the difficulty of reconciling ideas about
justice and natural law with the practice of uropean sovereignty over non-èestern peoples
In the nineteenth century, the tension between liberal thought and colonial practice became
particularly acute, as dominion of urope over the rest of the world reached its zenith
Ironically, in the same period when most political philosophers began to defend the principles
of universalism and equality, the same individuals still defended the legitimacy of colonialism
and imperialism One way of reconciling those apparently opposed principles was the
argument known as the ³civilizing mission,´ which suggested that a temporary period of
political dependence or tutelage was necessary in order for ³uncivilized´ societies to advance
to the point where they were capable of sustaining liberal institutions and self-government

The goal of this entry is to analyze the relationship between èestern political theory and the
project of colonialism After providing a more thorough discussion of the concept of
colonialism, the third and forth sections of the entry will address the question of how
uropean thinkers justified, legitimize, and challenged political domination The fifth section
briefly discusses the Marxist tradition, including Marx's own defense of British colonialism in
India and Lenin's anti-imperialist writings The final section provides an introduction to
contemporary ³post-colonial theory´ This approach has been particularly influential in
literary studies because it draws attention to the diverse ways that postcolonial subjectivities
are constituted and resisted through discursive practices The goal of the entry is to provide an
overview of the vast and complex literature that explores the theoretical issues emerging out
of the experience of uropean colonization

 
  
 

   | |
|
þefinition:


 is the building of colonies in one territory by people from another territory and
the belief that this is a good thing

Colonialism normally refers to a period of history from the 15th to the 20th century when
people from urope built colonies on other continents The reasons for a belief in colonialism
at this time include:

i| The profits to be made

i| To expand the power of the home nation
i| To escape persecution in the home nation
i| To convert the indigenous population to the colonists' religion

Some colonists also felt they were helping the indigenous population by bringing them
Christianity and civilization owever, the reality was often subjugation, displacement or
death

A colony is part of the empire of the home nation and so colonialism is closely related to
imperialism

Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon èorld history is full of examples of one society
gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly
conquered territory The ancient Greeks set up colonies as did the Romans, the Moors, and the
Ottomans, to name just a few of the most notorious examples Colonialism, then, is not
restricted to a specific time or place Nevertheless, in the sixteenth century, colonialism
changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to
connect more remote parts of the world
ast sailing ships made it possible to reach distant
ports while sustaining closer ties between the center and colonies Thus, the modern uropean
colonial project emerged when it became possible to move large numbers of people across the
ocean and to maintain political sovereignty in spite of geographical dispersion This entry
uses the term colonialism to describe the process of uropean settlement and political control
over the rest of the world, including Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia|

The difficulty of defining colonialism stems from the fact that the term is often used as a
synonym for imperialism Both colonialism and imperialism were forms of conquest that were
expected to benefit urope economically and strategically The term colonialism is frequently
used to describe the settlement of places such as North America, Australia, New Zealand,
Algeria, and Brazil that were controlled by a large population of permanent uropean
residents The term imperialism often describes cases in which a foreign government
administers a territory without significant settlement; typical examples include the scramble
for Africa in the late nineteenth century and the American domination of the hilippines and
uerto Rico The distinction between the two, however, is not entirely consistent in the
literature Some scholars distinguish between colonies for settlement and colonies for
economic exploitation Others use the term colonialism to describe dependencies that are
directly governed by a foreign nation and contrast this with imperialism, which involves
indirect forms of domination

Ñ|  
  
 

   |
|
The confusion about the meaning of the term imperialism reflects the way that the concept has
changed over time Although the nglish word imperialism was not commonly used before
the nineteenth century, lizabethans already described the United Kingdom as ³the British
mpire´ As Britain began to acquire overseas dependencies, the concept of empire was
employed more frequently Thus, the traditional understanding of imperialism was a system
of military domination and sovereignty over territories The day to day work of government
might be exercised indirectly through local assemblies or indigenous rulers who paid tribute
but sovereignty rested with the British The shift away from this traditional understanding of
empire was influenced by the Leninist analysis of imperialism as a system oriented towards
economic exploitation According to Lenin, imperialism was the necessary and inevitable
result of the logic of accumulation in late capitalism Thus, for Lenin and subsequent
Marxists, imperialism described a historical stage of capitalism rather than a trans-historical
practice of political and military domination The lasting impact of the Marxist approach is
apparent in contemporary debates about American imperialism, a term which usually means
American economic hegemony, regardless of whether such power is exercised directly or
indirectly (
oung 2001)

Given the difficulty of consistently distinguishing between the two terms, this entry will use
colonialism as a broad concept that refers to the project of uropean political domination
from the sixteenth to the twentieth century¶s that ended with the national liberation
movements of the 1960s ost-colonialism will be used to describe the political and
theoretical struggles of societies that experienced the transition from political dependence to
sovereignty This entry will use imperialism as a broad term that refers to economic, military,
political domination that is achieved without significant permanent uropean settlement

T T IRT N COLONI S  |
| | |
||  
| | 
| 
|
|   || | 
| |


| |  | |
 | |


|||| |
|
| |! |"

#| |$ |$|
%

 |&



||

|  |$|' (|$|)
|
*


|
$
|&

|+ 
| |

|" |

|
|
, 
#| |
|

|
| |  |- 
|"

# |

 
  
 

   | |
|
 è





  
 
 
  

  
ð
ððè 

 


The study of colonialism represents one of the most important ways of understanding the
roots of contemporary global political and economic processes Some of the most pressing
issues that affect the world today, including political conflicts such as the Israeli-Arab
conflict, the India-akistan conflict and nuclear arms race and the rise of "Third èorld"
nationalisms are the historical legacies of colonialism Meanwhile, some argue that the
persistence of vast global economic disparities between and within nations can be traced back
to both the effects of past forms of colonialism and the emergence of new forms of economic
colonialism in the current world order in which we live Is nationalism a threat to global peace
or a necessary counteracting force to colonialism? þo multinational corporations represent a
new form of economic colonialism? èhat models of nationalism and of economic
development can lead to political stability and economic inequality? The study of colonialism
is crucial in helping students to understand such questions and to begin to develop practical
solutions that can bring about peace and stability in the world

The module enables students to move beyond superficial answers and dig deeper into the
complex historical factors that shape the central political and economic issues of today's
world It seeks to give students the tools both to understand the detailed histories of particular
regions of the world as well to analyze broader international issues The module is aimed at
empowering students to become global citizens who can effectively navigate and respond to
the very real complexities of an interconnected, globalized world

Colonialism, as a historical phenomenon, conventionally refers to the expansion of uropean

political influence and control over most of Asia, the Middle ast, Africa and Latin America
that took place from the seventeenth century to the middle of the twentieth century Such
expansion first began through informal contacts and travel as uropean traders, missionaries
and travelers began to establish a presence in the non-èestern world These informal relations
soon evolved into formal political, economic and military control of these regions The
module enables students to understand the motives of the uropean powers, the differing
strategies which these powers used to rule the native populations and the devastating effects
that such rule had for these subjugated populations uropean strategies of rule often differed
in striking ways Some forms of rule were direct forms of control over local populations while
others were more indirect through native rulers who were selected or supported by the
colonial powers Some strategies such as those of ortuguese colonizers tried to substantially
transform the local societies which they ruled, for instance through forced religious
conversion, while others such as the British tried to use native religious and legal traditions as
part of their system of colonial rule All of the various strategies had critical effects on the
colonized populations The strategies of rule changed local social and economic practices and
politicized cultural traditions as the colonized populations began to resist uropean rule
Some of the public issues which we see today such as debates over veiling and the rise of
religious nationalism can be traced back to these dynamics during the colonial period

A central issue which the module addresses is the rise of such resistance and of nationalism in
response to colonialism By focusing on this issue, the module begins to show students the
intricate connections between the historical legacies of colonialism and the various forms of
|  
  
 

   |
|
nationalism that emerged in response to colonialism and that continue to shape current global
politics Nationalist movements that led to decolonization and the emergence of independent
nation-states in what became known as the "Third èorld," varied greatly, ranging from
Gandhi's non-violent nationalism in India to more militant cases such as the Algerian
nationalist resistance to
rance The module helps students to understand different cases of
nationalism and provides students with the tools to understand and assess the ongoing
significance of nationalist politics in regions such as the Middle ast The module avoids
simplistic responses and seeks to help students to carefully analyze the causes and
implications of nationalism in different regions of the world

inally, the module addresses colonialism in terms of its economic dimensions Colonialism
had devastating economic effects on the colonized regions uropean colonial powers were
able to use the colonies as sources of raw materials and resources that fueled uropean
industrialization The colonies were thus kept in an economically dependent relationship with
urope that many have argued led to continued poverty and economic backwardness even
after decolonization More recently, some critics have argued that this kind of economic
colonization continues today in new ways, such as through multinational corporations
exploiting cheap labor and resources in non-èestern countries and through international
organizations such as the International Monetary
und and the èorld Bank that have kept
these countries weighed down by large debts The module seeks to explore such dynamics in
order to give students the tools to understand and debate global economic processes and to
understand the ways in which such important international financial organizations work In
this process, students are also given the foundation to understand and assess the growing
political resistance to these international organizations and the models of economic
globalization that they advocate
inally, the module enables students to devise practical
solutions to these issues, for instance by working on projects to develop business strategies
and models of development that can respond to the problems of past and present economic
colonialism

 
  
 

   | |
|
 COLONIALISM IN T LIG T O

AUT ORS
 | |+|-..,|

/|0 | (| 
| |

|
|

| 
 
||
#| |
|

( 
|
| |
| #| |
||
|
| |(#| | 
|
|(|

#| |
|
|| 
| |
|
|
|1
|$ |
 |$|

 |
|
|
| | | || |  | #| |
| ||
| |

|
| 
 
#| 0
|
|

#|! 
| |
||
|

| |


||
|
 | 
||| |

|


|
|2
|
 | 
|

|
 ||
#3|

 | |.4|-%.|

/ |

|


|

|
|(|
(||
| | 
|

|
 
|| |$#3 |
|

 | |%&.|.|.55|



|
|
|
| || |4
| 
| 
|4
 | 
| 6|(|7
|
||, 
| 
| 6| |
| 
|
||. #|

 || |.&5'|,#5%|


|$

|

|

| |
||
|
|$| |

|
| | 

||
|
| | |
$|$
( |
|$ | 
|

|


| ||
|1 #| |

|$|| 
|
|

|

|| |$
| #
|

 | |8|) |

|2
||

|
|
| || | 
|$|| |
||
(# |
|

 | ||"& %|

|$|

|

|
|
|$ | #| |
 
|9
| | 
#| | | |
||$  |

|
|$|

|$|($| ||

||


| || 
| # |

p|  
  
 

   |
|
 |

Types of Colonies:
istorians often distinguish between two forms of colonialism, chiefly based on the number
of people from the colonising country who settle in the colony:

i| "  |

 involved a large number of colonists, typically seeking fertile land
to farm
i| .1
| 

 involved fewer colonists, typically interested in extracting
resources to export to the metropole This category includes trading posts but it also
includes much larger colonies where the colonists would provide much of the
administration and own much of the land and other capital but rely on indigenous
people for labour

Several types of colonies may be distinguished, reflecting different colonial objectives

i| "  
refer to a variety of ancient and more recent examples whereby ethnically
distinct groups settle in areas other than their original settlement that are either adjacent or
across land or sea
rom about 750 BC the Greeks began 250 years of expansion, settling
colonies in all directions Other examples range from large empire like the Roman mpire,
the Arab mpire, the Mongol mpire, the Ottoman mpire or small movements like ancient
Scots moving from ibernia to Caledonia and Magyars into annonia (modern-day ungary)
Turkic peoples spread across most of Central Asia into urope and the Middle ast between
the 6th and 11th centuries Recent research suggests that Madagascar was uninhabited until
Malay seafarers from Indonesia arrived during the 5th and 6th centuries Aþ Subsequent
migrations from both the acific and Africa further consolidated this original mixture, and
Malagasy people emerged
Before the expansion of the Bantu languages and their speakers, the southern half of Africa is
believed to have been populated by ygmies and Khoisan speaking people, today occupying
the arid regions around the Kalahari and the forest of Central Africa By about 1000 Aþ
Bantu migration had reached modern day Zimbabwe and South Africa The Banu ilal and
Banu Ma'qil were a collection of ArabBedouin tribes from the Arabian peninsula who
migrated westwards via gypt between the 11th and 13th centuries Their migration strongly
contributed to the arabization and islamization of the western Maghreb, which was until then
dominated by Berber tribes Ostsiedlung was the medieval eastward migration and settlement
of Germans The 13th century was the time of the great Mongol and Turkic migrations across
urasia Between the 11th and 18th centuries, the Vietnamese expanded southward in a
process known as nam tiӃn (southward expansion)

More recent examples of internal colonialism are the movement of ethnic Chinese into Tibet
and astern Turkestan, ethnic Javanese into èestern New Guinea and Kalimantan (see
Transmigration program), Brazilians into Amazonia, Israelis into the èest Bank and Gaza,
ethnic Arabs into Iraqi Kurdistan, and ethnic Russians into Siberia and Central Asia The local
populations or tribes, such as the aboriginal people in Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil,
Japan, Siberia and the United States, were usually far overwhelmed numerically by the
settlers

 
  
 

   | |
|
 Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemicdisease was the
overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives
orcible population
transfers, usually to areas of poorer-quality land or resources, often led to the permanent
detriment of indigenous peoples èhilst commonplace in the past, in today's language
colonialism and colonization are seen as state-sponsored illegal immigration that was criminal
in nature and intent, achieved essentially with the use of violence and terror

In some cases, for example the Vandals, uguenots, Boers, Matabeles and Sioux, the
colonizers were fleeing more powerful enemies, as part of a chain reaction of colonization

Settler colonies may be contrasted with 

, where the colonizers did not arrive as
part of a mass emigration, but rather as administrators over existing sizable native
populations xamples in this category include the ersian mpire, the British Raj, gypt
after the Twenty-sixth dynasty, the þutch ast 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 mestizos of the
Americas), or racially divided, such as in
rench Algeria or Southern Rhodesia

i| *

| 

such as Barbados, Saint-þomingue and Jamaica, the white colonizers
imported black slaves who rapidly began to outnumber their owners, leading to minority
rule, similar to a dependency
| 

, such as ong Kong, Macau, Malacca,
þeshima, ortuguese India 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

There is a certain amount of overlap between these models of colonialism In both cases
people moved to the colony and goods were exported to the metropole

In some cases, settler colonialism took place in substantially pre-populated areas and the
result was either an ethnically mixed population (such as the mestizos of the Americas), or a
racially divided population, such as in
rench Algeria or Southern Rhodesia

A League of Nations mandate was legally very different from a colony owever, there was
some similarity with exploitation colonialism in the mandate system

ë |  
  
 

   |
|
 Ä
li t 
i tM



.  



à
 à   
 à     à à
| ë
ë|
|
 |
|&|. |
|
|


 |8


#|
|
|

|
2

|| |- 
|. |

ëO |  
  
 

   |
|
 istory of Colonialism:
The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across
time, including such disparate peoples as the ittites, the Incas and the British, although the
term ð

 is normally used with reference to discontiguous uropean overseas empires
rather than contiguous land-based empires, uropean or otherwise

Land-based empires are conventionally described by the term  
, such as Age of
Imperialism which includes Colonialism as a sub-topic, but in the main refers to conquest and
domination of nearby lesser geographic powers xamples of land-based empires include the
Mongol mpire, a large empire stretching from the èestern acific to astern urope, the
mpire of Alexander the Great, the Umayyad Caliphate, the ersian mpire, the Roman
mpire, the Byzantine mpire The Ottoman mpire was created across Mediterranean, North
Africa and into South- astern urope and existed during the time of uropean colonization of
the other parts of the world

After the ortuguese

ð  period when the Kingdom of ortugal fought against the
Muslim domination of Iberia, in the 12th and 13th centuries, the ortuguese started to expand
overseas uropean colonialism began in 1415, with ortugal's conquest of the Muslim port of
Ceuta, Northern Africa In the following decades ortugal braved the coast of Africa
establishing, trading posts, ports and fortresses Colonialism was led by ortuguese and
Spanish exploration of the Americas, and the coasts of Africa, the Middle ast, India, and
ast Asia

On June 7, 1494, ope Alexander VI divided the world in half, bestowing the western portion
on Spain, and the eastern on ortugal, a move never accepted by the rulers of ngland or

rance (See also the Treaty of Tordesillas that followed the papal decree)

The latter half of the sixteenth century witnessed the expansion of the nglish colonial state
throughout Ireland þespite some earlier attempts, it was not until the 17th century that
Britain,
rance and the Netherlands successfully established overseas empires outside urope,
in direct competition with Spain and ortugal and with each other In the 19th century the
British mpire grew to become the largest empire yet seen (see list of largest empires)

The end of the 18th and early 19th century saw the first era of decolonization when most of
the uropean colonies in the Americas gained their independence from their respective metro
poles Spain and ortugal were irreversibly weakened after the loss of their New èorld
colonies, but Britain (after the union of ngland and Scotland),
rance and the Netherlands
turned their attention to the Old èorld, particularly South Africa, India and South ast Asia,
where coastal enclaves had already been established The German mpire (now Republic),
created by most of Germany being united under russia (omitting Austria, and other ethnic-
German areas) also sought colonies in German ast Africa Territories in other parts of the
world were also added to the trans-oceanic, or extra- uropean, German colonial empire Italy
occupied ritrea, Somalia and Libya þuring the
irst and the Second Italo- thiopian èar,
Italy invaded Abyssinia, and in 1936 the Italian mpire was created

 
  
 

   | ë
|
|
The industrialization of the 19th century led to what has been termed the era of New
Imperialism, when the pace of colonization rapidly accelerated, the height of which was the
Scramble for Africa

In 1823, the United States, while expanding westward for the acific, had published the
Monroe þoctrine in which it gave fair warning to western uropean expansionists to stay out
of American affairs Originally, the document targeted the spread of colonialism in Latin
America and the Caribbean, deeming it oppressive and intolerable By the end of the 19th
century, interpretation of the Monroe þoctrine by individuals such as Theodore Roosevelt,
viewed it as an American responsibility to ensure Central American, Caribbean, and South
American economic stability that would allow those nations to repay their debts to their
colonizers In fact, under Roosevelt¶s presidency in 1904, the Roosevelt Corollary to the
Monroe þoctrine was added to the original document in order to justify colonial expansionist
policies and actions by the US under Roosevelt (Marks, 1979) Roosevelt defended the
amendment to congress in 1904 when he expressed:

All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous
Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship If a
nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and
political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from
the United States Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening
of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention
by some civilized nation, and in the èestern emisphere the adherence of the United States
to the Monroe þoctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of
such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power (Roosevelt,
1904)Monroe þoctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of
such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power (Roosevelt,
1904)

In this case imperialism would now, for the first time in American history, begin to manifest
itself across the bordering waters and incorporating the hilippines, Guam, Cuba, uerto
Rico, and awaii as American territories

America was successful in ³liberating´ the territories of Cuba, uerto Rico, Guam, and the
hilippines US government replaced the existing government in awaii in 1893; it was
annexed into the American union as an offshore territory in 1898 Between 1898 and 1902,
Cuba was a territory of the United States along with uerto Rico, Guam, and the hilippines,
which were all colonies gained by the United States from Spain In 1946, the hilippines was
granted independence from the United States and uerto Rico still to this day remains a
territory of the United States along with America Samoa, Guam, and The US Virgin Islands
In Cuba, the latt Amendment was replaced in 1934 by the Treaty of Relations which granted
Cuba less intervention by US government on matters of economy and international relations
1934 would also be the year that, under the presidency of
ranklin þ Roosevelt, that the
Good Neighbor olicy was adopted in order to limit American intervention in South and
Central America

þuring the 20th century, the overseas colonies of the losers of èorld èar I were distributed
amongst the victors as mandates, but it was not until the end of èorld èar II that the second
phase of decolonization began in earnest

ëÑ |  
  
 

   |
|
The Imperial Civilizing Mission
In the reign of mpress Catherine II (r 1762 - 1796), the empire's leadership began to
experiment with new approaches to govern these peoples These policies drew upon
nlightenment concepts of government that redefined the object of colonial conquests They
became the basis of Russian colonialism reviously, the Russian state had extended to the
princes and nobles of newly conquered eastern territories the chance to collaborate in imperial
rule It had required their conversion to Orthodox Christianity, and had periodically
encouraged Orthodox missionaries to conduct campaigns of mass conversion, if necessary by
force Before Catherine II's time, the state had made no concerted effort to alter the social,
economic, and cultural practices of the peoples on its southern and eastern borderlands This
authoritarian method of borderland rule demanded only obedience from the native
populations

In the late eighteenth century, some educated Russians began to argue that their empire,
which they believed a civilized èestern land, had the duty to spread civilization, as they
understood it, to its backward peoples They had two principal objectives By spreading
Russian culture, legal practices, and opportunities for economic enrichment, the empire could
hope to recruit a progressive group from these peoples who would become willing
collaborators in Russian domination qually important was their belief that Russia's own
historical development made the spread of its newly acquired èestern culture among
"savage" peoples a moral obligation

Catherine II herself traveled among the empire's eastern peoples at the beginning of her reign
Impressed by what she described as the "differences of peoples, customs, and even ideas" in
Asian land, she looked for new ways to win the loyalty of the population ncouragement of
trade, education, and religious toleration appeared to her desirable and useful tools to
strengthen the bonds between these colonial peoples and their imperial rulers These goals
suggested practical guidelines by which she and her advisers could build their empire on
modern political foundations These also confirmed in their eyes the legitimacy of their
imperial domination of backward peoples

Catherine II shared the nlightenment conviction that reason, not religious faith, lay at the
core of enlightened government She did not abandon the policy of maintaining Orthodox
Christianity as the state religion of the empire, but ended forced conversion of Muslim
peoples to Christianity In 1773, she formally accorded religious toleration to Islam er
successors on the imperial throne maintained this fundamental right, which proved a valuable
means of maintaining peaceful relations with the empire's growing Muslim population They
encouraged the conversion to Christianity of peoples holding to animist beliefs, for they
believed that their duty was to favor the spread of Christianity They also promoted the
commercial exploitation of colonial resources and the increased sale of Russian manufactured
goods in their colonial territories The èestern colonialists' slogan of "Commerce and
Christianity" described one important aspect to Russia's civilizing mission Self-interest as
well as the belief in spreading the benefits of èestern civilization provided the ideological
basis for Russian colonialism This new policy never fully supplanted the old practices of
authoritarian rule and discrimination against non-Russians, which had strong defenders
among army officers on the borderlands But it, too, enjoyed powerful backing in the highest

 
  
 

   | ë
|
|
government circles In the nineteenth century, their vision of an imperial civilizing mission
brought Russia into the ranks of great èestern empires

Commerce and Christianity in Colonial Alaska

Alaska was the first area where Russian colonialism guided imperial rule In the late
eighteenth century Russian trappers had appeared there, having crossed the acific Ocean
along the Aleutian Islands from Siberia in their hunt for fur-bearing sea mammals The sea
otter, whose fur was so highly prized that it was called "soft gold," was their chosen prey
They forced native peoples skilled at the dangerous craft of hunting at sea (mainly Aleutian
tribesmen) to trap the animals, whose range extended from the Aleutians along the Alaskan
coast and down to California In 1800, the Russian government created a special colonial
administration, the Russian-American Company, to take charge of "the Russian colonies in
America" Its main tasks were to expand the commercially profitable fur-gathering activities,
and to spread Orthodox Christianity and Russian culture among the subject peoples of this
vast territory

"Commerce and Christianity" defined the Russian mpire's objectives there It operated in a
manner somewhat similar to that of the British udson's Bay Company, also established in
colonial North America And like other overseas colonies of uropean empires, the Russians
exploited Alaska's valuable resources (killing off almost all the sea otters), in the process
confronting periodic revolts from their subject peoples
aced with these difficulties, the
Russian government finally abandoned its distant colony, too expensive and too distant to
retain In 1867, it sold the entire territory to the United States

Colonial Turkestan and Imperial Citizenship

In seeking to create a unified, modern state, the Russian mpire moved toward establishing a
common citizenship for the peoples in its multiethnic, multireligious borderlands in the late
nineteenth century It began this effort in 1860s and 1870s, at the time when it freed its
peasant serf population from conditions of virtual slavery to its nobility Reformers in the
government conceived of an empire founded on a sort of imperial citizenship, extended to
former serfs and to native peoples

That was the period of the empire's last major colonial expansion, when its military forces
conquered a large part of Central Asia The settled and nomadic populations of Turkestan (as
the area was then called) spoke Turkic languages and were faithful Muslims who looked to
the Ottoman mpire, not Russia, for cultural and religious leadership The Russian colonial
administration was deeply divided on the proper treatment of their unwilling new subjects
Some preferred to rely on the old policies of authoritarian rule, restrictions of the Muslim
religion, and the encouragement of Russian colonization Others took their inspiration from
Catherine II's colonialist policies The latter argued for progressive colonial policies including
religious toleration of Islam, respect for the ethnic customs and moral practices of Turkestan's
peoples, and the development of new crops (especially cotton) and commercial trade with
Russia They hoped that, as the powerful Minister of
inance Sergei èitte argued in 1900,
full equality of rights with other subjects, freedom in the conduct of their religious needs, and
non-intervention in their private lives, would ensure the unification of the Russian state

ë |  
  
 

   |
|
This progressive colonialist program was notable by according (in theory) "equality of rights"
to these imperial subjects Colonial officials of this persuasion believed that they could
extend, within their autocratic state, a sort of imperial citizenship to all the colonial peoples
They withheld, however, the full implementation of this reform until these peoples were
"ready," that is, proved themselves loyal, patriotic subjects of the emperor-tsar Opposition to
their policy came from influential civilian leaders who judged that the state's need to support
Russian peasants colonizing Turkestan territories had to come first Their reckless decision
led to the seizure from nomadic tribes of vast regions of Turkestan given to the peasant
pioneers Colonization meant violating the right of these subjects to the use of their land,
which led directly to the Turkestan uprising of 1916 Coming before the 1917 revolution, this
rebellion revealed that the empire's colonialist policies had failed to unify its peoples

Orientalism in the Caucasus Region

To the end of the empire's existence, colonialism rested on the assumption of Russian cultural
superiority and often expressed itself in disdain for colonial peoples
et not all of these
subject groups were treated with equal disregard In the territories of the Caucasus Mountains
(between the Black and Caspian Seas), imperial rule won the support of some peoples, but
faced repeated revolts from others Resistance came especially from Muslim mountain tribes,
who bitterly opposed domination by this Christian state They sustained a half-century war
until their defeat in the 1860s, when many were forced into exile or emigrated willingly to the
Ottoman mpire The conquest of the region produced an abundance of heroic tales of exotic
adventures pitting valorous Russians against barbaric, cruel, and courageous enemies These
tales created enduring images of "oriental" peoples, sometimes admired for their "noble
savagery" but usually disparaged for their alleged moral and cultural decadence

Russian colonialism had a powerful impact on the population there The Christian peoples
(Georgians and Armenians) of the region found particular benefits from the empire's
economic and cultural policies Armenians created profitable commercial enterprises in the
growing towns and cities of the Caucasus region, and were joined by large numbers of
Armenian migrants from surrounding Muslim states Some Georgians used the empire's
cultural window on modern èestern culture to create their own national literature and history
These quickly became tools in the Georgians' nationalist oppositional movement In the
Muslim lands along the Caspian Sea where Azeri Turks lived, investors from Russia and
urope developed the rich oil deposits into one of the first major sources of petroleum for the
uropean economy, a source of immense profit to them The port of Baku became a
boomtown, where unskilled Azeri laborers worked in the dangerous oil fields They formed a
colonial proletariat living among Russian officials and capitalists, and Armenian merchants
and traders The new colonial cities such as Baku were deeply divided both socially and
ethnically, and became places in the early twentieth century of riots and bloodshed provoked
by the hostility among these peoples Nationalist opposition to empire and ethnic conflict
among its peoples were both products of Russian colonialism

Colonialism in the Soviet Union

The fall of the empire in 1917 ended Russian colonialism as a publicly defended ideal and
policy The triumph of the communist revolutionary movement in most of the lands once a
 
  
 

   | ë
|
|
part of the empire put in place a new political order, called the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics The communist leaders of the new Soviet state preached the Marxist-Leninist
program for human progress They persecuted all religious movements, and denounced
imperialism and colonialism, in Russia as elsewhere in the èestern world Their promise was
liberation of all colonial peoples But they did not permit their own peoples, previously in the
empire's colonial lands, to escape their domination Their idea of "colonial liberation"
consisted of organizing these peoples into discreet ethno-territorial units by drawing territorial
borders for every distinct people The biggest of these received their own national republics
ach of these nations of the Soviet Union had its own political leaders and its own language
and culture, but the "union" to which they belonged remained under the domination of the
Communist arty, itself controlled from party headquarters in the Kremlin in Moscow

The empire's eastern peoples experienced a new, communist civilizing mission, which
proclaimed the greatest good for backward peoples to be working-class liberation, national
culture, and rapid economic development under state control Colonization reappeared as well
when, in the 1950s and 1960s, millions of settlers from uropean areas moved into Siberia
and regions of Central Asia to cultivate, in enormous state-run farms, most of the remaining
lands of the nomadic peoples Colonialism within the lands of the former Russian mpire did
not disappear until the Soviet Union in its turn collapsed in 1991

ëp |  
  
 

   |
|
 uropean powers and persons representing them undertook a vast program of overseas
colonization extending throughout the early modern period, which had the effects of
energizing a world economy by encompassing the New èorld within it and of stimulating a
massive emigration of uropeans

The Atlantic Islands

In the course of the fifteenth century, the ortuguese and the Spaniards discovered,
conquered, colonized, and administered a series of island possessions that became early
experiments in imperialism In the 1480s and 1490s, the Spanish crown conquered Gran
Canaria, Tenerife, and La alma, the richest of the seven Canary Islands The administrative
apparatus set up to govern the colony anticipated aspects of the administration of the future
empire
irst there was a survey and apportionment of land in a    there was no
dividing up of natives²the form that   later took in the New èorld ach island
was considered a municipality, administered by að

 or 'city council' The islands were
settled by soldiers and by immigrants from Castile and Andalusia, many of them single men
who married indigenous women The economy of the Canaries in the sixteenth century was
based on sugar, a monoculture

The ortuguese had a papal grant to settle Madeira, an uninhabited island, in 1425 Its
prosperity after the middle years of the fifteenth century was based on the production of
sugar, wheat, and wine good enough to be exported enry the Navigator (1394±1460) was
authorized to settle the Azores in 1439, by which time the ortuguese had already placed
sheep on several islands to provide food for passing ships By the end of the 1440s, the island
of Santa Maria was already exporting wheat to ortugal The colonization of the central and
western isles took longer
oreigners, particularly
lemings, were recruited to settle there in
the 1460s and 1470s ico, one of the westernmost islands, became a leading wine producer
and was important in the three-cornered trade with North America and the èest Indies of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the key products of which were New ngland barrel
staves, Caribbean molasses, and Atlantic Island wine

Italians in the service of the ortuguese crown sailing off èest Africa discovered the arid
Cape Verde islands The ortuguese established a plantation and pastoral economy run by
slaves from Africa and a small group of white colonists as landlords, merchants, and civil and
church officials After the discovery of the New èorld, the ortuguese islands served as
nodal points in the great web of interoceanic shipping routes that soon developed

Spanish Colonization
The Spaniards' strategy of colonization in the New èorld was to found cities: They founded
190 towns and cities by 1620 These were built uniformly on a Roman grid plan They were
self-governing entities governed byð

 had scant commercial functions, were populated
by plantation owners and an Indian underclass, and had no industry to speak of The most
important cities were viceregal capitals such as Mexico and Lima In 1630, 58 percent of the
Spanish population of the Audiencia of New Spain lived in Mexico City, and 55 percent of
the population of the Audiencia of Lima lived in Lima City xploration and settlement of the
interior regions were organized from viceregal capitals such as Mexico, Lima, and Bogotá
 
  
 

   | ë
|
|
The Spanish New èorld colonies were hypercentralized because the crown ruled the
territories directly and created appropriate institutions of control, issuing some 400,000
decrees pertaining to American colonial affairs between 1492 and 1635, or around 2,500
annually In an administrative sense, they were not colonies but kingdoms; hence they were
governed by viceroys

This urban colonial network required large numbers of settlers A total of at least 150,000
persons moved from Spain to America before 1550 Throughout the sixteenth century,
between 250,000 and 300,000 Spaniards emigrated The Amerindians were forced, through
the   system, to work in enterprises (either farming or mining) called
ð 
 feudal estates that were inheritable Africans came as slaves, first from urope,
then, by the mid-1550s, imported directly from Africa for service on sugar plantations or in
the mines

Spanish colonization efforts in Asia centered upon Manila, the center both of trade with China
and Japan and of the effort to Christianize the
ilipinos vangelization was made easier by
the political decentralization of hilippine society, which made armed resistance to Spain all
but impossible The Spanish colonists, a few thousand people in the seventeenth century,
lived off the Manila galleon trade and left the direction of the country mainly to missionaries
and a few bureaucrats

ortuguese Colonization
The most striking aspect of the ortuguese seaborne empire was its extreme dispersion in
chains of forts along various continental coastlines and islands By the time of rince enry's
death in 1460, the ortuguese had reached Sierra Leone, which was 1,500 miles down the
west African coast There they established fortified trading posts,   close to the sea,
guarded by caravels bearing canons This style of settlement, which the ortuguese later
introduced into Asia, required few settlers and was designed to facilitate trade

Brazil was settled in the sixteenth century (after 1530) by a mixed feudal-commercial system
wherein coastal lands were placed under the control of hereditary proprietors Settlers were
taken there and introduced cattle raising and sugar cultivation Sugar was the ideal crop for
coastal Brazil, which had quick access to urope and the capacity to outprice the Atlantic
islands Thousands of ortuguese arrived as settlers, attracted by quick money in the sugar
industry èhen the Amerindians of the coast, who had been conscripted to work on sugar
plantations, perished, they were replaced by African slaves who were already resistant to most
Old èorld diseases

The ortuguese crown began to take back governance of Brazil from the hereditary
landholders as early as 1549, when it reacquired the Bahia captaincy and named a governor
general Settlements were widely dispersed, with a ortuguese population of only 30,000 in
1600, scattered among fourteen captaincies along 4,000 miles of coastline

The ortuguese empire in Asia was established between 1509 and 1515 by capturing the sea
passages leading to and from the Indian Ocean Goa, on the Malabar coast of India, was the
main naval base, followed in importance by Macão, off the Chinese mainland near Canton
The ortuguese empire in Asia was tiny in extent, consisting of only a few strategic islands
and coastal trading posts that controlled most Asian trade routes The territory of a trading
O |  
  
 

   |
|
post was negotiated with local authorities to achieve a form of colonization, but one of a
purely commercial nature The ortuguese settled near the centers of production and markets
and at the intersection of trade routes, taking advantage of trading networks already
established before their arrival This system could run efficiently with few settlers, who did
not require an infrastructure of public services, and it left local trade in the hands of the
indigenous communities The majority of ortuguese settlers in Asia were soldiers, while the
Spanish empire, after the conquests of Mexico and eru, was by and large a civilian empire

Colonies in the Caribbean

uropeans of different origins established colonies of different styles Spanish settlements in
Cuba, uerto Rico, and Santo þomingo were based on ranching, mining, and, in the
seventeenth century, sugar The nglish and
rench established plantations on their islands to
produce labor-intensive crops like sugarcane, worked by indentured servants and, later,
African slaves The þutch established trading posts, such as Curaçao In 1600, all New èorld
settlements were still Spanish The nglish and
rench begin to colonize in the first quarter of
the seventeenth century in part because the þutch Navy in the Caribbean protected them from
the Spanish At the same time, the British began to colonize the outer islands, starting with St
Kitts and Barbados, which served as bases for further expansion The
rench then established
a Compagnie des Isles d'Amérique and settled Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1635 It was
easy (both for
rench and nglish settlers) to obtain grants because the islands were thought
fairly worthless before sugar was introduced In the first phase of settlement, tobacco and
cotton were the main crops

British Colonization
British colonial development in the New èorld was focused both on the Caribbean and the
North American mainland The disinterest of the nglish government in direct management of
the colonies was matched by the penchant of settlers in the thirteen colonies for self-
government, inasmuch as distaste for central authority had played an important role in their
decision to emigrate The economic life of the colonies was differentiated early on, with
plantations in the south, which grew cereals, cotton, and, later, tobacco, and a more varied
economy in the north, characterized in New ngland by commercial shipping, fishing, and
timber In the eighteenth century, large numbers of immigrants, first from Germany and later
from Ireland, were attracted by the prosperity of the British colonies, only to submit to the
lure of the frontier once they had arrived

The British had a colonial stake in Asia since the formation in 1600 of the ast India
Company, a trading organization whose business grew steadily at the expense of the
ortuguese In the eighteenth century the company had its own army; its rapacious rule in
Bengal stimulated arliament to appoint a governor general in 1773 Over the next half
century the British steadily occupied the whole of India, but the company continued in an
administrative capacity until it was finally dissolved in 1858

rench Colonizaton

 
  
 

   | O
ë|
|
In 1534, Jacques Cartier (1491±1557) established a fort on the site of what is now Quebec
City The
rench settled Acadia in 1604 and Quebec in 1608 The entire early
rench
enterprise in Canada was based on a single product: fur Beaver pelts, the best material for hat
felt, could not be found in
rance, were light in weight, had a high value relative to bulk, and
were easily transported Quebec was organized along feudal lines, divided into huge rural
estates, or  many of which persisted after the British absorbed the colony in 1763

urther south the
rench established plantations along the Mississippi River in Louisiana, a
colony that prospered from the late seventeenth century (with an interval of Spanish rule)
until the Louisiana urchase in 1803 A number of
rench efforts to establish trading colonies
in Brazil (
ort Coligny/Rio de Janeiro in 1555±1560, Ibiapaba in 1590±1604, and São Luis do
Maranão in 1612±1615) were all squelched by ortugal

þutch Colonization
þutch expansion was slow, steady, and on the whole peaceful The þutch ast India
Company, chartered in 1602, acted like a state within a state and imposed sole control over
olland's Asian interests The first solid þutch base was obtained in 1605 with the capture of
the ortuguese fortress at Amboyna in the Moluccas In 1619, the þutch founded the city of
Batavia (now Jakarta, on Java), which became the center of þutch power in Asia The þutch
also acquired a series of factories on the Indian coast and in 1638 a foothold in Ceylon, which
they called the "Cinnamon Isle" By 1661 the þutch were effectively in control of the entire
island The þutch empire, like the ortuguese one it largely replaced, was protected by its
very size and the way it was scattered all over the map

Between 1624 and 1664 the þutch established a colony in the udson Valley, called Nieuw
Netherlands, with its capital at Nieuw Amsterdam, on Manhattan island; it was a shipping and
farming colony whose total population reached 10,000 persons In 1657, the þutch
established Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa, to protect its seas lanes to Asia It was a
tiny colony, reaching a population of 15,000 only in the eighteenth century Less successful
was the colony of New Sweden along the South River in þelaware, which had been
established by a joint stock company in 1632 and was overrun by the þutch in the early
1650s In 1624, the þutch Company temporarily acquired a huge empire in the Brazilian
"bulge" when they captured Bahia, which they held for thirty years

A Comparative Overview
In comparative perspective, British and þutch empires were decentralized and heavily
privatized Companies were the preferred form of colonization The Spanish empire, whose
colonial administration was highly centralized, was just the opposite The ortuguese liked
the centralization model but lacked the administrative infrastructure to overcome the problems
created by distance (Asia) and scale (Brazil) The
rench were unsuccessful for political
reasons and because of the weakness of their navy compared to those of the nglish and
þutch èhere possible, they established plantations (Louisiana, the Caribbean) or feudal-like
domains (the Quebec ) They were out-maneuvered in North America and lost the
OO |  
  
 

   |
|
richest of their Caribbean islands, Saint þomingue (now aiti), to a revolution In economic
terms the Spanish colonies constituted a kind of experiment in mercantilism whereby colonies
were to become productive entities that trade with the motherland The ortuguese and þutch
colonies were purely economic outposts, with only a few exceptions like Brazil or the Cape
Colony The southern colonies of the future United States were, in their inception, plantation
economies organized by companies; the northern colonies were increasingly drawn into
commercial shipping networks of the New èorld economy

Natural Law and the Age of þiscovery:

The Spanish conquest of the Americas sparked a theological, political, and ethical debate
about the legitimacy of using military force in order to acquire control over foreign lands
This debate took place within the framework of a religious discourse that legitimized military
conquest as a way to facilitate the conversion and salvation of indigenous peoples The idea of
a ³civilizing mission´ was by no means the invention of the British in the nineteenth century
The Spanish conquistadores and colonists explicitly justified their activities in the Americas
in terms of a religious mission to bring Christianity to the native peoples The Crusades
provided the initial impetus for developing a legal doctrine that rationalized the conquest and
possession of infidel lands èhereas the Crusades were initially framed as defensive wars to
reclaim Christian lands that had been conquered by non-Christians, the resulting theoretical
innovations played an important role in subsequent attempts to justify the conquest of the
Americas The core claim was that the ³etrine mandate´ to care for the souls of Christ's
human flock required apal jurisdiction over temporal as well as spiritual matters, and this
control extended to non-believers as well as believers

ven the spread of Christianity, however, did not provide an unproblematic justification for
the project of overseas conquest The Spanish conquest of the Americas was taking place
during a period of reform when humanist scholars within the Church were increasingly
influenced by the natural law theories of theologians such as St Thomas Aquinas According
to ope Innocent IV, war could not be waged against infidels and they could not be deprived
of their property simply because of their non-belief Under the influence of Thomism,
Innocent IV concluded that force was legitimate only in cases where infidels violated natural
law Thus nonbelievers had legitimate dominion over themselves and their property, but this
dominion was abrogated if they proved incapable of governing themselves according to
principles that every reasonable being would recognize The Spanish quickly concluded that
the habits of the native Americans, from nakedness to unwillingness to labor to alleged
cannibalism, clearly demonstrated their inability to recognize natural law
rom this, they
legitimized the widespread enslavement of the Indians as the only way of teaching them
civilization and introducing them to Christianity

Many of the Spanish missionaries sent to the New èorld, however, immediately noticed that
the brutal exploitation of slave labor was widespread while any serious commitment to
religious instruction was absent Members of the þominican order in particular noted the
hypocrisy of enslaving the Indians because of their alleged barbarity while practicing a form
of conquest, warfare, and slavery that reduced the indigenous population of ispaniola from
250,000 to 15,000 in two decades of Spanish rule Given the genocidal result of Spanish
³civilization,´ they began to question vocally the idea of a civilizing mission Bartolomé de

 
  
 

   | O
|
|
Las Casas and
ranciscus de Victoria were two of the most influential critics of Spanish
colonial practice Victoria gave a series of lectures on Indian rights that applied Thomistic
humanism to the practice of Spanish rule e argued that all human beings share the capacity
for rationality and have natural rights that stem from this capacity
rom this premise, he
deduced that the apal decision to grant Spain title to the Americas was illegitimate Unlike
the position of ope Innocent IV, Victoria argued that neither the ope nor the Spaniards
could subjugate the Indians in order to punish violations of natural law, such as fornication or
adultery e noted that the ope has no right to make war on Christians and take their
property simply because they are ³fornicators or thieves´ If this were the case, then no
uropean king's dominion would ever be safe
urthermore, according to Victoria, the pope
and Christian rulers acting on his mandate have even less right to enforce laws against
unbelievers, because they are outside of the Christian community, which is the domain of
apal authority (èilliams 1990)

þespite this strongly worded critique of the dominant modes of justifying Spanish
conquest, Victoria concluded that the use of force in the New èorld was legitimate in cases
when Indian communities violated the Law of Nations, a set of principles derivable from
reason and therefore universally binding At first it might sound contradictory that Victoria
concluded that the Indians' supposed violation of the law of nature did not justify conquest but
their violation of the Law of Nations, itself derived from natural law, did Victoria
emphasized that the Law of Nations is binding because ³there exists clearly enough a
consensus of the greater part of the whole world´ (391) and because the principles benefit
³the common good of all´ This distinction seems to rely on the assumption that other
principles usually associated with natural law (such as the prohibitions on adultery and
idolatry) only affect those who consent to the practices, whereas violations of the Law of
Nations (eg prohibitions on peaceful travel and trade) have consequences for those who do
not consent Ultimately, Victoria's understanding of the Law of Nations led him to defend the
practice of Spanish colonialism, even as he emphasized that the Spanish remedy of warfare
should be limited to minimal measures required to attain the legitimate objectives of peaceful
trade and missionary work èithin Victoria's critique of the legality and morality of Spanish
colonialism was a rationalization for conquest, albeit a restrictive one

ost-colonial Theory:

rom the perspective of world-system theory, the economic exploitation of the periphery does
not necessarily require direct political or military domination In a similar vein, contemporary
literary theorists have drawn attention to practices of representation that reproduce a logic of
subordination that endures even after former colonies gain independence The field of
postcolonial studies was established by dward Said in his path-breaking book 4 

In 4 
 Said applied Michel
oucault's technique of discourse analysis to the
production of knowledge about the Middle ast The term orientalism described a structured
set of concepts, assumptions, and discursive practices that were used to produce, interpret, and
evaluate knowledge about non- uropean peoples Said's analysis made it possible for scholars
to deconstruct literary and historical texts in order to understand how they reflected and
reinforced the imperialist project Unlike previous studies that focused on the economic or
political logics of colonialism, Said drew attention to the relationship between knowledge and
power By foregrounding the cultural and epistemological work of imperialism, Said was able
to undermine the ideological assumption of value-free knowledge and show that ³knowing the
Orient´ was part of the project of dominating it Thus, 4 
 can be seen as an attempt
OÑ |  
  
 

   |
|
to extend the geographical and historical terrain of the poststructuralist critique of èestern
epistemology

Said uses the term Orientalism in several different ways
irst, Orientalism is a specific field
of academic study about the Middle ast and Asia, albeit one that Said conceives quite
expansively as including history, sociology, literature, anthropology and especially philology
e also identifies it as a practice that helps define urope by creating a stable depiction of its
other, its constitutive outside Orientalism is a way of characterizing urope by drawing a
contrasting image or idea, based on a series of binary oppositions (rational/irrational,
mind/body, order/chaos) that manage and displace uropean anxieties
inally, Said
emphasizes that it is also a mode of exercising authority by organizing and classifying
knowledge about the Orient This discursive approach is distinct both from a vulgar
materialist assumption that knowledge is simply a reflection of economic or political interests
and from an idealist conviction that scholarship is disinterested and neutral
ollowing

oucault, Said's concept of discourse identifies a way in which knowledge is not used
instrumentally in service of power but rather is itself a form of power

The second quasi-canonical contribution to the field of post-colonial theory is Gayatri

Spivak's ³Can the Subaltern Speak?´ Spivak works within Said's problematic of
representation but extends it to the contemporary academy By posing the question ³Can the
subaltern speak?´ she asks whether the scholarly interest in non-èestern cultures may
unwittingly reproduce a new kind of orientalism, whereby academic theorists mine non-
èestern sources in order to speak authoritatively in their place ven though the goal is to
challenge the existing urocentrism of the academy, post-colonial studies is particularly
vulnerable to the risks associated with any claim to speak authoritatively on behalf of the
subaltern Thus the field of post-colonial studies is haunted by its own impossibility It was
born out of the recognition that representation is inevitably implicated in power and
domination yet struggles to reconfigure representation as an act of resistance In order to do
so, it introduces new strategies of reading and interpretation while recognizing the limitations
of this endeavor

The core problematic of post-colonial theory is an examination of the relationship between

power and knowledge in the non-èestern world Some scholars have approached this topic
through historical research rather than literary or discursive analysis The most influential
movement is the Subaltern Studies group, which was originally made up of South Asian
historians who explored the contribution of non-elites to Indian politics and culture The term
subaltern suggests an interest in social class but more generally it is also a methodological
orientation that opens up the study of logics of subordination èhereas Said raised the broad
issue of Orientalism, the Subaltern Studies group dismantled particular hegemonic narratives
of Indian colonial history According to Spivak, the Subaltern Studies group developed two
important challenges to the narrative of Indian colonial history as a change from semi-
feudalism to capitalist domination
irst, they showed that the moment of change must be
pluralized as a story of multiple confrontations involving domination and resistance rather
than a simple great modes-of-production narrative Second, these epochal shifts are marked
by a multidimensional change in sign-system from the religious to the militant, crime to
insurgency, bondsman to worker (Guha and Spivak 1988: 3)

The work of the Subaltern Studies group is emblematic of the way that post-colonial theory
often inhabits the terrain between post-structuralism and Marxism, two traditions that have
 
  
 

   | O
|
|
many differences as well as some commonalities þespite the fact that many practitioners of
the field are sympathetic to both traditions; other scholars highlight the incompatibility of the
two
or example, Aijaz Ahmad has criticized post-colonialist theory from a Marxist
perspective, arguing that its infatuation with issues of representation and discourse makes it
blind to the material basis and systematic structure of power relations The use of concepts
such as hybridity easily degenerates into a kind of eclecticism that gesture at radical resistance
while denying the theoretical basis of any theory of revolutionary change Ahmad also argued
that the influence of Said's 4 
 was due not to its originality but, on the contrary, to
its conventionality According to Ahmad, 4 
 benefited from its affinity with two
problematic intellectual fashions: the reaction against Marxism that lead to the vogue for post-
structuralism and the ³Third-worldism´ that provided academics with a veneer of radicalism
Said, for his part, also developed a sustained critique of Marxism In 4 
, Said argued
that Marx's explicit defense of British colonialism was emblematic of his own implication in
Orientalist discourse
urthermore, for Said, Marx's position was not merely a personal failure
but instead reflected a more general problem with totalizing theory that he felt tended to
marginalize any signs of difference that undermined Marx's narrative of progress

IMACT O
COLONIALISM ANþ COLONIZATION `|

þebate about the perceived negative and positive aspects (spread of virulent diseases, unequal
social relations, exploitation, enslavement, infrastructures, medical advances, new institutions,
technological advancements etc) of colonialism has occurred for centuries, amongst both
colonizer and colonized, and continues to the present day The questions of miscegenation;
the alleged ties between colonial enterprises, genocides ² see the erero Genocide and the
Armenian Genocide ² and the olocaust; and the questions of the nature of imperialism,
dependency theory and neocolonialism (in particular the Third èorld debt) continue to retain
their actuality

IMACT ON ALT

ncounters between uropean explorers and populations in the rest of the world
often introduced local epidemics of extraordinary virulence þisease killed the entire native
(Guanches) population of the Canary Islands in the 16th century alf the native population of
ispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox Smallpox also ravaged Mexico in the 1520s,
killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlan alone, including the emperor, and eru in the 1530s, aiding
the uropean conquerors Measles killed a further two million Mexican natives in the 1600s
In 1618±1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans
Smallpox epidemics in 1780±1782 and 1837±1838 brought devastation and drastic
depopulation among the lains Indians Some believe that the death of up to 95% of the
Native American population of the New èorld was caused by Old èorld diseases Over the
centuries, the uropeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the
indigenous peoples had no such immunity

Smallpox decimated the native population of Australia, killing around 50% of Indigenous
Australians in the early years of British colonization It also killed many New ZealandMaori
As late as 1848±49, as many as 40,000 out of 150,000 awaiians are estimated to have died
of measles, whooping cough and influenza Introduced diseases, notably smallpox, nearly
wiped out the native population of aster Island In 1875, measles killed over 40,000
ijians,
approximately one-third of the population Ainu population decreased drastically in the 19th
O |  
  
 

   |
|
century, due in large part to infectious diseases brought by Japanese settlers pouring into
okkaido

Researchers concluded that syphilis was carried from the New èorld to urope after
Columbus's voyages The findings suggested uropeans could have carried the nonvenereal
tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the
different conditions of urope The disease was more frequently fatal than it is today Syphilis
was a major killer in urope during the Renaissance The first cholera pandemic began in
Bengal, then spread across India by 1820 10,000 British troops and countless Indians died
during this pandemic Between 1736 and 1834 only some 10% of ast India Company's
officers survived to take the final voyage home èaldemar affkine, who mainly worked in
India, was the first microbiologist who developed and used vaccines against cholera and
bubonic plague

As early as 1803, the Spanish Crown organized a mission (the Balmis expedition) to transport
the smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies, and establish mass vaccination programs there
By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination
program for Native Americans Under the direction of Mountstuart lphinstone a program
was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination in India
rom the beginning of the 20th
century onwards, the elimination or control of disease in tropical countries became a driving
force for all colonial powers The sleeping sickness epidemic in Africa was arrested due to
mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk In the 20th century, the
world saw the biggest increase in its population in human history due to lessening of the
mortality rate in many countries due to medical advances èorld population has grown from
16 billion in 1900 to an estimated 67 billion today

SLAV TRAþ

Slavery has existed to varying extents, forms and periods in almost all cultures and continents
Between the 7th and 20th centuries, Arab slave trade (also known as slavery in the ast) took
approximately 18 million slaves from Africa via trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean routes
Between the 15th and the 19th centuries, the Atlantic slave trade took up to 12 million slaves
to the New èorld

rom 1654 until 1865, slavery for life was legal within the boundaries of the present United
States According to the 1860 US census, nearly four million slaves were held in a total
population of just over 12 million in the 15 states in which slavery was legal Of all
1,515,605 families in the 15 slave states, 393,967 held slaves (roughly one in four),
amounting to 8% of all American families

In 1807, the United Kingdom became one of the first nations to end its own participation in
the slave trade Between 1808 and 1860, the British èest Africa Squadron seized
approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard Action was
also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade,
for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851 Anti-slavery treaties
were signed with over 50 African rulers In 1827, Britain declared the slave trade piracy,
punishable by death

 
  
 

   | O
|
|
Op |  
  
 

   |
|
 istory of colonialism Around the
globe|

è
  

 


 
  
 

   | O
|
|
 Ä  


  







  








 


|
|
|

|
è
  



 



è
è

 

 |  
  
 

   |
|
 è
 

 

 
  
 

   | 
ë|
|
 Î 
 
Brower, þaniel (2003) Ä  
      
   London:
Routledge/Curzon

Brower, þaniel, and Lazzerini, dward, eds (1997)

 4   
 




 
  Bloomington: University of Indiana ress

Jersild, Austin (2002) 4 


 Ä   ð  


      Montreal: McGill-Queen's University ress

Khodarkovsky, Michael (2002)

  Ä  

 
  Bloomington: University of Indiana ress

Layton, Susan (1994)

    
        ð 
  Ä

 New
ork: Cambridge University ress

Slezkine,
uri (1994)  ðð  

 
   

  
       Ithaca,
N
: Cornell University ress

Suny, Ronald Grigor, and Martin, Terry, eds    
  
  

 New
ork: Oxford University ress

Boxer, C RÄ  ð    London, 1990

²²Ä     New
ork, 1969

Gibson, Charles ð New
ork, 1966

arry, J Ä     London, 1966

Véliz, ClaudioÄ  
Ä 

   ð rinceton,

O |  
  
 

   |
|
O






wwwgooglecom

wwwmsncom

wwwencylcopediacom

wwwRutgersedu

wwwpolitcalaffairsnet

 
  
 

   | 
|
|
 Conclusion:
To conclude, it is worth noting that some scholars have begun to question the usefulness of
the concept post-colonial theory Like the idea of the Scottish four stages theory, a theory with
which it would appear to have little in common, the very concept of post-colonialism seems to
rely on a progressive understanding of history (McClintock 1992)) It suggests, perhaps
unwittingly, that the core concepts of hybridity, alterity, particularly, and multiplicity may
lead to a kind of methodological dogmatism or developmental logic Moreover, the term
³colonial´ as a marker of this domain of inquiry is also problematic in so far as it suggests
historically implausible commonalities across territories that experienced very different
techniques of domination Thus, the critical impulse behind post-colonial theory has turned on
itself, drawing attention to the way that it may itself be marked by the utopian desire to
transcend the trauma of colonialism (Gandhi 1998)The study of colonialism can provide
students with critical tools both to understand and respond to some of the pressing political
and economic questions of the world Such tools can empower students to develop practical
solutions to problems that hinder global peace, stability and economic equality In this way,
the study of colonialism provides a central foundation for today's global citizen

Ñ |  
  
 

   |
|