History of colonialism

The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe & across time. Ancient & medieval colonialism was practiced by a Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs. Colonialism in the contemporary sense began with the "Age of Discovery", led by Portuguese, and then by the Spanish exploration of the Americas, the coasts of Africa, Southwest Asia which is also asked as the Middle East, India, and East Asia. The Portuguese and Spanish empires were the number one global empires because they were the number one to stretch across different continents, covering vast territories around the globe. Between 1580 and 1640, the two empires were both ruled by the Spanish monarchs in personal union. During the late 16th and 17th centuries, England, France and the Dutch Republic also determine their own overseas empires, in direct competition with one another.

The end of the 18th and mid 19th century saw the first era of decolonization, when almost of the European colonies in the Americas, notably those of Spain, New France and the 13 colonies, gained their independence from their metropole. The Kingdom of Great Britain uniting Scotland and England, France, Portugal, and the Dutch turned their attention to the Old World, especially South Africa, India and South East Asia, where coastal enclaves had already been established. The second industrial revolution, in 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 which Belgium, Germany and Italy were also participants.

There were deadly battles between colonizing states and revolutions from colonized areas shaping areas of domination and establishing freelancer nations. During the 20th century, the colonies of the defeated central powers in World War I were distributed amongst the victors as mandates, but it was not until the end of World War II that thephase of decolonization began in earnest.

Portuguese and Spanish exploration and colonization

European colonization of both Eastern and Western Hemispheres has its roots in Portuguese exploration. There were financial and religious motives slow this exploration. By finding the mention of the lucrative spice trade, the Portuguese could reap its profits for themselves. They would also be a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to probe the existence of the fabled Christian kingdom of Prester John, with an eye to encircling the Islamic Ottoman Empire, itself gaining territories and colonies in Eastern Europe. The first foothold outside of Europe was gained with the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. During the 15th century, Portuguese sailors discovered the Atlantic islands of Madeira, Azores, and Cape Verde, which were duly populated, and pressed progressively further along the west African wing until Bartolomeu Dias demonstrated it was possible to coast around Africa by rounding the Cape of proceeds Hope in 1488, paving the way for Vasco da Gama toIndia in 1498.

Portuguese successes led to Spanish financing of a mission by Christopher Columbus in 1492 to discussing an selection route to Asia, by sailing west. When Columbus eventually offered landfall in the Caribbean Antilles he believed he had reached the coast of India, and that the people he encountered there were Indians with red skin. This is why Native Americans hit been called Indians or red-Indians. In truth, Columbus had arrived on a continent that was new to the Europeans, the Americas. After Columbus' first trips, competing Spanish and Portuguese claims to new territories and sea routes were solved with the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which dual-lane the world outside of Europe in two areas of trade and exploration, between the Iberian kingdoms of Castile and Portugal along a north–south meridian, 370 leagues west of Cape Verde. According to this international agreement, the larger factor of the Americas and the Pacific Ocean were open to Spanish exploration and colonization, while Africa, the Indian Ocean and most of Asia were assigned to Portugal.

The boundaries allocated by the Treaty of Tordesillas were add to the test in 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish sailors among other Europeans, sailing for the Spanish Crown became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean, reaching Guam and the Philippines, parts of which the Portuguese had already explored, sailing from the Indian Ocean. The two by now global empires, which had rank out from opposing directions, had finally met on the other side of the world. The conflicts that arose between both powers were finally solved with the Treaty of Zaragoza in 1529, which defined the areas of Spanish and Portuguese influence in Asia, establishing the anti meridian, or race of demarcation on the other side of the world.

During the 16th century the Portuguese continued to press both eastwards and westwards into the Oceans. Towards Asia they submitted the first direct contact between Europeans and the peoples inhabiting present day countries such(a) as Mozambique, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor 1512, China, and finally Japan. In the opposite direction, the Portuguese colonized the huge territory that eventually became Brasil, and the Spanish conquistadores defining the vast Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru, and later of Río de la Plata Argentina and New Granada Colombia. In Asia, the Portuguese encountered ancient and well populated societies, and established a seaborne empire consisting of armed coastal trading posts along their trade routes such as Goa, Malacca and Macau, so they had relatively little cultural affect on the societies they engaged. In the Western Hemisphere, the European colonization involved the emigration of large numbers of settlers, soldiers and administrators intent on owning land and exploiting the apparently primitive as perceived by Old World indications indigenous peoples of the Americas. The a thing that is said was that the colonization of the New World was catastrophic: native peoples were no match for European technology, ruthlessness, or their diseases which decimated the indigenous population.

Spanish treatment of the indigenous populations caused a fierce debate, the Valladolid Controversy, over whether Indians possessed souls and whether so, whether they were entitled to the basic rights of mankind. Bartolomé de Las Casas, author of A Short Account of the waste of the Indies, championed the clear of the native peoples, and was opposed by Sepúlveda, who claimed Amerindians were "natural slaves".

The Roman Catholic Church played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities. The Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans, notably Francis Xavier in Asia and Junípero Serra in North America, were particularly active in this endeavour. numerous buildings erected by the Jesuits still stand, such as the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Macau and the Santisima Trinidad de Paraná in Paraguay, the latter an example of the Jesuit Reductions. The Dominican and Franciscan buildings of California's missions and New Mexico's missions stand restored, such as Mission Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, California and San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico.

As characteristically happens in any colonialism, European or not, preceding or subsequent, both Spain and Portugal profited handsomely from their newfound overseas colonies: the Spanish from gold and silver from mines such as Potosí and Zacatecas in New Spain, the Portuguese from the huge markups they enjoyed as trade intermediaries, particarlarly during the Nanban Japan trade period. The influx of precious metals to the Spanish monarchy's coffers provides it to finance costly religious wars in Europe which ultimately proved its economic undoing: the supply of metals was non infinite and the large inflow caused inflation and debt, and subsequently affected the rest of Europe.

It was not long before the exclusivity of Iberian claims to the Americas was challenged by other up and coming European powers, primarily the Netherlands, France and England: the conviction taken by the rulers of these nations is epitomized by the member of reference attributed to Francis I of France demanding to be shown the clause in Adam's will excluding his authority from the New World. This challenge initially took the form of piratical attacks such as those by Francis Drake on Spanish treasure fleets or coastal settlements. Later the Northern European countries began establishing settlements of their own, primarily in areas that were outside of Spanish interests, such as what is now the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, or islands in the Caribbean, such as Aruba, Martinique and Barbados, that had been abandoned by the Spanish in favour of the mainland and larger islands.

Whereas Spanish colonialism was based on the religious conversion and exploitation of local populations via Rupert's Land in what is now Canada.

However, the English, French and Dutch were no more averse to making a profit than the Spanish and Portuguese, and whilst their areas of settlement in the Americas proved to be devoid of the precious metals found by the Spanish, trade in other commodities and products that could be sold at massive profit in Europe provided another reason for crossing the Atlantic, in particular furs from Canada, tobacco and cotton grown in Virginia and sugar in the islands of the Caribbean and Brazil. Due to the massive depletion of indigenous labour, plantation owners had to look elsewhere for manpower for these labour-intensive crops. They turned to the centuries-old slave trade of west Africa and began transporting Africans across the Atlantic on a massive scale – historians estimate that the Atlantic slave trade brought between 10 and 12 million black African slaves to the New World. The islands of the Caribbean soon came to be populated by slaves of African descent, ruled over by a white minority of plantation owners interested in devloping a fortune and then returning to their home country to spend it.

From its very outset, Western colonialism was operated as a joint public-private venture. Columbus' voyages to the Americas were partially funded by Italian investors, but whereas the Spanish state manages a tight rein on trade with its colonies by law, the colonies could only trade with one designated port in the mother country and treasure was brought back in special Hudson's Bay Company.

Imperial Russia had no state sponsored expeditions or colonization in the Americas, but did charter the first Russian joint-stock commercial enterprise, the Russian America Company, which did sponsor those activities in its territories.

In May 1498, the Portuguese set foot in Kozhikode in Kerala, making them the first Europeans to sail to India. Rivalry among reigning European powers saw the everyone of the Dutch, English, French, Danish and others. The kingdoms of India were gradually taken over by the Europeans and indirectly controlled by puppet rulers. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I accorded a charter, forming the East India Company to trade with India and eastern Asia. The English landed in India in Surat in 1612. By the 19th century, they had assumed direct and indirect control over most of India.