Colonialism: Difference between revisions

See colony and colonisation for examples of colonialism which do not refer to Western colonialism.

Pith helmet of the Second French Empire.

World in 1898, showing large colonial empires.

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 (see also cultural imperialism). However, though colonialism is often used interchangeably with imperialism, the latter is sometimes used more broadly as it covers control exercised informally (via influence) as well as formally. The term colonialism may also be used to refer to a set of beliefs used to legitimize or promote this system. Colonialism was often based on the belief that the mores and values of the colonizer are initially superior to those of the colonized (which may be perceived as ethnocentric). Some observers link such beliefs regarding values to racism, and to pseudo-scientific theories at the end of the 19th century, although this can be misleading since racism is by definition specifically about race, not values.

Types of colonialism

Settler colonies, dependencies, plantations colonies, trading posts

Several types of colonialism may be distinguished, according to the form of colonization and also the date. Settler colonies, such as the original thirteen states of the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Soviet policies in Siberia arose from the emigration of peoples from a metropole, or mother country, and involved displacement of the indigenous peoples to their permanent detriment . Settler colonies may be contrasted with dependencies, 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 mestizos of the Americas), or racially divided, such as in French Algeria or Southern Rhodesia. A third category may be considered in the cases where large-scale colonial settlement was attempted in substantially pre-populated areas: the result was either an ethnically mixed population (such as the mestizos 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.

World map of colonialism at the end of the Second World War in 1945.

History of Colonialism

The historical phenomenon of colonisation is one that stretches around the globe and across time, including such disparate peoples as the Hittites, the Incas and the British, although the term colonialism is normally used with reference to European overseas empires rather than land-based empires, European or otherwise, which are better described by the term imperialism. Examples of land-based empires include the Mongol Empire, a large empire stretching from the Western Pacific to Eastern Europe, the Empire of Alexander the Great, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Empire was created across Mediterranean, North Africa and into Southern Europe and existed during the time of European colonization of the other parts of the world.

European colonialism began in the 15th century with the "Age of Discovery", led by Spanish and Portuguese exploration of the Americas, and the coasts of Africa, the Middle East, India, and East Asia. During the 16th and 17th centuries, England, France and Holland established their own overseas empires, in direct competition with each other. The end of the 18th and early 19th century saw the first era of decolonization when most of the European colonies in the Americas gained their independence from their respective metropoles. Spain and Portugal were irreversibly weakened after the loss of their New World colonies, but Britain (after the union of England and Scotland), France and Holland turned their attention to the Old World, particularly South Africa, India and South East Asia, where coastal enclaves had already been established. 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. During the 20th Century, the overseas colonies of the losers of World War I were distributed amongst the victors as mandates, but it was not until the end of World War II that the second phase of decolonization began in earnest.

The first European colonization wave (15th century-19th century)

Main article: The first European colonization wave (15th century-19th century)

Iberian exploration and colonization

Main articles: Portuguese Empire, Portugal in the Age of Discovery, and Spanish colonization of the Americas

European colonisation of both Eastern and Western Hemispheres has its roots in Portuguese exploration. There were financial and religious motives behind this exploration. By finding the source of the lucrative spice trade, the Portuguese could reap its profits for themselves. They would also be able to probe the existence of the fabled Christian kingdom of Prester John, with a view to encircling the Islamic Ottoman Empire. The first foothold outside of Europe was gained with the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. During the fifteenth 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 coast until Bartolomeu Dias demonstrated it was possible to sail around Africa by rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, paving the way for Vasco da Gama to reach India in 1498.

Portuguese successes led to Spanish financing of a mission by Christopher Columbus in 1492 to explore an alternative route to Asia, by sailing west. When Columbus eventually made landfall in what are now called the Bahamas he believed he had reached the coast of Japan, but had in fact "discovered" the peripheral islands of a new continent, the Americas.

After Columbus' return to Europe, competing Spanish and Portuguese claims to undiscovered lands were settled in 1494 with the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the world outside of Europe in an exclusive duopoly between the Iberian kingdoms along a north-south meridian 370 leagues west of Cape Verde. Technically this meant that all of the Americas were open to Spanish colonization, but when Pedro Alvares Cabral's voyage to India was blown off course and landfall made on the Brazilian coast, this accident of navigation and an inability at the time to accurately measure longitude meant that Brazil ended up within the Portuguese half.

File:Portugal Empire.jpg

Portuguese colonial possessions in the late XVI century.

During the 16th century the Portuguese continued to press eastwards into Asia, making the first direct contact between Europeans and the peoples inhabiting present day countries such as Mozambique, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor (1512), China, and finally Japan), whilst the Spanish conquistadores pressed into the American hinterland, establishing the vast Viceroyalties of New Spain, New Granada and Peru. The Portuguese, encountering ancient and well populated societies, established a seaborne empire consisting of armed coastal trading posts along their trade routes (such as Goa, Malacca and Macau) whereas Spanish colonization involved the emigration of large numbers of settlers, soldiers and administrators intent on owning land and exploiting the relatively primitive (by Old World standards) native population. The result was that where the Portuguese had relatively little cultural impact on the societies they forced their way into trading with, Spanish settlement of the New World was catastrophic: native peoples were no match for Spanish technology, ruthlessness or their diseases which decimated the indigenous population.

Spanish treatment of the indigenous populations provoked a fierce debate, the Valladolid Controversy, over whether Indians possessed souls and if so, whether they were entitled to the basic rights of mankind. Bartolomé de Las Casas, author of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, championed the cause of the natives, 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 and Jesuits, notably Francis Xavier in Asia, were particularly active in this endeavour. Many buildings erected by the Jesuits still stand, such as the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Macau and the Santisima Trinidad de Paraná in Paraguay, an example of a Jesuit Reduction.

Both Spain and Portugal profited handsomely from their new found overseas colonies: the Spanish from gold and silver from mines such as Potosí and Zacateca, the Portuguese from the huge markups they enjoyed as trade intermediaries, particarlarly during the Namban trade period. The influx of precious metals to the Spanish monarchy's coffers allowed it to finance costly religious wars in Europe which ultimately proved its undoing: the supply of metals was not infinite and the large inflow caused inflation.

The boundaries specified by the Treaty of Tordesillas were put to the test a second time when Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer sailing under the Spanish flag reached the Philippines. The two by now global empires, which had set out from opposing directions, had finally met on the other side of the world.

Northern European challenges to the Iberian hegemony

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 view taken by the rulers of these nations is epitomized by the quotation 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, but 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 USA 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 encomiendas (many Spaniards emigrated to the Americas to elevate their social status, and were not interested in manual labour), Northern European colonialism was bolstered by people fleeing religious persection or intolerance (for example, the Mayflower voyage). The motive for emigration was not to become an aristocrat or to spread one's faith but to start afresh in a new society, where life would be hard but one would be free to exercise one's religious beliefs. The most populous emigration of the 17th century was that of the English, who after a series of wars with the Dutch and French came to dominate the eastern coast of the present day USA and 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 humans across the Atlantic on a massive scale - historians estimate that the Atlantic slave trade brought between 10 and 12 million individuals 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 making a fortune and then returning to their home country to spend it.

Role of companies in early colonialism

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 maintained a tight reign 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 convoys), the English, French and Dutch granted what were effectively trade monopolies to joint-stock companies such as the East India Companies and the Hudson's Bay Company.

European colonies in India

Main article: European colonies in India

In 1498, the Portuguese set foot in Goa. Rivalry among reigning European powers saw the entry of the Dutch, British, French, Danish among others. The fractured debilitated 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 British landed in India in Surat in 1624. By the 19th century, they had assumed direct and indirect control over most of India.

Independence in the Americas

During the five decades following 1770, Britain, France, Spain and Portugal lost their most valuable colonies in the Americas.

Britain and The Thirteen Colonies

Main articles: Thirteen Colonies, American Revolutionary War, and United States Declaration of Independence

After the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, Britain had emerged as the world's dominant power, but found itself mired in debt and struggling to finance the Navy and Army necessary to maintain a global empire. The British Parliament's attempt to raise taxes on the North American colonists raised fears among the Americans that their rights as "Englishmen," particularly their rights of self-government, were in danger. A series of disputes with Parliament over taxation led first to informal committees of correspondence among the colonies, then to coordinated protest and resistance, and finally to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress.

France and The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

The Haïtian Revolution, a slave revolt led by Toussaint L'Ouverture in the the French colony of Saint-Domingue, established Haïti as a free, black republic, the first of its kind, and the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere after the United States. Africans and people of African ancestry freed themselves from slavery and colonization by taking advantage of the conflict among whites over how to implement the reforms of the French Revolution in this slave society. Although independence was declared in 1804, it was not until 1825 that it was formally recognised by King Charles X of France.

Spain and the Wars of Independence in Latin America

Main articles: South American Wars of Independence and Mexican War of Independence

The Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821) and the various Wars of Independence led in the 1810s and 1820s by famous Libertadores such as José de San Martin in the South or Simón Bolívar in the North, brought to most Latin American countries independence from the European powers.

As in North America, the independent territories still had to be fully explored. Thus, in Argentina, caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas pursuied the "conquest of the desert" from 1829 to 1852, explicitly leading a "campaign of extermination" against the indigenous people. The Empire of Brazil, proclaimed in 1822 by Dom Pedro I, began to colonize its backcountry (including the Sertão), an enterprise which continues to this day in the Amazons. The 1888 Lei Áurea abolished slavery, creating public uproar among Brazilian slave owners and upper classes, which was the immediate cause of the toppling of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic in 1889.

The 1898 Spanish-American War, during which the United States occupied Cuba and Puerto Rico, ended Spanish occupation in the Americas.

Portugal and Brazil

Brazil was the only country in Latin America to gain its independence without bloodshed. The invasion of Portugal by Napoleon in 1808 had forced the King Joao VI to flee to Brazil and establish his court in Rio de Janeiro. For thirteen years, Portugal was ruled from Brazil (the only instance of such a reversal of roles between colony and metropole) until his return to Portugal in 1821. His son, Dom Pedro, was left in charge of Brazil and in 1822 he declared independence from Portugal and himself the Emporer of Brazil. Unlike Spain's former colonies which had abandoned the monarchy in favour of republicanism, Brazil therefore retained its links with its monarchy, the House of Braganza.

The second European colonization wave in the 19th-20th century

Main article: The Second European colonization wave (19th-20th century)

The New Imperialism

Main articles: New Imperialism, Rise of the New Imperialism, and 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 1870s on by the scramble for territory in areas previously regarded as merely under Western influence. Colonialism would take its full extent only during the period known as New Imperialism, starting in the 1860s with the Scramble for Africa.

The Berlin Conference (1884 - 1885) mediated the imperial competition among Britain, France and Germany, defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of colonial claims and codifying the imposition of direct rule, accomplished usually through armed force.

A decade later, rival imperialisms would collide in the 1898 Fashoda Incident, during which war between France and Britain was barely avoided. This fear led to new alliances, and in 1904 the Entente Cordiale was signed between both powers. Imperialistic rivalry between the European powers would a main cause of the triggering of World War I in 1914.

In Germany, rising pan-germanism was coupled to imperialism in the Alldeutsche Verband ("Pangermanic League"), 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.

The Scramble for Africa

European claims in Africa, 1913, following the Scramble for Africa.

Main article: Scramble for Africa

Many European statesmen and industrialists wanted to accelerate the Scramble for Africa, securing colonies before they strictly needed them. The champion of Realpolitik, Bismarck thus pushed a Weltpolitik vision ("World Politic"), which considered the colonization as a necessity for the emerging German power. German colonies in Togoland, Samoa, South-West Africa and New Guinea had corporate commercial roots, while the equivalent German-dominated areas in East Africa and China owed more to political motives. The British also took an interest in Africa, using the East Africa company to take over Kenya and Uganda. The British crown formally took over in 1895 and renamed the area the East Africa Protectorate.

Herero 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 personally owned the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, while the Dutch had the Dutch East Indies.

In the same manner, Italy tried to conquer its "place in the sun", acquiring 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 Libya) with 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 legacies of past colonization. Most of their colonies had acquired independence during the Latin American revolutions at the beginning of the 19th century.

German colonialism

Main article: German colonialism

Imperialism in Asia

Main article: Imperialism in Asia

In Asia, the Great Game, which lasted from 1813 to 1907, opposed the British Empire against Imperial Russia for supremacy in Central Asia. China was opened to Western influence starting with the First and Second Opium Wars (1839-1842; 1856-1860). After the visits of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1852-1854, Japan opened itself to the Western world during the Meiji Era (1868-1912).

After World War I

Further information: Aftermath of World War I and League of Nations Mandate

The colonial map was redrawn following the defeat of Germany and the Ottoman Empire after the first World War (1914-18). Colonies from the defeated empires were transferred to the newly founded League of Nations, which itself redistributed it to the victorious powers as "mandates".

The secret 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement partitioned the Middle East between Britain and France, and the 1917 Balfour Declaration promised to the international Zionist movement their support in creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, later to become the state of Israel. French mandates included Syria and Lebanon, whilst the British were handed Iraq and Palestine. The bulk of the Arabian peninsula became the independent Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1922. The discovery of the world's largest easily accessible crude oil deposits led to an influx of Western oil companies that dominated the region's economies until the 1970s, and making the emirs of the oil states immensely rich, enabling them to consolidate their hold on power and giving them a stake in preserving Western hegemony over the region.

During the 1920-30s Iraq, Syria and Egypt moved towards independence, although the British and French did not formally depart the region until they were forced to do so after World War II.

Japanese imperialism

Main articles: Japanese imperialism and Imperialism in Asia

After being closed for centuries to Western influence, Japan opened itself to the West during the Meiji Era (1868-1912), characterized by swift modernization and borrowings from European culture (in law, science, etc.) This, in turn, helped make Japan the modern power that it is now, which was symbolized as soon as the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War: this war marked the first victory of an Asian people against a European imperial power, and led to widespread fears among European populations (first appearance of the "Yellow Peril"). During the first part of the 20th century, while China was still victim of various European imperialisms, Japan became an imperialist power, conquering what it called a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".

Japan's encroachment on Korea began with the 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa with the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, increased with the 1895 assassination of Empress Myeongseong and the 1905 Eulsa Treaty, and was completed with the illicit 1910 Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty. In 1910, Korea was formally annexed to the Japanese Empire. The Japanese colonization of Korea was particularly brutal, even by 20th Century standards. This brutal colonization included the use of Korean "comfort women" who were forced to serve as sex slaves in Japanese Army brothels. For additional information see Korea under Japanese rule.

In 1931 Japanese army units based in Manchuria seized control of the region; full-scale war with China followed in 1937, drawing Japan toward an overambitious bid for Asian hegemony (Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere), which ultimately led to defeat and the loss of all its overseas territories after World War II (see Japanese expansionism and Japanese nationalism). As in Korea, the Japanese treatment of the Chinese people was particularly brutal as exemplified by the Nanjing Massacre.

The French colonial empire

Main article: French colonial empire

In France, the colonial empire was not used for massive emigration, as in the British Empire. In fact, until the Third Republic (1871-1940), apart from the colonization of Algeria started on June 12, 1830, in the last days of the Restoration, France did not have yet many colonies compared to the Spanish or the Portuguese empire. The Antilles, in the Caribbean Sea, had been colonized during this first wave of colonialism. After the repression of the 1871 Paris Commune, the French Guiana — as well as New Caledonia — were used for transportation of criminals and Communards. 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 until World War I. In the 1880s, a debate thus opposed those who opposed 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 propaganda campaign in order to convince the French of the legitimacy of its Empire, which most thought costly and rather useless. Ethnological expositions — including human zoos, in which natives were displayed alongside apes, in an attempt to justify scientific racism and to popularize the colonial empire — had a crucial role in the popularisation of colonialism . Although in France these colonial exhibitions played a crucial propaganda role, they were common in all colonizing powers: the 1924 British Empire Exhibition was one notable example, as was 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 colonization of Algeria starting with the invasion on June 12, 1830, a few days before the end of the Restoration, were later extended to the whole of the French colonial empire (Indochina, New Caledonia, French West Africa, a federation created in 1895, and French Equatorial Africa, created in 1910). LeCour Grandmaison argued that Algeria thus provided the laboratory for concepts later used during the Holocaust, such as "inferior races", "life without value" — Lebensunwertes Leben — and "vital space" (translated in German by "Lebensraum", a concept used by the Völkisch movement), as well as for repressive techniques: the 1881 Indigenous 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 communists 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 failure to recognize the effort provided by the French colonies (resources, but more importantly colonial troops - the famous tirailleurs). Although in Paris the Great Mosque of Paris was constructed as recognition of these efforts, the French state 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. On the night of March 29, 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. On May 8, 1945, the Setif massacre took place in Algeria.

In 1946, the states of French Indochina withdrew from the Union, leading to the Indochina War (1946-54). In 1956, Morocco and Tunisia gained their independence, while the Algerian War was 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 was 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 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. The February 23, 2005 law on colonialism voted by the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) conservative majority was finally repealed by president Jacques Chirac (UMP) start of 2006.

Decolonization

Dates of independence of African countries.

Main article: Decolonization

After World War I (1914-1918), national liberation movements became more common, although they did not reach their full power until the end of World War II (1939-1945). Due to Western education of colonized elites, the use of colonial troops during WWI; US president Woodrow Wilson's January 8, 1918 speech on the Fourteen Points — the fifth one stated that: "A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty 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 in the British Raj, which was founded on civil disobedience. 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 ) 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, demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the term "Third World" in reference to the French Third Estate. The expression distinguished nations that aligned themselves with neither the West nor with the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War. In the following decades, decolonization would strengthen this group which began to be represented at the United Nations. The Third World's first international move was the 1955 Bandung Conference, led by Nehru for India, Nasser for Egypt and Tito for Yugoslavia. The Conference, which gathered 29 countries representing over half the world's population, led to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961.

Although the US had first opposed itself to colonial powers, in particular during the 1956 Suez crisis between Egypt, France, the UK and Israel, the Cold War concerns about Soviet influence in the Third World caused it to downplay its advocacy of popular sovereignty and decolonization. France thus had a free hand in the First Indochina War (1946-1954) and in the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962), where torture techniques were heavily employed (the Algerian war would become a military model of counter-insurgency tactics, and has been studied ever since in military schools through-out the world). Furthermore, attempts such as Mossadegh's nationalisation of the petroil in Iran were blocked by the US, who supported a coup in 1953 order to impose the Shah (the covert operation was named Operation Ajax). The next year, when Guatemala's president Arbenz tried to nationalise the United Fruit, the CIA overthrew him and replaced him by a military junta in Operation PBSuccess.

In spite of these interferences in other states, decolonization itself was a seemingly unstoppable process. In 1960, after several wars of national liberation, the UN had reached 99 members states: the decolonization of Africa was almost complete. In 1980, the UN had 154 member states, and in 1990, after Namibia's independence, 159 states But what could be seen retrospectively as a gigantic and quiet wave representing the Zeitgeist ("Spirit of Times") overthrowing the domination of European colonialist powers was in fact the product of the struggle of the colonized people, whom many paid it with their lives.

In effect, although the anticolonialist struggle didn't lead in all cases to wars such as the Algerian War (1954-62), it was nevertheless bloody. Many anticolonialist leaders were assassinated in more or less obscure circumstances in the 1960s, whether by foreign powers or internal enemies, sometimes supported by foreign powers who more or less openly supported dictatorships (for example, France and its ties with the Françafrique). The most famous names shouldn't dissimulate others less-known leaders, but a quick enumeration of slain anti-imperialist leaders would include Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo assassinated in 1961; Sylvanus Olympio, the first president of Togo, assassinated in 1963 (quickly replaced by Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who would rule Togo until his death in 2005); Mehdi Ben Barka, leader of the Moroccan opposition, whom was preparing the Tricontinental Conference which was supposed to gather in La Habana in 1966 national liberation movements (not states) from all continents in order to organize the anti-imperialist struggle (kidnapped in Paris); Eduardo Mondlane, the leader of the Mozambiquan FRELIMO, allegedly assassinated by Aginter Press, the Portuguese branch of Gladio — NATO's anti-communist paramilitary organization during the Cold War — Amilcar Cabral, Oscar Romero, the prelate archbishop of San Salvador and a proponent of Liberation Theology, or Dulcie September, African National Congress (ANC) activist murdered in Paris in 1988 ...

Many of these assassinations are still unsolved cases as of 2006, but foreign power interference is undeniable in many of these cases. To take only one case, the investigation concerning Mehdi Ben Barka is continuing to this day, and both France and the US have refused to declassify files they acknowledge having in their possession

Role of the USSR and China

The Soviet Union was a main supporter of decolonization movements. While the Non-Aligned Movement, created in 1961 following the Bandung 1955 Conference, was supposedly neutral, the "Third World" being opposed to both the "First" and the "Second" Worlds, geopolitical concerns, as well as the refusal of the US to support decolonization movements against its NATO European allies, led the national liberation movements to look increasingly toward the East. However, China's appearance on the world scene, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, created a rupture between the Soviet Union and independentists movements. Globally, the non-aligned movement, led by Nehru (India), Tito (Yugoslavia) and Nasser (Egypt) tried to create a block of nations powerful enough to be dependent on neither the US nor the Soviet Union, but finally tilted towards the USSR, while smaller liberation movements, both by strategic necessity and ideological choice, were supported either by Moscow or by Peking. The Cuban government, led by Fidel Castro after the Cuban revolution of 1959, was at first neutral before turning itself towards Moscow. Cuba also sponsored liberation movements in Angola and Mozambique. Few liberation movements were totally independent from foreign aid.

Neocolonialism

File:Promises.JPG

1900 Campaign poster for the Republican Party. "The American flag has not been planted in foreign soil to acquire more territory but for humanity's sake.", president William McKinley, July 12, 1900. On the left hand, we see how the situation allegedly was in 1896, before Mc Kinley's victory during the elections: "Gone Democratic: A run on the bank, Spanish rule in Cuba". On the right hand, we see how the situation allegedly is in 1900, after four years of Kinley's rule: "Gone Republican: a run to the bank, American rule in Cuba" (the Spanish-American War took place in 1898). The USA are becoming, as other European powers, an imperialist power. As did France before with its universalist doctrine, it claims that it acts for "Humanity".

Main article: Neocolonialism

Despite the decolonization in the 1960s-70s, former colonies still are today for the most part under strong Western influence (although new imperialism have appeared on stage, namely China in Africa). Critics of this continued Western 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 tonnes 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.

U.S. foreign intervention

On the other hand, because of the Cold War, which led Moscow and Peking to support anti-imperialist movements, the US (as well as other NATO countries) interfered in various countries, for example by issuing an embargo against Cuba after the 1959 Cuban Revolution — which started on February 7, 1962 — and supporting various covert operations (the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Project, etc.) The US, as well as France for that matter, preferred supporting dictatorships in Third World countries rather than having democracies which always presented the risk of having the people choose being aligned with the Communist bloc rather than the so-called "Free World".

Thus, in South America, the US began by supporting Pinochet's September 11, 1973 coup against democratically elected socialist leader Salvador Allende, and continued by giving support to the "dirty war" — including Operation Condor, in which 50,000 persons were murdered and 30,000 "disappeared" (aka "desaparecidos"). On March 6, 2001, the New York Times revealed a 1978 cable which proved that chiefs involved in Condor "[kept] in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which [covered] all of Latin America" . On September 21, 1976, Orlando Letelier, a Chilean Christian Democrat, was assassinated by a car bomb in Washington D.C. Among the people prosecuted for the people were Michael Townley, a DINA agent who had worked for the CIA. Townley confessed that he had hired anti-Castrist Cubans to boobytrap the car, through Luis Posada Carriles' CORU organization. US intervention in Latin american countries continued with the 1983 invasion of Grenada and the 1989 United States invasion of Panama against druglord Manuel Noriega. In Indonesia, Washington supported Suharto's New Order dictatorship, etc.

This interference, in particular in South and Central American countries, is reminiscent of the 19th century Monroe doctrine and the Big stick diplomacy codified by US president Theodore Roosevelt. Left-wing critics have spoken of an "American Empire", pushed in particular by the military-industrial complex, which president Eisenhower warned against in 1961. On the other hand, some Republicans have supported, without much success since World War I, isolationism. Defenders of U.S. policy have asserted that intervention was sometimes necessary to prevent Communist or Soviet-aligned governments from taking power during the Cold War.

French foreign intervention

France wasn't inactive either: it supported dictatorships in the former colonies in Africa, leading to the expression Françafrique, coined by François-Xavier Verschave, a member of the anti-neocolonialist Survie NGO, which has criticized the way development aid was given to post-colonial countries, claiming it only supported neo-colonialism, interior corruption and arms-trade. The Third World debt, including odious debt, where the interest on the external debt exceeds the amount that the country produces, had been considered by some a method of oppression or control by first world countries; a form of debt bondage on the scale of nations.

Post-colonialism

File:Time Bhopal.jpg

Time cover about the 1984 Bhopal disaster, when a pesticide plant owned by the US firm Union Carbide released toxic chemicals, killing tens of thousands.

Main articles: Post-colonialism and Postcolonial literature

Post-colonialism (aka post-colonial theory) refers to a set of theories in philosophy and literature that grapple with the legacy of colonial rule. In this sense, postcolonial literature may be considered a branch of Postmodern literature concerned with the political and cultural independence of peoples formerly subjugated in colonial empires. Many practitioners take Edward Said's book Orientalism (1978) to be the theory's founding work. Edward Said analyzed the works of Balzac, Baudelaire and Lautréamont, exploring how they were both influenced by and helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority. Post-colonial fictional writers interact with the traditional colonial discourse, but modify or subvert it; for instance by retelling a familiar story from the perspective of an oppressed minor character in the story. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's Can the Subaltern Speak? (1998) gave its name to the Subaltern Studies. In A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999), Spivak explored how major works of European metaphysics (e.g., Kant, Hegel) not only tend to exclude the subaltern from their discussions, but actively prevent non-Europeans from occupying positions as fully human subjects. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) is famous for its explicit ethnocentrism, in considering the Western civilization as the most accomplished of all, while Kant also allowed some traces of racism to enter his work.

Impact and evaluation of colonialism and colonization

Main article: Impact and evaluation of colonialism and colonization

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. The questions of miscegenation; the alleged ties between colonial enterprises, genocides — see the Herero Genocide — and the Holocaust; and the questions of the nature of imperialism, dependency theory and neocolonialism (in particular the Third World debt) continues to retain their actuality.

Chronology of colonialism

Main article: Chronology of colonialism

See also

• Anticolonialism
• American Empire
  • American exceptionalism
  • History of United States continental expansion
  • History of United States overseas expansion
  • British Empire and Commonwealth Museum
• Chartered companies
• Colonial cinema
• Colonial style (architecture)
• List of Colonial Territories by country
• Colonial Exhibitions
• Colonization
  • • Arab colonization of North Africa
    • Bantu colonization of Eastern and Southern Africa
  • Colonization of Europe
    • Roman colonization of Europe
    • Arab colonization of Spain
    • Soviet colonization of eastern Poland and southern Finland
    • Osmanic colonization of the Balkans
    • Plantations of Ireland - British colonisation of Ireland
    • German colonization of Eastern Europe
  • European colonization of the Americas
    • British colonization of the Americas
    • Danish colonization of the Americas
    • Dutch colonization of the Americas
    • New Netherland
    • French colonization of the Americas
      • New France
    • Portuguese colonization of the Americas
    • Russian colonization of the Americas
    • Spanish colonization of the Americas
      • Spanish Conquest of Yucatan
      • Conquistador
      • Spanish missions in California
      • New Spain
    • Swedish colonization of the Americas
• Corporate colonialism
• Darién scheme
  • Dutch colonization of the Americas
  • Lieutenant governor
  • Viceroy of India
  • Crown colony
  • Dominion
  • Imperial Conferences
  • Balfour Declaration 1926
  • Statute of Westminster 1931
  • Commonwealth of Nations
    • Commonwealth Realm
    • Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
    • Commonwealth Games
• Global Empire
• Imperialism
  • Cultural imperialism
  • Culture of capitalism
  • Media Imperialism
  • Imperialism in Asia
• Indonesian colonization of East Timor
• List of extinct countries, territories, empires, etc.
• Mercantilism
  • New Netherland
  • Portugal in the period of discoveries
  • Portuguese colonization of the Americas
• Protectorate
• Israeli occupied territories Israeli settlement/colonies
• Biopiracy / Bioprospecting
• United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing TerritoriesOther chartered companies engaging in colonial pursuits include:
• The Bermuda Company
• The British East India Company
• The British South Africa Company (Rhodesia)
• Compagnie de l'Occident
• Compagnie de Chine
• Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique
• La Compagnie du Nord
• Compagnie Perpetuelle des Indes
• The Danish East India Company
• The Darien Company
• The Dutch East India Company
• The Dutch West India Company
• The French African Company
• The French East India Company
• The Guiana Company
• The Guinea Company
• The Levant Company
• The Mississippi Company
• The Nanto-Bordelaise Company
• The New Guinea Company
• The North West Company
• The Providence Company
• The Royal African Company
• The Russian-American Company
• The Senegal Company
• The Somers Island Company (Bermuda)
• The South Sea Company
• The Swedish East India Company
• 'Colony (song)' by Damien Dempsey, Irish singer-songwriter

Bibliography

• Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) (second chapter on Imperialism examines ties between colonialism and totalitarianism)
• Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness, 1899
• Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, Pref. by Jean-Paul Sartre. Translated by Constance Farrington. London : Penguin Book, 2001
• Gobineau, Arthur de, An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, 1853-55
• Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation, 1971
• Kipling, Rudyard, The White Man's Burden, 1899
• Las Casas, Bartolomé de, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542, published in 1552)
• LeCour Grandmaison, Olivier, Coloniser, Exterminer - Sur la guerre et l'Etat colonial, Fayard, 2005, ISBN 35251692005Template:Fr icon
• Lindqvist, Sven, Exterminate All The Brutes, 1992, New Press; Reprint edition (June 1997), ISBN 1-56584-359-2
• Said, Edward, Orientalism, 1978; 25th-anniversary edition 2003 ISBN 0-394-74067-X

External links

• Liberal opposition to colonialism, imperialism and empire (pdf) - by professor Daniel Klein
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry