Pre-colonial Architecture In New Zealand

Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their religion, language, economics, and other cultural practices. The foreign administrators rule the territory in pursuit of their interests, seeking to benefit from the colonised region's people and resources. It is associated with but distinct from imperialism.

Though colonialism has existed since ancient times, the concept is most strongly associated with the European colonial period starting with the 15th century when some European states established colonising empires.

At first, European colonising countries followed policies of mercantilism, aiming to strengthen the home-country economy, so agreements usually restricted the colony to trading only with the metropole (mother country). By the mid-19th century, the British Empire gave up mercantilism and trade restrictions and adopted the principle of free trade, with few restrictions or tariffs.

Christian missionaries were active in practically all of the European-controlled colonies because the metropoles were Christian.

Historian Philip Hoffman calculated that by 1800, before the Industrial Revolution, Europeans already controlled at least 35% of the globe, and by 1914, they had gained control of 84% of the globe. In the aftermath of World War II colonial powers retreated between 1945 and 1975; over which time nearly all colonies gained independence, entering into changed colonial, so-called postcolonial and neocolonialist relations.

Postcolonialism and neocolonialism have continued or shifted relations and ideologies of colonialism, justifying its continuation with concepts such as development and new frontiers, as in exploring outer space for colonization.

Definitions

'' Collins English Dictionary'' defines colonialism as "the practice by which a powerful country directly controls less powerful countries and uses their resources to increase its own power and wealth". ''Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary'' defines colonialism as "the system or policy of a nation seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories".''Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language'', 1989, p. 291. The ''Merriam-Webster Dictionary'' offers four definitions, including "something characteristic of a colony" and "control by one power over a dependent area or people". Etymologically, the word " colony" comes from the Latin '' colōnia''—"a place for agriculture".

The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' uses the term "to describe the process of European settlement and political control over the rest of the world, including the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia". It discusses the distinction between colonialism, imperialism and conquest and states that " e 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 Europe economically and strategically," and continues "given the difficulty of consistently distinguishing between the two terms, this entry will use ''colonialism'' broadly to refer to the project of European political domination from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries that ended with the national liberation movements of the 1960s".

In his preface to Jürgen Osterhammel's ''Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview'', Roger Tignor says "For Osterhammel, the essence of colonialism is the existence of colonies, which are by definition governed differently from other territories such as protectorates or informal spheres of influence." In the book, Osterhammel asks, "How can 'colonialism' be defined independently from 'colony?'" He settles on a three-sentence definition:

Types

''The Times'' once quipped that there were three types of colonial empire: "The English, which consists in making colonies with colonists; the German, which collects colonists without colonies; the French, which sets up colonies without colonists." Modern studies of colonialism have often distinguished between various overlapping categories of colonialism, broadly classified into four types: settler colonialism, exploitation colonialism, surrogate colonialism, and internal colonialism. Some historians have identified other forms of colonialism, including national and trade forms.
* Settler colonialism involves large-scale immigration by settlers to colonies, often motivated by religious, political, or economic reasons. This form of colonialism aims largely to supplant prior existing populations with a settler one, and involves large number of settlers emigrating to colonies for the purpose of settling down and establishing settlements. Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, United States, Uruguay, (and to a more controversial extent Israel) are examples of nations created or expanded in their contemporary form by settler colonization.
* Exploitation colonialism involves fewer colonists and focuses on the exploitation of natural resources or labour to the benefit of the metropole. This form consists of trading posts as well as larger colonies where colonists would constitute much of the political and economic administration. The European colonization of Africa and Asia was largely conducted under the auspices of exploitation colonialism.
* Surrogate colonialism involves a settlement project supported by a colonial power, in which most of the settlers do not come from the same ethnic group as the ruling power.
* Internal colonialism is a notion of uneven structural power between areas of a state. The source of exploitation comes from within the state. This is demonstrated in the way control and exploitation may pass from people from the colonizing country to an immigrant population within a newly independent country.
* National colonialism is a process involving elements of both settler and internal colonialism, in which nation-building and colonization are symbiotically connected, with the colonial regime seeking to remake the colonized peoples into their own cultural and political image. The goal is to integrate them into the state, but only as reflections of the state's preferred culture. The Republic of China in Taiwan is the archetypal example of a national-colonialist society.
* Trade colonialism involves the undertaking of colonialist ventures in support of trade opportunities for merchants. This form of colonialism was most prominent in 19th-century Asia, where previously isolationist states were forced to open their ports to Western powers. Examples of this include the Opium Wars and the opening of Japan.

Socio-cultural evolution

As colonialism often played out in pre-populated areas, sociocultural evolution included the formation of various ethnically hybrid populations. Colonialism gave rise to culturally and ethnically mixed populations such as the mestizos of the Americas, as well as racially divided populations such as those found in French Algeria or in Southern Rhodesia. In fact, everywhere where colonial powers established a consistent and continued presence, hybrid communities existed.

Notable examples in Asia include the Anglo-Burmese, Anglo-Indian, Burgher, Eurasian Singaporean, Filipino mestizo, Kristang and Macanese peoples. In the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia) the vast majority of "Dutch" settlers were in fact Eurasians known as Indo-Europeans, formally belonging to the European legal class in the colony (see also Indos in pre-colonial history and Indos in colonial history).

History

Colonial empires in 1800.svg , Map of colonial and land-based empires throughout the world in 1800.
World 1914 empires colonies territory.PNG , Map of colonial and land-based empires throughout the world in 1914.
World 1936 empires colonies territory.png , Map of colonial empires (and Soviet Union) throughout the world in 1936.
Colonization 1945.png , Map of colonial empires at the end of the Second World War, 1945.

Antiquity

Activity that could be called colonialism has a long history, starting at least as early as the Ancient Egyptians. Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans founded colonies in antiquity. Phoenicia had an enterprising maritime trading-culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC; later the Persian empire and various Greek city-states continued on this line of setting up colonies. The Romans would soon follow, setting up ''coloniae'' throughout the Mediterranean, in Northern Africa, and in Western Asia. Beginning in the 7th century, Arabs colonized a substantial portion of the Middle East, Northern Africa, and parts of Asia and Europe. From the 9th century Vikings ( Norsemen) established colonies in Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, North America, present-day Russia and Ukraine, France (Normandy) and Sicily. In the 9th century a new wave of Mediterranean colonisation began, with competitors such as the Venetians, Genovese and Amalfians infiltrating the wealthy previously Byzantine or Eastern Roman islands and lands. European Crusaders set up colonial regimes in Outremer (in the Levant, 1097–1291) and in the Baltic littoral (12th century onwards). Venice began to dominate Dalmatia and reached its greatest nominal colonial extent at the conclusion of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, with the declaration of the acquisition of three octaves of the Byzantine Empire.

Modernity

More than a century before the Jamestown, Virginia settlement led by captain Christopher Newport, modern colonialism started with the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460), initiating the Age of Exploration and establishing African trading posts (1445 onwards). Spain (initially the Crown of Castile) and soon after Portugal encountered the Americas (1492 onwards) through sea travel and built trading posts or conquered large extents of land. For some people, it is this building of colonies across oceans that differentiates colonialism from other types of expansionism. Madrid and Lisbon divided the areas of these "new" lands between the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire in 1494; other would-be colonial powers paid little heed to the theoretical demarcation.

The 17th century saw the birth of the French colonial empire and the Dutch Empire, as well as the English overseas possessions, which later became the British Empire. It also saw the establishment of a Danish colonial empire and some Swedish overseas colonies.

A first wave of independence movements started with the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), initiating a new phase for the British Empire. The Spanish Empire largely collapsed in the Americas with the Latin American wars of independence ( onwards). Empire-builders established several new colonies after this time, including in the German colonial empire and the Belgian colonial empire. In the late-19th century, many European powers became involved in the Scramble for Africa.

The Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire and Austrian Empire existed at the same time as the above empires but did not expand over oceans. Rather, these empires expanded through the more traditional route of the conquest of neighbouring territories. There was, though, some Russian colonisation of the Americas across the Bering Strait. From the 1860s, the Empire of Japan modelled itself on European colonial empires and expanded its territories in the Pacific and on the Asian mainland. Argentina and the Empire of Brazil fought for hegemony in South America. The United States of America gained overseas territories after the 1898 Spanish–American War – hence the coining of the term "American Empire".

20th century

The world's colonial population at the outbreak of the First World War (1914) – a high point for colonialism – totalled about 560 million people, of whom 70% lived in British possessions, 10% in French possessions, 9% in Dutch possessions, 4% in Japanese possessions, 2% in German possessions, 2% in American possessions, 3% in Portuguese possessions, 1% in Belgian possessions and 0.5% in Italian possessions. The domestic domains of the colonial powers had a total population of about 370 million people. Outside Europe, few areas had remained without coming under formal colonial tutorship – and even Siam, China, Nepal, Japan, Afghanistan, Persia and Abyssinia had felt varying degrees of Western colonial-style influence – concessions, unequal treaties, extraterritoriality and the like.

Asking whether colonies paid, economic historian Grover Clark (1891–1938) argues an emphatic "No!" He reports that in every case the support cost, especially the military system necessary to support and defend colonies, outran the total trade they produced. Apart from the British Empire, they did not provide favoured destinations for the immigration of surplus metropole populations. The question of whether colonies paid is a complicated one when recognizing the multiplicity of interests involved. In some cases colonial powers paid a lot in military costs while private investors pocketed the benefits. In other cases the colonial powers managed to move the burden of administrative costs to the colonies themselves by imposing taxes.

After the First World War of 1914–1918, the victorious allies divided up the German colonial empire and much of the Ottoman Empire between themselves as League of Nations mandates, grouping these territories into three classes according to how quickly it was deemed that they could prepare for independence. The empires of Russia and Austria collapsed in 1917–1918. Nazi Germany set up short-lived colonial systems (''Reichskommissariate'', ''Generalgouvernement'') in Eastern Europe in the early 1940s.

After World War II (1939–1945) decolonisation progressed rapidly, due to a number of reasons. First, the Japanese victories in the Pacific War of 1941–1945 had showed Indians and other subject peoples that the colonial powers were not invincible. Second, World War II had significantly weakened all the overseas colonial powers economically.

The word " neocolonialism" originated from Jean-Paul Sartre in 1956, to refer to a variety of contexts since the decolonisation that took place after World War II. Generally it does not refer to a type of direct colonisation – rather to colonialism or colonial-style exploitation by other means. Specifically, neocolonialism may refer to the theory that former or existing economic relationships, such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or the operations of companies (such as Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria and Brunei) fostered by former colonial powers were or are used to maintain control of former colonies and dependencies after the colonial independence movements of the post–World War II period.

The term "neocolonialism" became popular in ex-colonies in the late-20th century.

List of colonies

British

* Aden
* Afghanistan
* Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
* Ascension Island
* Australia
** New South Wales
** Victoria
** Tasmania
** Queensland
** South Australia
** Western Australia
* Bahamas
* Barbados
* Basutoland
* Bechuanaland
* British Borneo
** Brunei
** Labuan
** North Borneo
** Sarawak
* British East Africa
* British Guiana
* British Honduras
* British Hong Kong
* British Leeward Islands
** Anguilla
** Antigua
** Barbuda
** British Virgin Islands
** Dominica
** Montserrat
** Nevis
** Saint Kitts
* British Malaya
** Federated Malay States
** Straits Settlements
** Unfederated Malay States
* British Somaliland
* British Western Pacific Territories
** British Solomon Islands
** Fiji
** Gilbert and Ellice Islands
** Phoenix Islands
** Pitcairn Islands
** New Hebrides (condominium with France)
** Tonga
** Union Islands
* British Windward Islands
** Barbados
** Dominica
** Grenada
** Saint Lucia
** Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
* Myanmar
* Canada
* Ceylon
* Christmas Island
* Cocos (Keeling) Islands
* Cyprus (including Akrotiri and Dhekelia)
* Egypt
* Falkland Islands
* Falkland Islands Dependencies
** Graham Land
** South Georgia
** South Orkney Islands

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