View source for Colonialism

{{Short description|Control by foreign groups}}
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[[File:De handelsloge van de VOC in Hougly in Bengalen Rijksmuseum SK-A-4282.jpeg|thumb|A 1665 illustration of a [[Dutch East India Company]] [[Factory (trading post)|factory]] in [[Hugli-Chuchura]], depicting various elements of colonialism, including its hierarchies and impact on the colonized and their lands.]]

'''Colonialism''' is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group.<ref name="Oster" /><ref name="Webster" /><ref name="Collins" /><ref name="Stanford" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Rodney|first=Walter|title=How Europe underdeveloped Africa|year=2018|publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78873-119-5|oclc=1048081465}}</ref> Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> While frequently an [[Imperialism|imperialist]] project, colonialism can also take the form of [[settler colonialism]], whereby settlers from one or multiple colonizing metropoles occupy a territory with the intention of partially or completely supplanting the existing population.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Veracini |first=Lorenzo |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003050599 |title=Colonialism: A Global History |date=2022-07-15 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-003-05059-9 |edition=1st |location=London |pages= |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781003050599}}</ref>{{Rp|page=2}}<ref name="Jacobs 2009 p.">{{cite book | last=Jacobs | first=Margaret D. | title=White Mother to a Dark Race | publisher=U of Nebraska Press | publication-place=Lincoln | date=1 July 2009 | isbn=978-0-8032-1100-1 | oclc=268789976 | pages=24, 81, 421, 430}}</ref>

Colonialism developed as a concept describing European [[colonial empire]]s of the [[modern era]], which spread globally from the 15th century to the mid-20th century, spanning 35% of Earth's land by 1800 and peaking at 84% by the beginning of World War I.<ref>{{Cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=73zeBgAAQBAJ |title= Why Did Europe Conquer the World? |last= Philip T. Hoffman |date= 2015 |publisher= Princeton University Press |isbn= 978-1-4008-6584-0 |pages= 2–3}}</ref> European colonialism employed [[mercantilism]] and [[Chartered company|chartered companies]], and established [[Coloniality of power|coloniality]], which keeps the colonized socio-economically [[Other (philosophy)|othered]] and [[Subaltern (postcolonialism)|subaltern]] through modern [[biopolitics]] of [[Heteronormativity|sexuality]], [[Patriarchy|gender]], [[Racism|race]], [[Ableism|disability]] and [[Class politics|class]], among others, resulting in [[Intersectionality|intersectional]] violence and [[discrimination]].<ref name="Stoler 1995 p.">{{cite book | last=Stoler | first=Ann Laura | title=Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things | publisher=Duke University Press | date=4 October 1995 | isbn=978-0-8223-7771-9 | doi=10.2307/j.ctv11319d6 | page=}}</ref><ref name="Abay Soldatic d999">{{cite web | last1=Abay | first1=Robel Afeworki | last2=Soldatic | first2=Karen | title=Intersectional Colonialities: Embodied Colonial Violence and Practices of Resistance at the Axis of Disability, Race, Indigeneity, Class, and Gender | website=Routledge & CRC Press | url=https://www.routledge.com/Intersectional-Colonialities-Embodied-Colonial-Violence-and-Practices-of-Resistance-at-the-Axis-of-Disability-Race-Indigeneity-Class-and-Gender/AfeworkiAbay-Soldatic/p/book/9781032247748 | access-date=8 March 2024}}</ref> Colonialism has been justified with beliefs of having a [[civilizing mission]] to cultivate land and life, based on beliefs of entitlement and superiority, historically often rooted in the belief of a [[Christian mission]].

{{Colonialism sidebar}}

Because of this broad impact different instances of colonialism have been identified from around the world and in history, starting with when [[colonization]] was developed by developing [[colonies]] and [[metropole]]s, the base colonial separation and characteristic.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=McNamee |first=Lachlan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s-x8EAAAQBAJ |title=Settling for Less: Why States Colonize and Why They Stop |date=2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-23781-7 |language=en}}</ref>

[[Decolonization]], which started in the 18th century, gradually led to the independence of colonies in waves, with a particular large wave of decolonizations happening in the [[aftermath of World War II]] between 1945 and 1975.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Strang |first=David |date=1991 |title=Global Patterns of Decolonization, 1500–1987 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2600949 |journal=International Studies Quarterly |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=429–454 |doi=10.2307/2600949 |jstor=2600949 |issn=0020-8833|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Strang |first=David |date=1990 |title=From Dependency to Sovereignty: An Event History Analysis of Decolonization 1870-1987 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095750 |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=55 |issue=6 |pages=846–860 |doi=10.2307/2095750 |jstor=2095750 |issn=0003-1224|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Colonialism has a [[Persistence studies|persistent impact]] on a wide range of modern outcomes, as scholars have shown that variations in colonial institutions can account for variations in [[economic development]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Acemoglu |first1=Daron |last2=Johnson |first2=Simon |last3=Robinson |first3=James A. |date=2001 |title=The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation |url=https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.91.5.1369 |journal=American Economic Review |language=en |volume=91 |issue=5 |pages=1369–1401 |doi=10.1257/aer.91.5.1369 |issn=0002-8282|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nunn |first=Nathan |date=2009 |title=The Importance of History for Economic Development |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.economics.050708.143336 |journal=Annual Review of Economics |language=en |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=65–92 |doi=10.1146/annurev.economics.050708.143336 |issn=1941-1383}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nunn |first=Nathan |date=2020 |title=The historical roots of economic development |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaz9986 |journal=Science |language=en |volume=367 |issue=6485 |doi=10.1126/science.aaz9986 |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=32217703|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[Government|regime types]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Lee |first1=Alexander |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/colonial-origins-of-democracy-and-dictatorship/809A38273620DB49903539950F4D0191 |title=Colonial Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship |last2=Paine |first2=Jack |date=2024 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-009-42353-3 |location=Cambridge |doi=10.1017/9781009423526}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gerring |first1=John |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/deep-roots-of-modern-democracy/6AA764716C8F6BC7FF8A64F6CA2DA565 |title=The Deep Roots of Modern Democracy: Geography and the Diffusion of Political Institutions |last2=Apfeld |first2=Brendan |last3=Wig |first3=Tore |last4=Tollefsen |first4=Andreas Forø |date=2022 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-009-10037-3 |location=Cambridge |doi=10.1017/9781009115223}}</ref> and [[state capacity]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herbst |first=Jeffrey |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qh05m |title=States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control - Second Edition |date=2000 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-16414-4 |edition=REV - Revised, 2 |volume=149|jstor=j.ctt9qh05m }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ali |first1=Merima |last2=Fjeldstad |first2=Odd-Helge |last3=Jiang |first3=Boqian |last4=Shifa |first4=Abdulaziz B |date=2018 |title=Colonial Legacy, State-building and the Salience of Ethnicity in Sub-Saharan Africa |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12595 |journal=The Economic Journal |volume=129 |issue=619 |pages=1048–1081 |doi=10.1111/ecoj.12595 |issn=0013-0133|hdl=2263/71163 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Some academics have used the term [[neocolonialism]] to describe the continuation or imposition of elements of colonial rule through indirect means in the contemporary period.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Stanard |first=Matthew G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pZlNDwAAQBAJ |title=European Overseas Empire, 1879 – 1999: A Short History |date=2018 |publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] |isbn=978-1-119-13013-0 |page=5 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Neocolonialism &#124; Definition, Examples, & Facts &#124; Britannica |entry=Neocolonialism |encyclopedia=Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/neocolonialism |last=Halperin |first=Sandra |date=2 December 2023}}</ref>

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== Etymology ==
{{Also|Colony#Etymology|Colonization#Etymology}}
Colonialism is [[Etymology|etymologically]] rooted in the Latin word "[[Colonus (person)|Colonus]]", which was used to describe tenant farmers in the [[Roman Empire]].<ref name="Stanford" /> The ''coloni'' sharecroppers started as tenants of landlords, but as the system evolved they became permanently indebted to the landowner and trapped in servitude.

== Definitions ==
[[File:The East offering its riches to Britannia - Roma Spiridone, 1778 - BL Foster 245.jpg|thumb|''[[The East Offering its Riches to Britannia]]'', painted by [[Spiridione Roma]] for the boardroom of the [[British East India Company]] ]]

The earliest uses of colonialism referred to plantations that men emigrated to and settled.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Sultan |first=Nazmul |date=2024 |title=What Is Colonialism? The Dual Claims of a Twentieth-Century Political Category |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=119 |pages=435–448 |language=en |doi=10.1017/S0003055424000388 |issn=0003-0554|doi-access=free }}</ref> The term expanded its meaning in the early 20th century to primarily refer to European imperial expansion and the [[Imperialism|imperial subjection]] of Asian and African peoples.<ref name=":1" />

''[[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".<ref name="Collins">{{Cite web |url=http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/colonialism |title=Colonialism |year=2011 |website=[[Collins English Dictionary]] |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |access-date=8 January 2012}}</ref> ''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".<ref name="Webster">''Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language'', 1989, p. 291.</ref> The ''[[Merriam-Webster]] Dictionary'' offers four definitions, including "something characteristic of a colony" and "control by one power over a dependent area or people".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colonialism |title=Colonialism |year=2010 |website=Merriam-Webster |access-date=5 April 2010}}</ref>

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 "[t]he 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".<ref name="Stanford">{{Cite web |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/ |title=Colonialism |last=Margaret Kohn |date=29 August 2017 |website=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |publisher=[[Stanford University]] |access-date=5 May 2018}}</ref>

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."<ref name="Oster">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CMfksrnWaUkC&pg=PR10 |title=Preface to Colonialism: a theoretical overview |last=Tignor |first=Roger |publisher=Markus Weiner Publishers |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-55876-340-1 |page=x |access-date=5 April 2010}}</ref> In the book, Osterhammel asks, "How can 'colonialism' be defined independently from 'colony?{{'"}}<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CMfksrnWaUkC&pg=PA15 |title=Colonialism: a theoretical overview |last=Osterhammel |first=Jürgen |publisher=Markus Weiner Publishers |others=trans. Shelley Frisch |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-55876-340-1 |page=15 |author-link=Jürgen Osterhammel |access-date=5 April 2010}}</ref> He settles on a three-sentence definition:

{{blockquote|Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonised people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonised population, the colonisers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CMfksrnWaUkC&pg=PA16 |title=Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview |last=Osterhammel |first=Jürgen |publisher=Markus Weiner Publishers |others=trans. Shelley Frisch |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-55876-340-1 |page=16 |author-link=Jürgen Osterhammel |access-date=5 April 2010}}</ref>
}}According to Julian Go, "Colonialism refers to the direct political control of a society and its people by a foreign ruling state... The ruling state monopolizes political power and keeps the subordinated society and its people in a legally inferior position."<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Go |first=Julian |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781405165518 |title=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology |date=2007 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-1-4051-2433-1 |editor-last=Ritzer |editor-first=George |edition=1 |language=en |chapter=Colonialism (Neocolonialism) |doi=10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosc071}}</ref> He also writes, "colonialism depends first and foremost upon the declaration of sovereignty and/or territorial seizure by a core state over another territory and its inhabitants who are classified as inferior subjects rather than equal citizens."<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Go |first=Julian |date=2024 |title=Reverberations of Empire: How the Colonial Past Shapes the Present |journal=Social Science History |language=en |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=1–18 |doi=10.1017/ssh.2023.37 |issn=0145-5532|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Australian historian [[Lorenzo Veracini]] defines colonialism as the establishment and maintenance of an unequal relationship between a colonial metropole and a colonized territory through violence and argues that colonialism is sustained as an unequal relationship through the essential forces of displacement and violence.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|pages=1-4}} The imbalance of power that results from a colonial relationship allows a colonial metropole to exploit unequal trading terms between it and its colonies.

According to David Strang, decolonization is achieved through the attainment of sovereign statehood with ''de jure'' recognition by the international community or through full incorporation into an existing sovereign state.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Strang |first=David |date=1990 |title=From Dependency to Sovereignty: An Event History Analysis of Decolonization 1870–1987 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095750 |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=55 |issue=6 |pages=846–860 |doi=10.2307/2095750 |jstor=2095750 |issn=0003-1224|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

== Types of colonialism ==
[[File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Rijsttafel TMnr 60053682.jpg|thumb|right|Dutch family in [[Java]], 1927]]

''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."<ref>{{cite book |last=Olusoga |first=David |title=The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism |publisher=Faber & Faber |date=2010}}</ref> Modern studies of colonialism have often distinguished between various overlapping categories of colonialism, broadly classified into four types: [[settler colonialism]], [[exploitation colonialism]], [[Surrogate Colonialism|surrogate colonialism]], and [[internal colonialism]]. Some historians have identified other forms of colonialism, including national and trade forms.<ref name="Healy-2014">{{Cite book |title= The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe's Modern Past |last1=Healy |first1=Roisin |last2=Dal Lago |first2=Enrico |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-137-45075-3 |location=New York |page=126}}</ref>
* [[Settler colonialism]] involves large-scale [[immigration]] by [[settler]]s 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 establishing settlements.<ref name="Healy-2014" /> [[Argentina]], [[Australia]], [[Brazil]], [[Canada]], [[Chile]], [[China]], [[Israel]], [[New Zealand]], [[Northern Ireland]], [[Russia]], [[South Africa]], the [[United States]], and [[Uruguay]], are examples of nations created or expanded in their contemporary form by settler colonialism.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 40388468|last1 = Barker|first1 = Adam J.|title = The Contemporary Reality of Canadian Imperialism: Settler Colonialism and the Hybrid Colonial State|journal = American Indian Quarterly|volume = 33|issue = 3|pages = 325–351|year = 2009|doi = 10.1353/aiq.0.0054|s2cid = 162692337}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Glenn |first=Evelyn Nakano |date=2015 |title=Settler Colonialism as Structure: A Framework for Comparative Studies of U.S. Race and Gender Formation |url=http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_9708.pdf |journal=Sociology of Race and Ethnicity |volume=1 |pages=52–72 |doi=10.1177/2332649214560440 |number=1 |s2cid=147875813 |access-date=16 April 2019 |archive-date=23 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190223191440/http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_9708.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Veracini |first= Lorenzo |date=2007 |title=Historylessness: Australia as a settler colonial collective |journal=Postcolonial Studies |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=271–285 |doi=10.1080/13688790701488155|s2cid= 144872634 |hdl=1885/27945 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 41575861|last1 = Gold|first1 = Dore.|title = The Myth of Israel as a Colonialist Entity: An Instrument of Political Warfare to Delegitimize the Jewish State|journal = Jewish Political Studies Review|volume = 23|issue = 3/4|pages = 84–90|year = 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sabbagh-Khoury |first=Areej |date=15 March 2022 |title=Tracing Settler Colonialism: A Genealogy of a Paradigm in the Sociology of Knowledge Production in Israel |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0032329221999906 |journal=Politics & Society |volume=50 |issue=1|pages=44–83 |doi=10.1177/0032329221999906 |s2cid=233635930 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":6" />{{Rp|pages=83-84}} [[French Algeria|French-controlled Algeria]], [[Rhodesia]] (now [[Zimbabwe]]), [[Italian Libya|Italian-controlled Libya]], the [[Kenya Colony]], [[Japanese colonial empire|Japanese-controlled]] [[Korea under Japanese rule|Korea]] and [[Manchukuo|Manchuria]], and most infamously [[Generalplan Ost|Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe]]<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|pages=462-463}} are examples of past or failed attempts to establish settler colonies.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|pages=83-84}}
* [[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 post]]s as well as larger colonies where colonists would constitute much of the political and economic administration. The European [[Colonisation of Africa|colonization of Africa]] and [[Western imperialism in Asia|Asia]] was largely conducted under the auspices of exploitation colonialism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Murray |first=Martin J. |title=The Development of Capitalism in Colonial Indochina (1870–1940) |year=1980 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=0-520-04000-7 }}</ref>
* 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, as it has been (controversially) argued was the case of [[Mandatory Palestine]] and the [[Colony of Liberia]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Atran|first=Scott|title=The Surrogate Colonization of Palestine 1917–1939|journal=American Ethnologist|date=November 1989|volume=16|issue=4|pages=719–744|doi=10.1525/ae.1989.16.4.02a00070|s2cid=130148053 |url=https://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/ijn_00000568/file/ijn_00000568_00.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180518081307/https://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/ijn_00000568/file/ijn_00000568_00.pdf |archive-date=18 May 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>[https://cers.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/97/2016/04/On-Racialized-Citizenship-The-History-of-Black-colonialism-in-Liberia-Naomi-Whittaker.pdf On Racialized Citizenship: The History of Black colonialism in Liberia by Naomi Anderson Whittaker]</ref>
* [[Internal colonialism]] is a notion of uneven structural power between areas of a [[State (polity)|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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice: An International Dilemma|last=Gabbidon |first=Shaun |publisher=SAGE |year=2010|isbn=978-1-4129-4988-0 |location=Los Angeles, CA |pages=8}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Casanova |first=Pablo Gonzalez |date=1 April 1965 |title=Internal colonialism and national development |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02800542 |journal=Studies in Comparative International Development |language=en |volume=1 |issue=4 |pages=27–37 |doi=10.1007/BF02800542 |s2cid=153821137 |issn=1936-6167|url-access=subscription }}</ref>[[File:Hakewill, A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica, Plate 04.jpg|thumb|Harbour Street, [[Kingston, Jamaica]], {{c.|1820}}]]
* 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 [[Taiwan]] under the KMT's military dictatorship is the archetypal example of a national-colonialist society.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wong |first1=Ting-Hong |title=Education and National Colonialism in Postwar Taiwan: The Paradoxical Use of Private Schools to Extend State Power, 1944–1966 |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=May 2020 |volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=156–184 |doi=10.1017/heq.2020.25|s2cid=225917190 }}</ref>
* 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 [[Isolationism|isolationist]] states were forced to open their ports to Western powers. Examples of this include the [[Opium Wars]] and the [[Bakumatsu|opening of Japan]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Typology of Colonialism {{!}} Perspectives on History {{!}} AHA|url=https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/october-2015/a-typology-of-colonialism|access-date=11 May 2021|website=www.historians.org}}</ref><ref>[[Michael Auslin|Auslin, Michael R.]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=bS3w6tGiraEC ''Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy.''] Cambridge: [[Harvard University Press]], 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-674-01521-0}}; {{OCLC|56493769}}</ref>

== Socio-cultural evolution ==
{{Further|Coloniality of power}}
When colonists settled in pre-populated areas, the societies and cultures of the people in those areas permanently changed. Colonial practices directly and indirectly forced the colonized peoples to abandon their traditional cultures. For example, European colonizers in the United States implemented the [[American Indian boarding schools|residential schools]] program to force native children to assimilate into the hegemonic culture.

[[Cultural colonialism]] gave rise to culturally and ethnically mixed populations such as the [[mestizo]]s 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 people|Anglo-Burmese]], [[Anglo-Indian]], [[Burgher people|Burgher]], [[Eurasian Singaporean]], [[Filipino mestizo]], [[Kristang people|Kristang]], and [[Macanese people]]s. In the [[Dutch East Indies]] (later [[Indonesia]]) the vast majority of "Dutch" settlers were in fact Eurasians known as [[Indo people|Indo-Europeans]], formally belonging to the European legal class in the colony.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=47wCTCJX9X4C&pg=PA223 |title=Being "Dutch" in the Indies: A History of Creolisation and Empire, 1500–1920 |last1=Bosma |first1=U. |last2=Raben |first2=R. |date=2008 |publisher=NUS Press |isbn=978-9971-69-373-2 |location=Singapore |page=223}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nN6G-lMk_DEC&pg=PA163 |title=Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies 1900–1942 |last=Gouda |first=Frances |date=2008 |publisher=Equinox |isbn=978-979-3780-62-7 |page=163 |chapter=Gender, Race, and Sexuality}}</ref>
[[File:American Progress (John Gast painting).jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|''[[American Progress]]'' (1872) by [[John Gast (painter)|John Gast]] is an allegorical representation of the idea of [[manifest destiny]]. [[Columbia (personification)|Columbia]], a personification of the United States, leads settler civilization westward, bringing light, stringing [[telegraph]] wire, holding a book,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mountjoy |first=Shane |title=Manifest Destiny: Westward Expansion |date=2009 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |page=19|isbn=9781438119830 }}</ref> and highlighting different stages of economic activity and evolving forms of transportation,<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Gast, American Progress, 1872 |url=https://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/john-gast-american-progress-1872/ |publisher=Picturing U.S. History }}</ref> while on the left, displacing [[Native Americans in the United States]] from their homeland]]

== History ==
{{Main|History of colonialism|List of colonies|Chronology of Western colonialism}}

=== Antiquity ===
Activity that could be called colonialism has a long history, starting at least as early as the [[ancient Egypt]]ians. [[Phoenicia]]ns, [[Ancient Greece|Greeks]], and [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] founded [[colonies in antiquity]]. [[Phoenicia]] had an enterprising maritime trading-culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550&nbsp;BC to 300&nbsp;BC; later the [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian Empire]] and various [[Greek colonisation|Greek city-states]] continued on this line of setting up colonies. The Romans would soon follow, setting up [[Colonia (Roman)|''coloniae'']] throughout the Mediterranean, in North Africa, and in Western Asia.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

=== Medieval ===
Beginning in the 7th century, [[Arabs]] colonized a substantial portion of the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia and Europe.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}} From the 9th century [[Viking Age|Vikings]] ([[Norsemen]]) such as [[Leif Erikson]] established [[Viking expansion|colonies]] in Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, North America, present-day Russia and Ukraine, France (Normandy) and Sicily.<ref name="Page Sonnenburg 2003 p. 421">{{cite book | last1=Page | first1=M.E. | last2=Sonnenburg | first2=P.M. | title=Colonialism: An International, Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia | publisher=ABC-CLIO | issue=v. 1 | year=2003 | isbn=978-1-57607-335-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qFTHBoRvQbsC&pg=PA421 | access-date=1 April 2023 | page=421}}</ref> In the 9th century a new wave of [[Mediterranean]] colonisation began, with competitors such as the [[Stato da Màr|Venetians]], [[Genoese colonies|Genovese]] and [[Duchy of Amalfi|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 Sea|Baltic littoral]] (12th century onwards). [[Republic of Venice|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 [[Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae|acquisition of three octaves]] of the Byzantine Empire.<ref>Peter N. Stearns, ed., ''An Encyclopedia of World History'' (2001) pp 21–238</ref>

=== Modern ===
[[File:Philip II's realms in 1598.png|upright=1.35|thumb|[[Iberian Union]] of Spain and Portugal between 1580 and 1640]]

Modern colonialism is generally considered to have begun with the Spanish conquest of the Canary Islands when "the relationships involved in domination became recognisably colonial."<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=10}} Following the fall of [[Constantinople]] to the [[Ottoman Empire]] in 1453, the sea routes discovered by Portuguese [[Prince Henry the Navigator]] (1394–1460) became central to [[trade]], and helped fuel the [[Age of Discovery]].<ref name="auto1">Charles R. Boxer, ''The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825'' (1969)</ref> The [[Crown of Castile]] encountered the [[Americas]] in 1492 through sea travel and built [[trading post]]s or conquered large extents of land. The [[Treaty of Tordesillas]] divided the areas of these "new" lands between the [[Spanish Empire]] and the [[Portuguese Empire]] in 1494.<ref name="auto1" />

The 17th century saw the birth of the [[Dutch Empire]] and [[French colonial empire]], as well as the [[English overseas possessions]], which later became the [[British Empire]]. It also saw the establishment of [[Danish overseas colonies]] and [[Swedish overseas colonies]].<ref>Thomas Benjamin, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450'' (3 vol 2006)</ref>

A first wave of [[separatism]] started with the [[American Revolutionary War]] (1775–1783), initiating the [[British Empire#Rise of the "Second" British Empire (1783–1815)|Rise of the "Second" British Empire]] (1783–1815).<ref>[https://victorianweb.org/history/empire/Empire.html David Cody, "The British Empire" ''The Victorians Web'' (1988)]</ref> The [[Spanish Empire]] largely collapsed in the Americas with the [[Spanish American wars of independence]] (1808–1833). Empire-builders established several new colonies after this time, including in the [[German colonial empire]] and [[Belgian colonial empire]].<ref name="Melvin E. Page 2003">Melvin E. Page, ed., ''Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia'' (2003)</ref> Starting with the end of the [[French Revolution]] European authors such as [[Johann Gottfried Herder]], [[August von Kotzebue]], and [[Heinrich von Kleist]] prolifically published so as to conjure up sympathy for the oppressed native peoples and the slaves of the new world, thereby starting the idealization of ''native'' humans.<ref>{{cite book | author1=Dina Gusejnova |title=European Elites and Ideas of Empire 1917–1957 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year=2016 |page=14 |isbn=9781107120624 }}</ref>

The [[Habsburg monarchy]], the [[Russian Empire]], and the [[Ottoman Empire]] existed at the same time but did not expand over oceans. Rather, these empires expanded through the conquest of neighbouring territories. There was, though, some [[Russian colonization of North America]] across the Bering Strait. The [[Empire of Brazil]] fought for hegemony in South America. The [[United States]] gained overseas territories after the 1898 [[Spanish–American War]], hence, the coining of the term "[[American imperialism]]".<ref>Benjamin, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450'' (3 vol 2006)</ref>

The [[Japanese colonial empire]] began in the mid-19th century with the settler colonization of [[Hokkaido]] and the destruction of the island's indigenous [[Ainu people]] before moving onto the [[Ryukyu Islands]] (the indigenous [[Ryukyuans|Ryukyuan people]] survived colonization more intact). After the [[Meiji Restoration]], Japan more formally developed its colonial policies with the help of European advisors. The stated purpose from the beginning was to compensate for the lack of resources on the main islands of Japan by securing control over natural resources in Asia for its own economic development and industrialization, not unlike its European counterparts. Japan defeated China in the [[First Sino-Japanese War]] to control [[Korea under Japanese rule|Korea]] and the [[Taiwan under Japanese rule|island of Formosa]], now Taiwan, and later [[Russo-Japanese War|fought off the Russian Empire]] to control Port Arthur and [[Karafuto Prefecture|South Sakhalin]].<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|pages=147-152}}

In the late 19th century, many European powers became involved in the [[Scramble for Africa]].<ref name="Melvin E. Page 2003" />

=== 20th century ===
[[File:The Harmsworth atlas and Gazetter 1908 Colonization Map.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|''The Harmsworth atlas and Gazetter'' 1908 European colonization map]]
The world's colonial population at the outbreak of the First World War{{snd}}a high point for colonialism{{snd}}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&nbsp;million people.<ref>These statistics exclude the Russian Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Spain and Denmark. U.S. Tariff Commission. ''Colonial tariff policies'' (1922), p. 5 [https://archive.org/details/colonialtariffpo00unit online]</ref> Outside Europe, few areas had remained without coming under formal colonial tutorship – and even [[Rattanakosin Kingdom (1782–1932)|Siam]], [[Qing dynasty|China]], [[Empire of Japan|Japan]], [[Kingdom of Nepal|Nepal]], [[Emirate of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]], [[Qajar Iran|Persia]], and [[Ethiopian Empire|Abyssinia]] had felt varying degrees of Western colonial-style influence{{snd}}[[Concessions and leases in international relations|concessions]], [[Unequal treaty|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.<ref>Raymond Leslie Buell, "Do Colonies Pay?" ''The Saturday Review'', 1 August 1936 p 6 ]</ref> 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.<ref>Rönnbäck & Broberg (2019) Capital and Colonialism. The Return on British Investments in Africa 1869–1969 (Palgrave Studies in Economic History)</ref>

[[File:World 1914 empires colonies territory.PNG|thumb|upright=1.35|Map of colonial and land-based empires throughout the world in 1914]]
[[File:Colonialism in 1945 updated legend.png|thumb|upright=1.35|Imperial powers in 1945]]

=== World War I ===
The [[World War I|First World War]] brought the European colonial empires into conflict with each other with the fight sustained by their colonial territories.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=130}} War mobilization heightened colonial exploitation globally, sparking several anticolonial uprisings in response to forced conscription. Germany capitulated in large part due to the [[Blockade of Germany (1914–1919)|Allied sea blockade]] cutting off access to its overseas colonies, a disadvantage which German U-boats could not inflict on the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]]. The victorious Allies divided up the German colonial empire and much of the Ottoman Empire between themselves as [[League of Nations mandate]]s, 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,<ref>G.M. Gathorne-Hardy, ''A Short History of International Affairs, 1920–1939'' (4th ed. 1950), [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.260425/page/n1 online]</ref> and the [[Soviet empire]] emerged.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kassymbekova |first=Botakoz |title=How Western scholars overlooked Russian imperialism |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/1/24/how-western-scholars-overlooked-russian-imperialism |date=24 January 2023 |access-date=13 April 2023 |website=Al Jazeera |language=en}}</ref>

=== Interwar years ===
Anti-colonial sentiment surged during the interwar years.<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=130-136}} The [[Easter Rising]] and [[Irish War of Independence]] led to the UK conceding independence to Ireland. Turkey became an independent country in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and fought off interventions from Britain, France, and Italy. The first Pan-African Congress would take place in Paris in 1919.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Brian Russell |title=Artistic ambassadors: literary and international representation of the New Negro era |date=2013 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-3368-9 |location=Charlottesville ; London |pages=121-122}}</ref> The Soviet Union positioned itself as "an explicitly anti-imperialist power"<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=130}} and would play an important role in the success of anticolonial resistance movements in Asia and Africa, although its own policies in Central Asia resembled the colonial policies of the [[Russian Empire|Russian empire]] that preceded it.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Loring |first=Benjamin |date=2014 |title=“Colonizers with Party Cards”: Soviet Internal Colonialism in Central Asia, 1917–39 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/538640 |journal=Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=77–102 |doi=10.1353/kri.2014.0012 |issn=1538-5000|url-access=subscription }}</ref> At the same time, Japan expanded its colonies in Asia and the Pacific.   

=== World War II ===
Many interpret [[World War II]] as an attempt by [[Nazi Germany]] and its allies to colonize the whole European continent, especially in the east. Historian Lorenzo Veracini writes, "The global history of colonialism can be seen as bookended by two fateful moments: European armies crossed the strait of Gibraltar in the fifteenth century to establish unequal relations of domination in Africa, and a colonial army crossed it in the opposite direction in 1936, to conquer the metropole and pursue a civil war that subjected the metropolitan populations with a violence that had been until then reserved for restive colonized subjects."<ref name=":6" />{{Rp|page=5}} Economic historian Adam Tooze posits that [[Operation Barbarossa]] is "far better understood as the last great land-grab in the long and bloody history of European colonialism."<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=Tooze |first=J. Adam |title=The wages of destruction: the making and breaking of the Nazi economy |date=2008 |publisher=Penguin USA |isbn=978-0-14-311320-1 |location=New York |pages=}}</ref>{{Rp|page=462}} "From the moment that Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the genocidal impulses of Nazi ideology towards both the Jews and the Slavs had taken on concrete form in an extraordinary programme of population displacement and colonial settlement."{{Rp|page=463}} [[Generalplan Ost]], the Nazi government's grand plan of settler colonialism, called for the mass murder and deportation of at least 30 million Slavs from Poland and the western Soviet Union in preparation for the importation of millions of German settlers.{{Rp|page=462-467}} The plan was lauded as a 'solution' to secure Germany's food supply for the duration of the war, unlike the previous one. Hitler repeatedly drew parallels between the colonization plan and Manifest Destiny in the United States. [[Aimé Césaire]] argues in [[Discourse on Colonialism]], "[Europeans] tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Heiskanen |first=Jaakko |date=2021-12-01 |title=In the Shadow of Genocide: Ethnocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and International Order |url=https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/1/4/ksab030/6380106 |journal=Global Studies Quarterly |volume=1 |issue=4 |pages=ksab030 |doi=10.1093/isagsq/ksab030 |issn=2634-3797}}</ref>

=== Post-WWII decolonization ===
In the aftermath of World War II, [[decolonisation]] progressed rapidly. The tumultuous upheaval of the war significantly weakened the major colonial powers, and they quickly lost control of colonies such as Singapore, India, and Libya.<ref>{{cite book|last1=White|first1=Nicholas|chapter=Economics and the end of Empire|title=Decolonisation: The British Experience since 1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=InQKBAAAQBAJ|series=Seminar Studies|date=17 July 2014|edition=2|location=Abingdon|publisher=Routledge|publication-date=2014|isbn=9781317701798|access-date=12 February 2021}}</ref> In addition, the [[United Nations]] shows support for decolonisation in its 1945 [[Chapter I of the United Nations Charter|charter]]. In 1960, the UN issued the [[Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples]], which affirmed its stance (though notably, colonial empires such as France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States abstained).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Betts |first1=Raymond F |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctt1w8h2zm |title=Beyond Empire and Nation: The Decolonization of African and Asian societies, 1930s–1970s |last2=Bogaerts |first2=Els |last3=Raben |first3=Raben |publisher=Brill |year=2012 |pages=7–22|jstor=10.1163/j.ctt1w8h2zm }}</ref>

The word "[[neocolonialism]]" originated from [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] in 1956,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sartre|first=Jean-Paul|title=Colonialism and Neocolonialism|publisher=Psychology Press|year=2001}}</ref> 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{{snd}}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.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Halperin |first1=Sandra |title=Neocolonialism {{!}} Definition, Examples, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/neocolonialism |website=www.britannica.com |access-date=29 November 2022 |language=en}}</ref> The term became popular in ex-colonies in the late 20th century.<ref>{{Cite journal |last= Uzoigw |first= Godfrey N. |year= 2019 |title= Neocolonialism Is Dead: Long Live Neocolonialism |journal= Journal of Global South Studies |volume= 36 |issue= 1 |pages= 59–87 |doi= 10.1353/gss.2019.0004|s2cid=166252688}}</ref>

=== Contemporary ===
While colonies of contiguous empires<ref>Forsyth, James. A history of the peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian colony 1581-1990. Cambridge University Press, 1994.</ref> have been historically excluded, they can be seen as colonies.<ref name="Gilmartin2009">{{Cite book |last=Gilmartin |first=Mary |title=Key Concepts in Political Geography |year=2009 |isbn=9781412946728 |editor-last=Gallaher |editor-first=Carolyn |pages=115–123 |chapter=Colonialism/Imperialism |doi=10.4135/9781446279496.n13 |editor-last2=Dahlman |editor-first2=Carl |editor-last3=Gilmartin |editor-first3=Mary |editor-last4=Mountz |editor-first4=Alison |editor-last5=Shirlow |editor-first5=Peter |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XpBJclVnVdQC&pg=PA115}}</ref>
Contemporary expansion of colonies is seen by some in case of [[Russian imperialism]]<ref>{{Cite news |date=27 September 2022 |title=So-called referenda in Russian-controlled Ukraine 'cannot be regarded as legal': UN political affairs chief |work=UN News |url=https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1128161 |url-status=live |access-date=29 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220928072533/https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1128161 |archive-date=28 September 2022}}</ref> and [[Chinese imperialism]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last1=Alessio |first1=Dominic |last2=Renfro |first2=Wesley |date=1 August 2022 |title=Building empires litorally in the South China Sea: artificial islands and contesting definitions of imperialism |journal=International Politics |language=en |volume=59 |issue=4 |pages=687–706 |doi=10.1057/s41311-021-00328-x |issn=1740-3898 |s2cid=240567127}}</ref> There is also ongoing debate in academia about [[Zionism as settler colonialism]].

== Impact ==
{{Main|Analysis of Western European colonialism and colonization#Colonial actions and their impacts}}
[[File:Satterfield cartoon about brutalities committed by Western nations.jpg|thumb|A 1904 cartoon by [[Bob Satterfield (cartoonist)|Bob Satterfield]] about the brutality committed by Western nations: the personifications of England, the United States, and Germany carrying spears topped by the severed heads of Tibet, the Philippines, and Southwest Africa respectively. The caption describes this as "The advance guard of civilization".]]
[[File:Nieuws uit Indonesië, het werk van de Nederlandse dienst voor Volksgezondheid Weeknummer 46-21 - Open Beelden - 16742.ogv|thumb|The Dutch Public Health Service provides medical care for the natives of the [[Dutch East Indies]], May 1946.]]

The impacts of colonisation are immense and pervasive.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1713275,00.html |title=Come Back, Colonialism, All Is Forgiven |last=Perry |first=Alex |date=14 February 2008 |magazine=Time |access-date=29 September 2019 |language=en-US |issn=0040-781X}}</ref> Various effects, both immediate and protracted, include the spread of virulent [[Pandemic|diseases]], [[oppression|unequal social relations]], [[detribalization]], [[Exploitation of natural resources|exploitation]], [[enslavement]], [[History of medicine#Modern medicine|medical advances]], the creation of new institutions, [[Slavery in Africa#Abolition|abolitionism]],<ref name="Lovejoy, Paul E. 2012">Lovejoy, Paul E. (2012). ''Transformations of Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa''. London: Cambridge University Press.</ref> improved infrastructure,<ref>Ferguson, Niall (2003). ''Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World''. London: Allen Lane.</ref> and technological progress.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Thong |first=Tezenlo |date=2012 |title=Civilised Colonisers and Barbaric Colonised: Reclaiming Naga Identity by Demythologising Colonial Portraits |journal=History and Anthropology |volume=23 |pages=375–97 |doi=10.1080/02757206.2012.697060 |number=3|s2cid=162411962 }}</ref> Colonial practices also spur the spread of conquerors' languages, literature and cultural institutions, while endangering or obliterating those of [[Indigenous peoples|Indigenous]] peoples. The cultures of the colonised peoples can also have a powerful influence on the imperial country.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Olumide|first=Yetunde Mercy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rdNSDQAAQBAJ&q=The+native+cultures+of+the+colonised+peoples+can+also+have+a+powerful+influence+on+the+imperial+country&pg=PA934|title=The Vanishing Black African Woman: Volume Two: A Compendium of the Global Skin-Lightening Practice|date=6 October 2016|publisher=Langaa RPCIG|isbn=978-9956-763-68-9|language=en}}</ref>

With respect to international borders, Britain and France traced close to 40% of the entire length of the world's international boundaries.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Miles |first1=William F. S. |title=Scars of Partition: Postcolonial Legacies in French and British Borderlands |date=2014 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0-8032-6771-8 |page=3 |quote=Anglo-French carving of colonial space is a significant geographical legacy: nearly 40 percent of the entire length of today's international boundaries were traced by Britain and France.}}</ref>

=== Economy, trade and commerce ===
Economic expansion, sometimes described as the [[colonial surplus]], has accompanied imperial expansion since ancient times.{{citation needed|date=November 2012}} Greek trade networks spread throughout the Mediterranean region while Roman trade expanded with the primary goal of directing tribute from the colonised areas towards the Roman metropole. According to [[Strabo]], by the time of emperor [[Augustus]], up to 120 Roman ships would set sail every year from [[Myos Hormos]] in [[Roman Egypt]] to India.<ref>"[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/2E1*.html Strabo's Geography Book II Chapter 5 ]"</ref> With the development of trade routes under the [[Ottoman Empire]],

{{blockquote|[[Gujari]] Hindus, Syrian Muslims, Jews, Armenians, Christians from south and central Europe operated trading routes that supplied Persian and Arab horses to the armies of all three empires, Mocha coffee to [[Delhi]] and [[Belgrade]], Persian silk to India and [[Istanbul]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Peoples and Empires |last=Pagden |first=Anthony |publisher=Modern Library |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8129-6761-6 |location=New York |page=45}}</ref>
}}
[[File:16th century Portuguese Spanish trade routes.png|thumb|upright=1.5|[[Portuguese discoveries|Portuguese trade routes]] (blue) and the rival [[Manila galleon|Manila-Acapulco galleons]] trade routes (white) established in 1568]]
[[Aztec civilisation]] developed into an extensive empire that, much like the Roman Empire, had the goal of exacting tribute from the conquered colonial areas. For the Aztecs, a significant tribute was the acquisition of sacrificial victims for their religious rituals.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Peoples and Empires |last=Pagden |publisher= |year=2003 |isbn= |location= |page=5}}</ref>

On the other hand, European colonial empires sometimes attempted to channel, restrict and impede trade involving their colonies, funneling activity through the metropole and taxing accordingly.

Despite the general trend of economic expansion, the economic performance of former European colonies varies significantly. In "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-run Growth", economists [[Daron Acemoglu]], [[Simon Johnson (economist)|Simon Johnson]] and [[James A. Robinson (Harvard University)|James A. Robinson]] compare the economic influences of the European colonists on different colonies and study what could explain the huge discrepancies in previous European colonies, for example, between West African colonies like [[Sierra Leone]] and [[Hong Kong]] and [[Singapore]].<ref name="Institutions">{{Cite book|doi = 10.1016/S1574-0684(05)01006-3|chapter = Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth|volume = 1A|pages = 385–472|title = Handbook of Economic Growth|year = 2005|last1 = Acemoglu|first1 = Daron|last2 = Johnson|first2 = Simon|last3 = Robinson|first3 = James A.|isbn = 9780444520418|chapter-url = http://economics.mit.edu/files/4469|access-date = 15 February 2016|archive-date = 5 February 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160205223556/http://economics.mit.edu/files/4469|url-status = dead}}</ref>

According to the paper, economic institutions are the determinant of the colonial success because they determine their financial performance and order for the distribution of resources. At the same time, these institutions are also consequences of political institutions – especially how [[de facto]] and [[de jure]] political power is allocated. To explain the different colonial cases, we thus need to look first into the political institutions that shaped the economic institutions.<ref name="Institutions" />
[[File:A Castro, Lorenzo - A Dutch East-Indiaman off Hoorn - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|[[Dutch East India Company]] was the first-ever [[multinational corporation]], financed by shares that established the [[Amsterdam Stock Exchange|first modern stock exchange]].]]
For example, one interesting observation is "the Reversal of Fortune"{{snd}}the less developed civilisations in 1500, like North America, Australia, and New Zealand, are now much richer than those countries who used to be in the prosperous civilisations in 1500 before the colonists came, like the Mughals in India and the Incas in the Americas. One explanation offered by the paper focuses on the political institutions of the various colonies: it was less likely for European colonists to introduce economic institutions where they could benefit quickly from the extraction of resources in the area. Therefore, given a more developed civilisation and denser population, European colonists would rather keep the existing economic systems than introduce an entirely new system; while in places with little to extract, European colonists would rather establish new economic institutions to protect their interests. Political institutions thus gave rise to different types of economic systems, which determined the colonial economic performance.<ref name="Institutions" />

European colonisation and development also changed gendered systems of power already in place around the world. In many pre-colonialist areas, women maintained power, prestige, or authority through reproductive or agricultural control. For example, in certain parts of [[Sub-Saharan Africa]] women maintained farmland in which they had usage rights. While men would make political and communal decisions for a community, the women would control the village's food supply or their individual family's land. This allowed women to achieve power and autonomy, even in patrilineal and patriarchal societies.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/noturningbackhis00free/page/25 |title=No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and The Future of Women |last=Freedman |first=Estelle |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-345-45053-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/noturningbackhis00free/page/25 25–26]}}</ref>

Through the rise of European colonialism came a large push for development and industrialisation of most economic systems. When working to improve productivity, Europeans focused mostly on male workers. Foreign aid arrived in the form of loans, land, credit, and tools to speed up development, but were only allocated to men. In a more European fashion, women were expected to serve on a more domestic level. The result was a technologic, economic, and class-based gender gap that widened over time.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/noturningbackhis00free/page/113 |title=No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and The Future of Women |last=Freedman |publisher= Ballantine Books|year=2002 |isbn= 978-0-345-45053-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/noturningbackhis00free/page/113 113]}}</ref>

Within a colony, the presence of extractive colonial institutions in a given area has been found have effects on the modern day economic development, institutions and infrastructure of these areas.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1093/restud/rdz017 | title=The Development Effects of the Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System in Java| journal=The Review of Economic Studies| volume=87| pages=164–203| year=2020| last1=Dell| first1=Melissa| last2=Olken| first2=Benjamin A.|url=https://scholar.harvard.edu/dell/publications/development-effects-extractive-colonial-economy-dutch-cultivation-system-java| doi-access=free| hdl=1721.1/136437| hdl-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1177/0010414015600465 | title= Colonial Legacies and State Institutions in China: Evidence From a Natural Experiment| journal=Comparative Political Studies| volume=50| issue=4| pages=434–463| year=2017| last1=Mattingly| first1=Daniel C.| s2cid= 156822667|url=http://daniel-mattingly.com/s/Mattingly_CPS_Preprint.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160714115343/http://daniel-mattingly.com/s/Mattingly_CPS_Preprint.pdf |archive-date=14 July 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Slavery and indentured servitude ===
{{Further|Atlantic slave trade|Indentured servant|Coolie|Blackbirding}}

European nations entered their imperial projects with the goal of enriching the European metropoles. Exploitation of non-Europeans and of other Europeans to support imperial goals was acceptable to the colonisers. Two outgrowths of this imperial agenda were the extension of slavery and indentured servitude. In the 17th century, nearly two-thirds of English settlers came to North America as indentured servants.<ref>Hofstadter, Richard, [http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/hpolscrv/whiteser.html "White Servitude"], Montgomery College. {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141009091039/http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/hpolscrv/whiteser.html |date= 2014-10-09 }}.</ref>

European slave traders brought large numbers of African slaves to the Americas by sail. Spain and Portugal had [[Atlantic slave trade|brought African slaves]] to work in African colonies such as [[Cape Verde]] and [[São Tomé and Príncipe]], and then in Latin America, by the 16th century. The British, French and Dutch joined in the slave trade in subsequent centuries. The European colonial system took approximately 11&nbsp;million Africans to the Caribbean and to North and South America as slaves.<ref name="King 2010 24">{{Cite book |url= https://archive.org/details/peopleonmoveatla0000unse/page/24 |title= People on the Move: An Atlas of Migration |last= King |first= Russell |publisher= University of California Press |year= 2010 |isbn= 978-0-520-26124-2 |location= Berkeley, Los Angeles |page= [https://archive.org/details/peopleonmoveatla0000unse/page/24 24]}}</ref>

[[File:Marchands d'esclaves de Gorée-Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur mg 8526.jpg|thumb|upright|Slave traders in Gorée, [[Senegal]], 18th century]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! European empire !! Colonial destination !! Number of slaves imported between 1450 and 1870<ref name="King 2010 24" />
|-
| Portuguese Empire|| Brazil || 3,646,800
|-
| British Empire || British Caribbean || 1,665,000
|-
| French Empire || French Caribbean || 1,600,200
|-
| Spanish Empire || Latin America || 1,552,100
|-
| Dutch Empire || Dutch Caribbean || 500,000
|-
| British Empire || British North America || 399,000
|}

[[abolitionism|Abolitionists]] in Europe and Americas protested the inhumane treatment of African slaves, which led to the elimination of the slave trade (and later, of most forms of slavery) by the late 19th century. One (disputed) school of thought points to the role of abolitionism in the [[American Revolution]]: while the British colonial metropole started to move towards outlawing slavery, slave-owning elites in the [[Thirteen Colonies]] saw this as one of the reasons to fight for their post-colonial independence and for the right to develop and continue a largely slave-based economy.<ref>
{{cite news
| title= Our democracy's founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true
| first= Nikole
| last= Hannah-Jones
| author-link= Nikole Hannah-Jones
| date= 14 August 2019
| magazine= [[The New York Times Magazine]]
| url= https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html
| quote = The wealth and prominence that allowed Jefferson, at just 33, and the other founding fathers to believe they could successfully break off from one of the mightiest empires in the world came from the dizzying profits generated by chattel slavery. In other words, we may never have revolted against Britain if the founders had not understood that slavery empowered them to do so; nor if they had not believed that independence was required in order to ensure that slavery would continue. It is not incidental that 10 of this nation's first 12 presidents were enslavers, and some might argue that this nation was founded not as a democracy but as a slavocracy.
}}
</ref>

British colonising activity in [[New Zealand]] from the early 19th century played a part in ending slave-taking and slave-keeping among the indigenous [[Māori people|Māori]].<ref>{{cite book
 | last1 = Petrie
 | first1 = Hazel
 | title = Outcasts of the Gods? The Struggle over Slavery in Maori New Zealand
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=1xJzCgAAQBAJ
 | publisher = Auckland University Press
 | date = 2015
 | isbn = 9781775587859
 | access-date = 17 June 2020
| quote = Trade with the early explorers, whalers, sealers, and shore-based traders; interaction with missionaries; the availability of muskets; unprecedented warfare; new methods of dispute resolution; and English law all played their part in influencing the increase or decline of Maori captive-taking.
}}
</ref><ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Firth
 | first1 = Raymond
 | year = 1929
 | title = Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Maori
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JNGm14xd1JkC
 | series = Routledge Revivals
 | edition = reprint
 | location = Abingdon
 | publisher = Routledge
 | publication-date = 2011
 | page = 203
 | isbn = 9780415694728
 | access-date = 17 June 2020
| quote = The economic value of the slave to the community was considerable. [...] Slavery among the Maori is certainly not comparable to the system as it existed among the ancient civilized states of Europe, but relative to the culture of this native people, it played an important part [...].
}}
</ref>
On the other hand, British colonial [[History of South Africa (1815–1910)|administration in Southern Africa]], when it officially abolished slavery in the 1830s, caused rifts in society which arguably perpetuated slavery in the [[Boer Republics]] and fed into the philosophy of ''[[apartheid]]''.<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Lowe
 | first1 = Joshua
 | title = To what extent was the Great Trek undertaken to preserve Afrikaner Culture?
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=DrlABAAAQBAJ
 | publisher = GRIN
 | date = 2014
 | page = 2
 | isbn = 9783656715245
 | access-date = 17 June 2020
| quote = There were also threats to what the Afrikaner perceived as tradition, and slavery was included in this perception.<br /> The abolition of slavery had an effect on why the Great Trek was undertaken and has links to the Afrikaner cultural preservation theory. Slavery was an integral part of Afrikaner society, and there was a sense of discontent when it was called to an end.
}}
</ref>
[[File:Slaves working on a plantation - Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (1823), plate III - BL.jpg|thumb|Planting the sugar cane, [[Antigua]], 1823]]
The labour shortages that resulted from abolition inspired European colonisers in Queensland, British Guaiana and Fiji (for example) to develop new sources of labour, re-adopting a system of indentured servitude. [[Indentured servant]]s consented to a contract with the European colonisers. Under their contract, the servant would work for an employer for a term of at least a year, while the employer agreed to pay for the servant's voyage to the colony, possibly pay for the return to the country of origin, and pay the employee a wage as well. The employees became "indentured" to the employer because they owed a debt back to the employer for their travel expense to the colony, which they were expected to pay through their wages. In practice, indentured servants were exploited through terrible working conditions and burdensome debts imposed by the employers, with whom the servants had no means of negotiating the debt once they arrived in the colony.

India and China were the largest source of indentured servants during the colonial era. Indentured servants from India travelled to British colonies in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and also to French and Portuguese colonies, while Chinese servants travelled to British and Dutch colonies. Between 1830 and 1930, around 30&nbsp;million indentured servants migrated from India, and 24&nbsp;million returned to India. China sent more indentured servants to European colonies, and around the same proportion returned to China.<ref>
{{Cite book |url= https://archive.org/details/peopleonmoveatla0000unse/page/26
 |title= People on the Move: An Atlas of Migration |last= King |publisher=  |year= 2010 |isbn= 
 |location= 
 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/peopleonmoveatla0000unse/page/26 26–27]}}
</ref>

Following the [[Scramble for Africa]], an early but secondary focus for most colonial regimes was the suppression of slavery and the slave trade. By the end of the colonial period they were mostly successful in this aim, though slavery persists in Africa and in the world at large with much the same practices of ''de facto'' servility despite legislative prohibition.<ref name="Lovejoy, Paul E. 2012" />

=== Military innovation ===
[[File:Aschanti Gefecht 11 july 1824 300dpi.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|The [[First Anglo-Ashanti War]], 1823–1831]]
Conquering forces have throughout history applied innovation in order to gain an advantage over the armies of the people they aim to conquer. Greeks developed the [[phalanx]] system, which enabled their military units to present themselves to their enemies as a wall, with foot soldiers using shields to cover one another during their advance on the battlefield. Under [[Philip II of Macedon]], they were able to organise thousands of soldiers into a formidable battle force, bringing together carefully trained infantry and cavalry regiments.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Peoples and Empires |last=Pagden |publisher= |year=2003 |isbn= |location= |page=6}}</ref> [[Alexander the Great]] exploited this military foundation further during his conquests.

The Spanish Empire held a major advantage over [[Mesoamerican]] warriors through the use of weapons made of stronger metal, predominantly iron, which was able to shatter the blades of axes used by the [[Aztec civilisation]] and others. The use of [[gunpowder]] weapons cemented the European military advantage over the peoples they sought to subjugate in the Americas and elsewhere.

=== End of empire ===
{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2021}}[[File:Lord Pethic-Lawrence and Gandhi.jpg|thumb|[[Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi|Gandhi]] with [[Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence|Lord Pethwick-Lawrence]], British Secretary of State for India, after a meeting on 18 April 1946]]
The populations of some colonial territories, such as Canada, enjoyed relative peace and prosperity as part of a European power, at least among the majority. Minority populations such as [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]] peoples and French-Canadians experienced [[marginalisation]] and resented colonial practices. Francophone residents of [[Quebec]], for example, were vocal in opposing conscription into the armed services to fight on behalf of Britain during World War I, resulting in the [[Conscription crisis of 1917]]. Other European colonies had much more pronounced conflict between European settlers and the local population. Rebellions broke out in the later decades of the imperial era, such as India's [[Sepoy Rebellion|Sepoy Rebellion of 1857]].

The territorial boundaries imposed by European colonisers, notably in central Africa and South Asia, defied the existing boundaries of native populations that had previously interacted little with one another. European colonisers disregarded native political and cultural animosities, imposing peace upon people under their military control. Native populations were often relocated at the will of the colonial administrators.

The [[Partition of British India]] in August 1947 led to the [[Indian independence movement|Independence of India]] and the [[Pakistan Movement|creation of Pakistan]]. These events also caused much bloodshed at the time of the migration of immigrants from the two countries. Muslims from India and Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan migrated to the respective countries they sought independence for.

=== Post-independence population movement ===
[[File:Notting Hill Carnival 2002 large.jpg|thumb|The annual [[Notting Hill Carnival]] in [[London]] is a celebration led by the [[Trinidadian and Tobagonian British]] community.]]

In a reversal of the migration patterns experienced during the modern colonial era, post-independence era migration followed a route back towards the imperial country. In some cases, this was a movement of settlers of European origin returning to the land of their birth, or to an ancestral birthplace. 900,000 French colonists (known as the ''[[Pied-Noir]]s'') resettled in France following Algeria's independence in 1962. A significant number of these migrants were also of Algerian descent. 800,000 people of [[Processo Revolucionário Em Curso#The retornados|Portuguese]] origin migrated to Portugal after the independence of former colonies in Africa between 1974 and 1979; 300,000 settlers of Dutch origin migrated to the Netherlands from the [[Dutch West Indies]] after Dutch military control of the colony ended.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/peopleonmoveatla0000unse/page/35 |title=People on the Move: An Atlas of Migration |last=King |publisher= |year=2010 |isbn= |location= |page=[https://archive.org/details/peopleonmoveatla0000unse/page/35 35]}}</ref>

After WWII 300,000 Dutchmen from the [[Dutch East Indies]], of which the majority were people of Eurasian descent called [[Indo people|Indo Europeans]], repatriated to the Netherlands. A significant number later migrated to the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.<ref>Willems, Wim "De uittocht uit Indie (1945–1995), De geschiedenis van Indische Nederlanders" (Publisher: Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2001). {{ISBN|90-351-2361-1}}</ref><ref>Crul, Lindo and Lin Pang. Culture, Structure and Beyond, Changing identities and social positions of immigrants and their children (Het Spinhuis Publishers, 1999). {{ISBN|90-5589-173-8}}</ref>

Global travel and migration in general developed at an increasingly brisk pace throughout the era of European colonial expansion. Citizens of the former colonies of European countries may have a privileged status in some respects with regard to immigration rights when settling in the former European imperial nation. For example, rights to dual citizenship may be generous,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/61 |title=British Nationality Act 1981 |publisher=The National Archives, United Kingdom |access-date=24 February 2012}}</ref> or larger immigrant quotas may be extended to former colonies.{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}}

In some cases, the former European imperial nations continue to foster close political and economic ties with former colonies. The [[Commonwealth of Nations]] is an organisation that promotes cooperation between and among Britain and its former colonies, the Commonwealth members. A similar organisation exists for former colonies of France, the [[Francophonie]]; the [[Community of Portuguese Language Countries]] plays a similar role for former Portuguese colonies, and the [[Dutch Language Union]] is the equivalent for former colonies of the Netherlands.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Francophonie in Brief |url=https://www.francophonie.org/francophonie-brief-1763 |website=Portail de l'Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) |publisher=Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie |language=fr}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries – CPLP {{!}} DGES |url=https://www.dges.gov.pt/en/pagina/community-portuguese-speaking-countries-cplp |website=DGES- Direção-Geral de Ensino Superior |access-date=9 November 2022 |language=pt}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Taalunie – Union for the Dutch Language – Taalunie |url=https://taalunie.org/informatie/112/taalunie-union-for-the-dutch-language |website=taalunie.org |language=nl}}</ref>

Migration from former colonies has proven to be problematic for European countries, where the majority population may express hostility to ethnic minorities who have immigrated from former colonies. Cultural and religious conflict have often erupted in France in recent decades, between immigrants from the [[Maghreb]] countries of north Africa and the majority population of France. Nonetheless, immigration has changed the ethnic composition of France; by the 1980s, 25% of the total population of "inner Paris" and 14% of the metropolitan region were of foreign origin, mainly Algerian.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 45038321|title = Cultural Conflicts: North African Immigrants in France|journal = International Journal of Peace Studies|volume = 2|issue = 2|pages = 67–75|last1 = Seljuq|first1 = Affan|year = 1997|url=http://www.gmu.edu/programs/icar/ijps/vol2_2/seljuq.htm}}</ref>

=== Introduced diseases ===
{{See also|Globalisation and disease|Columbian Exchange|Impact and evaluation of colonialism and colonization}}
[[File:Florentinoviruela.JPG|thumb|Aztecs dying of smallpox, (''[[Florentine Codex]]'', 1540–1585)]]

Encounters between explorers and populations in the rest of the world often introduced new diseases, which sometimes caused local epidemics of extraordinary virulence.<ref>{{cite book|editor-first=Kenneth F. |editor-last=Kiple|title=The Cambridge Historical Dictionary of Disease|date=2003}}</ref> For example, [[smallpox]], measles, malaria, yellow fever, and others were unknown in pre-Columbian America.<ref>{{cite book|first=Alfred W. |last=Crosby, Jr.|title=The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492|date=1974}}</ref>

Half the native population of [[Hispaniola]] in 1518 was killed by smallpox. Smallpox also ravaged [[Mexico]] in the 1520s, killing 150,000 in [[Tenochtitlan]] alone, including the emperor, and [[Peru]] in the 1530s, aiding the European conquerors. [[Measles]] killed a further two million Mexican natives in the 17th century. In 1618–1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the [[Massachusetts Bay]] Native Americans.<ref>Koplow, David, [http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9968/9968.ch01.html "Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of Smallpox"], ''Smallpox – The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge'', University of California Press. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907093641/http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9968/9968.ch01.html |date=7 September 2008 }}.</ref> Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and [[1837-38 smallpox epidemic|1837–1838]] brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the [[Plains Indians]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Houston |first1=C.S. |last2=Houston |first2=S. |year=2000 |title=The first smallpox epidemic on the Canadian Plains: In the fur-traders' words |journal=The Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=112–15 |doi=10.1155/2000/782978 |pmc=2094753 |pmid=18159275|doi-access=free }}</ref> Some believe{{who|date=May 2021}} that the death of up to 95% of the [[Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American population]] of the [[New World]] was caused by [[Old World]] diseases.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html |title=Guns Germs & Steel: Variables. Smallpox |website=www.pbs.org |access-date=29 September 2019}}</ref> Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of [[Immunity (medical)|immunity]] to these diseases, while the [[indigenous peoples]] had no time to build such immunity.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/papers/goodling.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080510163413/http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/papers/goodling.html|url-status=dead|first=Stacy |last=Goodling|title=Effects of European Diseases on the Inhabitants of the New World|archive-date=10 May 2008}}</ref>

Smallpox decimated the native population of [[Australia]], killing around 50% of [[indigenous Australians]] in the early years of British colonisation.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Smallpox Through History |url=http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643/Smallpox_Through_History.html|work=Encarta |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029184350/http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643/Smallpox_Through_History.html |archive-date=29 October 2009}}</ref> It also killed many New Zealand [[Māori people|Māori]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.canr.msu.edu/overseas/nzenvironsci/infopart2.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100612021507/http://www.canr.msu.edu/overseas/nzenvironsci/infopart2.htm|url-status=dead|title=New Zealand Historical Perspective|archive-date=12 June 2010}}</ref> As late as 1848–49, as many as 40,000 out of 150,000 [[Hawaii]]ans are estimated to have died of [[measles]], [[whooping cough]] and [[influenza]]. Introduced diseases, notably smallpox, nearly wiped out the native population of [[Easter Island]].<ref>[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-did-easter-islands-ancient-statues-lead-to-the-destruction-of-an-entire-ecosystem-455877.html How did Easter Island's ancient statues lead to the destruction of an entire ecosystem?], ''The Independent''.</ref> In 1875, [[measles]] killed over 40,000 [[Fiji]]ans, approximately one-third of the population.<ref>[http://www.fsm.ac.fj/aboutfsm.html Fiji School of Medicine] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020165015/http://www.fsm.ac.fj/aboutfsm.html |date=20 October 2014 }}</ref> The [[Ainu people|Ainu]] population decreased drastically in the 19th century, due in large part
to infectious diseases brought by Japanese settlers pouring into [[Hokkaido]].<ref>Macintyre, Donald, [http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/ontheroad/japan.sapporo.ainu.html "Meeting the First Inhabitants"], TIMEasia.com, 21 August 2000. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110622085958/http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/ontheroad/japan.sapporo.ainu.html |date=22 June 2011 }}.</ref>

Conversely, researchers have hypothesised that a precursor to [[syphilis]] may have been carried from the New World to Europe after [[Christopher Columbus|Columbus]]'s voyages. The findings suggested Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions of Europe.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15syph.html |title=Genetic Study Bolsters Columbus Link to Syphilis|first=John Noble |last=Wilford|newspaper=The New York Times|date=15 January 2008}}</ref> The disease was more frequently fatal than it is today; syphilis was a major killer in Europe during the [[Renaissance]].<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Columbus May Have Brought Syphilis to Europe |url=http://www.livescience.com/history/080114-syphilis-columbus.html|first= Charles Q. |last=Choi  |journal=LiveScience|date=15 January 2008 }}</ref> The [[first cholera pandemic]] began in [[Bengal]], then spread across India by 1820. Ten thousand British troops and countless Indians died during this [[pandemic]].<ref>[https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/cholera-s-seven-pandemics-1.758504 Cholera's seven pandemics]. CBC News. 2 December 2008.</ref> Between 1736 and 1834 only some 10% of [[East India Company]]'s officers survived to take the final voyage home.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/new/?revID=610 |title=Review {{!}} Sahib: The British Soldier in India, 1750–1914 by Richard Holmes|first=Nigel |last=Collett |date=27 October 2005 |website=Asian Review of Books|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120530044859/http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/new/?revID=610 |archive-date=30 May 2012 |access-date=29 September 2019}}</ref> [[Waldemar Haffkine]], who mainly worked in India, who developed and used [[vaccine]]s against [[cholera]] and [[bubonic plague]] in the 1890s, is considered the first [[microbiologist]].

According to a 2021 study by [[Jörg Baten]] and Laura Maravall on the [[Anthropometry|anthropometric]] influence of colonialism on Africans, the [[human height|average height]] of Africans decreased by 1.1 centimetres upon colonization and later recovered and increased overall during colonial rule. The authors attributed the decrease to diseases, such as [[malaria]] and [[African trypanosomiasis|sleeping sickness]], [[Forced labour|forced labor]] during the early decades of colonial rule, conflicts, [[land grabbing]], and [[1890s African rinderpest epizootic|widespread cattle deaths]] from the [[rinderpest]] viral disease.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Baten|first1=Joerg |last2=Maravall|first2=Laura|date=2021|title=The Influence of Colonialism on Africa's Welfare: An Anthropometric Study|journal=Journal of Comparative Economics|volume=49|issue=3|pages=751–775|doi=10.1016/j.jce.2021.01.001}}</ref>

==== Countering disease ====
As early as 1803, the [[Enlightenment in Spain|Spanish]] Crown organised a mission (the [[Balmis expedition]]) to transport the smallpox vaccine to the [[Spanish Empire|Spanish colonies]], and establish mass vaccination programs there.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.doh.gov.ph/sphh/balmis.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041223112019/http://www.doh.gov.ph/sphh/balmis.htm|title=Dr. Francisco de Balmis and his Mission of Mercy, Society of Philippine Health History.|archive-date=23 December 2004}}</ref> By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a [[Smallpox vaccine|smallpox vaccination]] program for Native Americans.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/wicazo_sa_review/v018/18.2pearson01.html| title = Lewis Cass and the Politics of Disease: The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832.| access-date = 12 February 2022| archive-date = 5 February 2008| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080205230347/http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=%2Fjournals%2Fwicazo_sa_review%2Fv018%2F18.2pearson01.html| url-status = dead}}</ref> Under the direction of [[Mountstuart Elphinstone]] a program was launched to propagate [[smallpox vaccination]] in India.<ref>[http://www.smallpoxhistory.ucl.ac.uk/Other%20Asia/ongoingwork.htm Smallpox History – Other histories of smallpox in South Asia.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120416015559/http://www.smallpoxhistory.ucl.ac.uk/Other%20Asia/ongoingwork.htm |date=16 April 2012 }}</ref> From the beginning of the 20th century onwards, the elimination or control of disease in tropical countries became a driving force for all colonial powers.<ref>[http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=696 Conquest and Disease or Colonialism and Health?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081207015726/http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=696 |date=7 December 2008 }}, Gresham College | Lectures and Events.</ref> The [[African trypanosomiasis|sleeping sickness]] epidemic in Africa was arrested due to mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk.<ref>{{Cite web |website=WHO Media centre |year=2001 |title=Fact sheet N°259: African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness |url=https://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs259/en/index.html}}</ref> 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 [[History of medicine#Modern medicine|medical advances]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Iliffe |first=John |year=1989 |title=The Origins of African Population Growth |journal=The Journal of African History |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=165–69 |doi=10.1017/s0021853700030942 |jstor=182701|s2cid=59931797 }}</ref> The [[world population]] has grown from 1.6&nbsp;billion in 1900 to over seven billion today.{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}}

== Botany ==
Colonial botany refers to the body of works concerning the study, cultivation, marketing and naming of the new plants that were acquired or traded during the age of European colonialism. Notable examples of these plants included sugar, [[nutmeg]], [[tobacco]], [[cloves]], [[cinnamon]], [[Peruvian bark]], peppers, ''[[Sassafras albidum]]'', and [[tea]]. This work was a large part of securing financing for colonial ambitions, supporting European expansion and ensuring the profitability of such endeavors. [[Vasco de Gama]] and [[Christopher Columbus]] were seeking to establish routes to trade spices, dyes and silk from the [[Moluccas]], India and China by sea that would be independent of the established routes controlled by Venetian and Middle Eastern merchants. Naturalists like [[Hendrik van Rheede]], [[Georg Eberhard Rumphius]], and [[Jacobus Bontius]] compiled data about eastern plants on behalf of the Europeans. Though [[Sweden]] did not possess an extensive colonial network, botanical research based on [[Carl Linnaeus]] identified and developed techniques to grow cinnamon, tea and rice locally as an alternative to costly imports.<ref>{{cite book |editor1=Londa Schiebinger |editor2=Claudia Swan |title=Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |date=2007}}</ref>

== Geography ==
{{Further|List of colonies}}
[[File:The National Archives UK - CO 1069-99-01.jpg|thumb|[[British Togoland]] in 1953]]

Settlers acted as the link between indigenous populations and the imperial hegemony, thus bridging the geographical, ideological and commercial gap between the colonisers and colonised. While the extent in which geography as an academic study is implicated in colonialism is contentious, geographical tools such as [[cartography]], [[shipbuilding]], [[navigation]], mining and agricultural productivity were instrumental in European colonial expansion. Colonisers' awareness of the Earth's surface and abundance of practical skills provided colonisers with a knowledge that, in turn, created power.<ref name="Painter">"Painter, J. & Jeffrey, A., 2009. ''Political Geography'', 2nd ed., Sage. "Imperialism" p. 23 (GIC).</ref>

Anne Godlewska and Neil Smith argue that "empire was 'quintessentially a geographical project{{'"}}.{{clarify|reason=What is the meaning of the quote within a quote?|date=March 2018}}<ref name="Nayak">{{Cite book |title=Geographical thought : an introduction to ideas in human geography |last1=Nayak |first1=Anoop |last2=Jeffrey |first2=Alex |date=2011 |publisher=Pearson Prentice Hall |isbn=978-0-13-222824-4 |location=Harlow, England |pages=4–5}}</ref> Historical geographical theories such as [[environmental determinism]] legitimised colonialism by positing the view that some parts of the world were underdeveloped, which created notions of skewed evolution.<ref name="Painter" /> Geographers such as [[Ellen Churchill Semple]] and [[Ellsworth Huntington]] put forward the notion that northern climates bred vigour and intelligence as opposed to those indigenous to tropical climates (See [[The Tropics]]) viz a viz a combination of [[environmental determinism]] and [[Social Darwinism]] in their approach.<ref name="arnold">{{Cite journal |last=Arnold |first=David |date=March 2000 |title="Illusory Riches": Representations of the Tropical World, 1840–1950 |journal=Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=6–18 |doi=10.1111/1467-9493.00060|bibcode=2000SJTG...21....6A }}</ref>

Political geographers also maintain that colonial behaviour was reinforced by the physical mapping of the world, therefore creating a visual separation between "them" and "us". Geographers are primarily focused on the spaces of colonialism and imperialism; more specifically, the material and symbolic appropriation of space enabling colonialism.<ref name="Gallaher">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XpBJclVnVdQC&pg=PA5 |title=Key Concepts in Political Geography |last1=Gallaher |first1=Carolyn |last2=Dahlman |first2=Carl T. |last3=Gilmartin |first3=Mary |last4=Mountz |first4=Alison |last5=Shirlow |first5=Peter |date=2009 |publisher=Sage |isbn=978-1-4129-4672-8 |location=London |pages=392 |author-link=Carolyn Gallaher |access-date=31 July 2014}}</ref>{{rp|5}}
[[File:Scramble-for-Africa-1880-1913-v2.png|thumb|upright=1.5|Comparison of Africa in the years 1880 and 1913]]
Maps played an extensive role in colonialism, as Bassett would put it "by providing geographical information in a convenient and standardised format, cartographers helped open West Africa to European conquest, commerce, and colonisation".<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 215456|title = Cartography and Empire Building in Nineteenth-Century West Africa|journal = Geographical Review|volume = 84|issue = 3|pages=316–335|last1 = Bassett|first1 = Thomas J.|s2cid = 161167051|year = 1994|doi = 10.2307/215456| bibcode=1994GeoRv..84..316B }}</ref> Because the relationship between colonialism and geography was not scientifically objective, cartography was often manipulated during the colonial era. Social norms and values had an effect on the constructing of maps. During colonialism map-makers used rhetoric in their formation of boundaries and in their art. The rhetoric favoured the view of the conquering Europeans; this is evident in the fact that any map created by a non-European was instantly regarded as inaccurate. Furthermore, European cartographers were required to follow a set of rules which led to ethnocentrism; portraying one's own ethnicity in the centre of the map. As [[J.B. Harley]] put it, "The steps in making a map{{snd}}selection, omission, simplification, classification, the creation of hierarchies, and 'symbolisation'{{snd}}are all inherently rhetorical."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Harley |first=J. B. |title=Deconstructing the Map |journal=Cartographica |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=1–20 |date=1989 |doi=10.3138/E635-7827-1757-9T53|s2cid=145766679 |url=http://dlisv03.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/contents/osakacu/kiyo/13423282-23-123.pdf }}</ref>

A common practice by the European cartographers of the time was to map unexplored areas as "blank spaces". This influenced the colonial powers as it sparked competition amongst them to explore and colonise these regions. Imperialists aggressively and passionately looked forward to filling these spaces for the glory of their respective countries.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 215456|title = Cartography and Empire Building in Nineteenth-Century West Africa|journal = Geographical Review|volume = 84|issue = 3|pages=322, 324–25|last1 = Bassett|first1 = Thomas J.|s2cid = 161167051|year = 1994|doi = 10.2307/215456| bibcode=1994GeoRv..84..316B }}</ref> The ''Dictionary of Human Geography'' notes that cartography was used to empty 'undiscovered' lands of their Indigenous meaning and bring them into spatial existence via the imposition of "Western place-names and borders, [therefore] priming 'virgin' (putatively empty land, 'wilderness') for colonisation (thus sexualising colonial landscapes as domains of male penetration), reconfiguring alien space as absolute, quantifiable and separable (as property)."<ref name="human geo">{{Cite book |title=The dictionary of human geography |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryhumang00greg |url-access=limited |date=2009 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=978-1-4051-3288-6 |editor-last=Gregory |editor-first=Derek |edition=5th |location=Chichester (UK) |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryhumang00greg/page/n114 96]–97 |editor-last2=Johnston |editor-first2=Ron |editor-last3=Pratt |editor-first3=Geraldine |editor-last4=Watts |editor-first4=Michael |editor-last5=Whatmore |editor-first5=Sarah}}</ref>
[[File:Arthur Mees Flags of A Free Empire 1910 Cornell CUL PJM 1167 01 (Reddit source).jpg|thumb|Map of the [[British Empire]] (as of 1910). At its height, it was the [[List of largest empires|largest empire]] in history.]]
David Livingstone stresses "that geography has meant different things at different times and in different places" and that we should keep an open mind in regards to the relationship between geography and colonialism instead of identifying boundaries.<ref name="Nayak" /> Geography as a discipline was not and is not an objective science, Painter and Jeffrey argue, rather it is based on assumptions about the physical world.<ref name="Painter" /> Comparison of [[wikt:exogeography|exogeographical]] representations of ostensibly tropical environments in science fiction art support this conjecture, finding the notion of the tropics to be an artificial collection of ideas and beliefs that are independent of geography.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Menadue |first=Christopher Benjamin |date=4 September 2018 |title=Cities in Flight: A Descriptive Examination of the Tropical City Imagined in Twentieth Century Science Fiction Cover Art |journal=ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics |language=en |volume=17 |issue=2 |doi=10.25120/etropic.17.2.2018.3658 |issn=1448-2940|doi-access=free }}</ref>

=== Ocean and space ===
{{Further|Ocean colonization|Space colonization}}
With contemporary advances in [[deep sea]] and [[outer space]] technologies, colonization of the [[seabed]] and the Moon have become an object of non-terrestrial colonialism.<ref name="Greenpeace Aotearoa 2018 m713">{{cite web | title=Deep sea mining and neocolonialism in the Pacific | website=Greenpeace Aotearoa | date=29 May 2018 | url=https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/story/deep-sea-mining-and-neocolonialism-in-the-pacific/ | access-date=12 March 2024}}</ref><ref name="RNZ 2023 g366">{{cite web | title=Our deep sea is being colonised | website=[[RNZ]] | date=4 April 2023 | url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/487299/our-deep-sea-is-being-colonised | access-date=12 March 2024}}</ref><ref name="Smiles 2024 f731">{{cite web | last=Smiles | first=Deondre | title=The Settler Logics of (Outer) Space | website=Society & Space | date=11 March 2024 | url=https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/the-settler-logics-of-outer-space | access-date=12 March 2024}}</ref><ref name="Greaves 2023 pp. 101–C3P68">{{cite book | last=Greaves | first=Margaret | title=Lyric Poetry and Space Exploration from Einstein to the Present | chapter="The Moon's Corpse Rising": The Poetic Moon and Imperialist Nostalgia from the U.S. to Kashmir | publisher=Oxford University PressOxford | date=22 June 2023 | isbn=978-0-19-286745-2 | doi=10.1093/oso/9780192867452.003.0004 | page=101–C3P68}}</ref>

== Versus imperialism ==
{{Excerpt|Imperialism#Versus colonialism|only=paragraphs}}

== Marxism ==
Marxism views colonialism as a form of capitalism, enforcing exploitation and social change. [[Karl Marx|Marx]] thought that working within the global capitalist system, colonialism is closely associated with uneven development. It is an "instrument of wholesale destruction, dependency and systematic exploitation producing distorted economies, socio-psychological disorientation, massive poverty and neocolonial dependency".<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia | entry-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jXl0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT174 |title = Encyclopedia of International Development|isbn = 9781136952913|editor-last1 = Forsyth|editor-first1 = Tim|date = 2005|publisher=Routledge|entry=colonialism, history of|last=Watts|first=Michael}}</ref> Colonies are constructed into modes of production. The search for raw materials and the current search for new investment opportunities is a result{{according to whom|date=May 2021}} of inter-capitalist rivalry for [[capital accumulation]].{{citation needed|date=May 2021}} [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] regarded colonialism as the root cause of imperialism, as imperialism was distinguished by monopoly capitalism via colonialism and as Lyal S. Sunga explains: "Vladimir Lenin advocated forcefully the principle of [[self-determination]] of peoples in his "Theses on the Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination" as an integral plank in the programme of socialist internationalism" and he quotes Lenin who contended that "The right of nations to self-determination implies exclusively the right to independence in the political sense, the right to free political separation from the oppressor nation. Specifically, this demand for political democracy implies complete freedom to agitate for secession and for a referendum on secession by the seceding nation."<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dbb8eQH-vbQC&pg=PA90 | title=The Emerging System of International Criminal Law: Developments in Codification and Implementation| isbn=9789041104724| last1=Sunga| first1=Lyal S.| date=1997|pages=90ff|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers}} Sunga traces the origin of the international movement against colonialism, and relates it to the rise of the right to self-determination in international law.</ref> Non-Russian Marxists within the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|RSFSR]] and later the [[Soviet Union|USSR]], like [[Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev|Sultan Galiev]] and [[Vasyl' Shakhrai|Vasyl Shakhrai]], meanwhile, between 1918 and 1923 and then after 1929, considered the [[Soviet empire|Soviet regime]] a renewed version of [[Russian imperialism|Russian imperialism and colonialism]].

In his critique of colonialism in Africa, the Guyanese historian and political activist [[Walter Rodney]] states:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CwSSkemSJLcC&pg=PA224 |title=How Europe Underdeveloped Africa |last=Walter Rodney |publisher=East African Publishers |isbn=978-9966-25-113-8 |pages=149, 224|year=1972 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eyiZafDHpqoC&pg=PA271 |title=A Companion To Postcolonial Studies |last1=Henry Schwarz |last2=Sangeeta Ray |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-470-99833-5 |page=271}}</ref><blockquote>The decisiveness of the short period of colonialism and its negative consequences for Africa spring mainly from the fact that Africa lost power. Power is the ultimate determinant in human society, being basic to the relations within any group and between groups. It implies the ability to defend one's interests and if necessary to impose one's will by any means available&nbsp;... When one society finds itself forced to relinquish power entirely to another society that in itself is a form of [[underdevelopment]]&nbsp;... During the centuries of pre-colonial trade, some control over social political and economic life was retained in Africa, in spite of the disadvantageous commerce with Europeans. That little control over internal matters disappeared under colonialism. Colonialism went much further than trade. It meant a tendency towards direct appropriation by Europeans of the social institutions within Africa. Africans ceased to set indigenous cultural goals and standards, and lost full command of training young members of the society. Those were undoubtedly major steps backwards&nbsp;... Colonialism was not merely a system of exploitation, but one whose essential purpose was to repatriate the profits to the so-called 'mother country'. From an African view-point, that amounted to consistent expatriation of surplus produced by African labour out of African resources. It meant the development of Europe as part of the same dialectical process in which Africa was underdeveloped. Colonial Africa fell within that part of the international capitalist economy from which surplus was drawn to feed the metropolitan sector. As seen earlier, exploitation of land and labour is essential for human social advance, but only on the assumption that the product is made available within the area where the exploitation takes place.</blockquote>According to Lenin, the new imperialism emphasised the transition of [[capitalism]] from [[free trade]] to a stage of [[monopoly]] capitalism to finance [[Capital (economics)|capital]]. He states it is, "connected with the intensification of the struggle for the partition of the world". As [[free trade]] thrives on [[exports]] of commodities{{according to whom|date=May 2021}}, monopoly capitalism thrived on the export of capital amassed by profits from banks and industry. This, to Lenin, was the highest stage of capitalism. He goes on to state that this form of capitalism was doomed for war between the capitalists and the exploited nations with the former inevitably losing. War is stated to be the consequence of imperialism. As a continuation of this thought, G.N. Uzoigwe states, "But it is now clear from more serious investigations of African history in this period that imperialism was essentially economic in its fundamental impulses."<ref>Boahen, A. Adu. ''Africa under Colonial Domination 1880–1935''. London: Heinemann, 1985. 11. Print.</ref>

== Liberalism and capitalism ==
[[Classical liberals]] were generally in abstract opposition to colonialism and imperialism, including [[Adam Smith]], [[Frédéric Bastiat]], [[Richard Cobden]], John Bright, Henry Richard, [[Herbert Spencer]], H.R. Fox Bourne, Edward Morel, Josephine Butler, W.J. Fox and [[William Ewart Gladstone]].<ref name="dk">[http://www.setav.org/ups/dosya/24514.pdf Liberal Anti-Imperialism] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110922011211/http://www.setav.org/ups/dosya/24514.pdf |date=22 September 2011 }}, professor Daniel Klein, 1 July 2004</ref> Their philosophies found the [[Imperialism|colonial enterprise]], particularly [[mercantilism]], in opposition to the principles of [[free trade]] and [[Political freedom|liberal policies]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2007 |title=Anticolonialism |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450 |publisher=Macmillan Reference USA |location=Detroit |url=https://www.academia.edu/9048629 |access-date=22 May 2015 |editor-last=Benjamin, Thomas |edition=Gale Virtual Reference Library |pages=57–65 |last=Hidalgo|first= Dennis}}</ref> [[Adam Smith]] wrote in ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'' that Britain should grant independence to all of its colonies and also argued that it would be economically beneficial for British people in the average, although the merchants having mercantilist privileges would lose out.<ref name=dk/><ref>{{Cite book |title=The nature and causes of the wealth of nations ("Of Colonies") |last=Smith, Adam |publisher=T. Cadell |year=1811 |location=London |pages=343–84}}</ref>

== Race and gender ==
During the colonial era, the global process of colonisation served to spread and synthesize the social and political belief systems of the "mother-countries" which often included a belief in a certain natural racial superiority of the race of the mother-country. Colonialism also acted to reinforce these same racial belief systems within the "mother-countries" themselves. Usually also included within the colonial belief systems was a certain belief in the inherent superiority of male over female. This particular belief was often pre-existing amongst the pre-colonial societies, prior to their colonisation.<ref name="Stoler 1989">{{Cite journal |last=Stoler |first=Ann L. |date=Nov 1989 |title=Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in 20th-Century Colonical Cultures |url=https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136501/1/ae.1989.16.4.02a00030.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190430113223/https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136501/1/ae.1989.16.4.02a00030.pdf |archive-date=30 April 2019 |url-status=live |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=634–60 |doi=10.1525/ae.1989.16.4.02a00030|hdl=2027.42/136501 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Fee">{{Cite journal |pmid = 394780|year = 1979|last1 = Fee|first1 = E.|title = Nineteenth-century craniology: The study of the female skull|journal = Bulletin of the History of Medicine|volume = 53|issue = 3|pages = 415–33}}</ref><ref name="Fausto-Sterling 2001">{{Cite book |chapter=Gender, Race, and Nation: The Comparative Anatomy of "Hottentot" women in Europe, 1815–1817 |last=Fausto-Sterling |first=Anne |title=The Gender and Science Reader |publisher=Routledge |year=2001 |editor-last=Muriel Lederman and Ingrid Bartsch|chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234102374}}</ref>

Popular political practices of the time reinforced colonial rule by legitimising European (and/ or Japanese) male authority, and also legitimising female and non-mother-country race inferiority through studies of [[craniology]], [[comparative anatomy]], and [[phrenology]].<ref name="Fee" /><ref name="Fausto-Sterling 2001" /><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CmJWBaANlsEC |title=The "Racial" Economy of Science |last=Stepan |first=Nancy |publisher=Indiana University press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-253-20810-1 |editor-last=Sandra Harding |edition=3 |pages=359–76}}</ref> Biologists, naturalists, anthropologists, and ethnologists of the 19th century were focused on the study of colonised indigenous women, as in the case of [[Georges Cuvier]]'s study of [[Saartjie Baartman|Sarah Baartman]].<ref name="Fausto-Sterling 2001" /> Such cases embraced a natural superiority and inferiority relationship between the races based on the observations of naturalists' from the mother-countries. European studies along these lines gave rise to the perception that African women's anatomy, and especially genitalia, resembled those of mandrills, baboons, and monkeys, thus differentiating colonised Africans from what were viewed as the features of the evolutionarily superior, and thus rightfully authoritarian, European woman.<ref name="Fausto-Sterling 2001" />

In addition to what would now be viewed as pseudo-scientific studies of race, which tended to reinforce a belief in an inherent mother-country racial superiority, a new supposedly "science-based" ideology concerning gender roles also then emerged as an adjunct to the general body of beliefs of inherent superiority of the colonial era.<ref name=Fee /> Female inferiority across all cultures was emerging as an idea supposedly supported by [[craniology]] that led scientists to argue that the typical brain size of the female human was, on the average, slightly smaller than that of the male, thus inferring that therefore female humans must be less developed and less evolutionarily advanced than males.<ref name=Fee /> This finding of relative cranial size difference was later attributed to the general typical size difference of the human male body versus that of the typical human female body.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/dec/04/male-female-brains-real-differences Male and female brains: the REAL differences] 10 February 2016, by Dean Burnett, The Guardian</ref>

Within the former European colonies, non-Europeans and women sometimes faced invasive studies by the colonial powers in the interest of the then prevailing pro-colonial scientific ideology of the day.<ref name="Fausto-Sterling 2001" />

== Othering ==
[[Othering]] is the process of creating a separate entity to persons or groups who are labelled as different or non-normal due to the repetition of characteristics.<ref name="Mountz">{{Cite book |title=The Other, Key Concepts in Human Geography |last=Mountz |first=Alison |pages=2}}</ref> Othering is the creation of those who discriminate, to distinguish, label, categorise those who do not fit in the societal norm. Several scholars in recent decades developed the notion of the "other" as an epistemological concept in social theory.<ref name="Mountz" /> For example, postcolonial scholars, believed that colonising powers explained an "other" who were there to dominate, civilise, and extract resources through colonisation of land.<ref name="Mountz" />

Political geographers explain how colonial/imperial powers "othered" places they wanted to dominate to legalise their exploitation of the land.<ref name="Mountz" /> During and after the rise of colonialism the Western powers perceived the East as the "other", being different and separate from their societal norm. This viewpoint and separation of culture had divided the Eastern and Western culture creating a dominant/subordinate dynamic, both being the "other" towards themselves.<ref name="Mountz" />

== Post-colonialism ==
{{Main| Post-colonialism|Postcolonial literature}}
{{Further| Dutch Indies literature}}{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2021}}[[File:HK Queen Victoria Street The Central Market.jpg|thumb| [[Queen Victoria Street, Hong Kong|Queen Victoria Street]] in the former British colony of [[Hong Kong]]]]
Post-colonialism (or post-colonial theory) can refer to a set of theories in philosophy and literature that grapple with the legacy of colonial rule. In this sense, one can regard post-colonial literature as a branch of [[postmodern literature]] concerned with the political and cultural independence of peoples formerly subjugated in colonial empires.

Many practitioners take [[Edward Said|Edward Saïd]]'s book [[Orientalism (book)|''Orientalism'']] (1978) as the theory's founding work (although French theorists such as [[Aimé Césaire]] (1913–2008) and [[Frantz Fanon]] (1925–1961) made similar claims decades before Saïd). Saïd analyzed the works of [[Honoré de Balzac|Balzac]], [[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]] and [[Lautréamont]], arguing that they helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority.

Writers of post-colonial fiction 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 ''[[Subaltern (post-colonialism)|Can the Subaltern Speak?]]'' (1998) gave its name to [[Subaltern Studies]].

In ''A Critique of Postcolonial Reason'' (1999), Spivak argued that major works of European [[metaphysics]] (such as those of [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] and [[Hegel]]) not only tend to exclude the subaltern from their discussions, but actively prevent non-Europeans from occupying positions as fully human [[subject (philosophy)|subjects]]. Hegel's ''[[Phenomenology of Spirit]]'' (1807), famous for its explicit ethnocentrism, considers [[Western culture|Western civilisation]] as the most accomplished of all, while Kant also had some traces of [[Racism|racialism]] in his work.

The 2014 [[YouGov]] survey found that British people are mostly proud of colonialism and the [[British Empire]]:<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/24/colonial-nostalgia-horrors-of-empire-britain-olympic |title=Colonial nostalgia is back in fashion, blinding us to the horrors of empire |date=24 August 2016|first=Kehinde|last=Andrews|author-link=Kehinde Andrews|newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref>

{{blockquote|A new YouGov survey finds that most think the British Empire is more something to be proud of (59%) than to be ashamed of (19%). 23% don't know. Young people are least likely to feel pride over shame when it comes to the Empire, though about half (48%) of 18–24 year olds do. In comparison, about two-thirds (65%) of over 60s feel mostly proud. ... A third of British people (34%) also say they would like it if Britain still had an empire. Under half (45%) say they would not like the Empire to exist today. 20% don't know.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/07/26/britain-proud-its-empire/ |title=The British Empire is 'something to be proud of' |last=Dahlgreen |first=Will |date=26 July 2014 |publisher=YouGov}}</ref>}}

== Colonistics ==
The field of '''colonistics''' studies colonialism from such viewpoints as those of economics, sociology and psychology.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gZCAAAAAQBAJ |title=The Sociology of the Colonies [Part 1]: An Introduction to the Study of Race Contact |last=Maunier |first=René |publisher=Routledge |year=1949 |isbn=978-1-136-24522-0 |series=International Library of Sociology |publication-date=2013 |page=137 |translator-last=Lorimer |translator-first=E.-O. |quote=There are thus three elements in Colonistics or colonial study: Colonial ''Economics'', Colonial ''Sociology'' and Colonial ''Psychology''. |access-date=7 December 2018}}</ref>

== Migrations ==
{{Further|Settler colonialism|Greater Europe}}
[[File:Tibetan Monks arrested in 2008 遭逮捕的西藏僧侶.jpg|thumb|right|Indigenous Tibetans protesting the [[Sinicization of Tibet]]]]
[[File:Emigrants Leave Ireland by Henry Doyle 1868.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Irish diaspora|Irish]] leaving Ireland, many in response to the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] in the 1840s]]

Nations and regions outside [[Huaxia|Northern China]] with significant populations of [[Han Chinese]] ancestry:
* [[Xinjiang]]: 42.24% Han settlers, 44.96% Indigenous<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgtrt/eng/news/t1884310.htm|title=Main Data of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region from the Seventh National Population Census|date=16 June 2021|website=www.fmprc.gov.cn|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220613171035/https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cgtrt/eng/news/t1884310.htm |archive-date=13 June 2022|publisher=Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Toronto|access-date=8 August 2021}}</ref>
* [[Tibet]]: disputed. 12.2% Han Chinese in the [[Tibet Autonomous Region]].<ref name=":12">{{Cite web |date=2 September 2021 |title=How Much Does Beijing Control the Ethnic Makeup of Tibet? |url=https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/how-much-does-beijing-control-ethnic-makeup-of-tibet |access-date=8 May 2023 |website=ChinaFile |language=en}}</ref>
* [[Taiwan]]: 95–97% Han Taiwanese, 2.3% Indigenous<ref>{{Cite thesis|url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/30h7d8r5|title=Re-conceptualizing Taiwan: Settler Colonial Criticism and Cultural Production|first=Lin-chin|last=Tsai|date=10 May 2019|via=escholarship.org}}</ref>
* [[Chuang Guandong|Manchuria]]: 80%+ Han Chinese, <20% Indigenous Manchurians.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=HQ5KbXYhEB8C&dq=sedentary+farming+manchu&pg=PA141 Richards 2003], p. 141.</ref>

Nations and regions outside Europe with significant populations of [[European ethnic groups|European]] ancestry<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2075.html Ethnic groups by country.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190106010801/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2075.html |date=6 January 2019 }} Statistics (where available) from CIA Factbook.</ref>

[[File:Boerfamily1886.jpg|thumb|right|[[Boer]] family in South Africa, 1886]]
* '''[[Africa]]''' (see [[Europeans in Africa]])
** [[South Africa]] ([[European South African]]): 5.8% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=South Africa|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Namibia]] ([[European Namibians]]): 6.5% of the population, of which most are Afrikaans-speaking, in addition to a German-speaking minority.<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Naimbia|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Réunion]]: estimated to be approximately 25% of the population<ref name="advan">{{Cite journal |last1=Tarnus |first1=Evelyne |last2=Bourdon |first2=Emmanuel |s2cid=19474655 |year=2006 |title=Anthropometric evaluations of body composition of undergraduate students at the University of La Réunion |journal=Advances in Physiology Education |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=248–53 |doi=10.1152/advan.00069.2005 |pmid=17108254}}</ref>
** [[Zimbabwe]] ([[Europeans in Zimbabwe]])
** [[Algeria]] ([[Pied-noir]])<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5224244.stm |title=Former settlers return to Algeria |last=Laurenson |first=John |date=29 July 2006 |work=BBC News}}</ref>
** [[Botswana]]: 3% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Botswana|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Kenya]] ([[Europeans in Kenya]])
** [[Mauritius]] ([[Franco-Mauritian]])
** [[Morocco]] ([[European Moroccans]])<ref>De Azevedo, Raimondo Cagiano (1994) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=N8VHizsqaH0C&pg=PA25 Migration and development co-operation.]''. Council of Europe. p. 25. {{ISBN|92-871-2611-9}}.</ref>
** [[Ivory Coast]] ([[French people]])<ref>"[http://countrystudies.us/ivory-coast/41.htm Ivory Coast – The Economy]". [[Library of Congress Country Studies]].</ref>
** [[Senegal]]<ref>[https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2862.htm Senegal], About 50,000 Europeans (mostly French) and Lebanese reside in Senegal, mainly in the cities.</ref>
** [[Canary Islands]] ([[Spanish people|Spaniards]]), known as [[Canarian people|Canarians]].
** [[Seychelles]] ([[Franco-Seychellois]])
** [[Somalia]] ([[Italian Somalis]])
** [[Eritrea]] ([[Italian Eritreans]])
** [[Saint Helena]] (UK) including [[Tristan da Cunha]] (UK): predominantly European.
** [[Eswatini]]: 3% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Eswatini|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Tunisia]] ([[European Tunisians]])<ref>[http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2586700129.html Tunisia], Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations. Thomson Gale. 2007. ''Encyclopedia.com''.</ref>
[[File:Prokudin-Gorskii Russians in Central Asia.jpg|thumb|Russian settlers in [[Russian Turkestan|Central Asia]], present-day Kazakhstan, 1911]]
* '''[[Asia]]'''
** [[Siberia]] ([[Russians]], [[Volga Germans|Germans]] and [[Ukrainians in Russia|Ukrainians]])<ref>Fiona Hill, [http://www.theglobalist.com/printStoryId.aspx?StoryId=3727 Russia — Coming In From the Cold?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110715022142/http://www.theglobalist.com/printStoryId.aspx?StoryId=3727 |date=15 July 2011 }}, [[The Globalist]], 23 February 2004</ref><ref>"[http://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Siberian-Germans-Orientation.html Siberian Germans]".</ref>
** [[Kazakhstan]] ([[Russians in Kazakhstan]], [[Germans of Kazakhstan]]): 30% of the population<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=YLeAxHLmgR8C&pg=PA15 ''Migrant Resettlement in the Russian Federation''] by Moya Flynn. (1994). p. 15.
{{ISBN|1-84331-117-8}}</ref><ref name="russians" />
** [[Uzbekistan]] ([[Russian diaspora|Russians]] and other [[Slavs]]): 6% of the population<ref name="russians">Robert Greenall, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4420922.stm "Russians left behind in Central Asia"], [[BBC News]], 23 November 2005.</ref>
** [[Kyrgyzstan]] (Russians and other Slavs): 14% of the population<ref name="russians" /><ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Kyrgyzstan|section=People and Society}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XRXVbGwPgqIC&pg=PA125 ''The Kyrgyz – Children of Manas''] by Petr Kokaisl, Pavla Kokaislova (2009). p. 125. {{ISBN|80-254-6365-6}}.</ref>
** [[Turkmenistan]] (Russians and other Slavs): 4% of the population<ref name="russians" /><ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Turkemistan|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Tajikistan]] (Russians and other Slavs): 1% of the population<ref name="russians" /><ref>[http://countrystudies.us/tajikistan/23.htm Tajikistan – Ethnic Groups]. Source: ''U.S. Library of Congress''.</ref>
** [[Hong Kong]]<ref>HK Census. "
[http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hong_kong_statistics/statistical_tables/index.jsp?htmlTableID=139&excelID=&chartID=&tableID=139&ID=&subjectID=1 HK Census] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071208065844/http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/hong_kong_statistics/statistical_tables/index.jsp?htmlTableID=139&excelID=&chartID=&tableID=139&ID=&subjectID=1 |date=8 December 2007 }}". ''Statistical Table''. Retrieved on 8 March 2007.</ref>
** [[Philippines]] (Spanish Ancestry): 3% of the population
** [[China]] ([[Russians in China]])
** [[Indian subcontinent]] ([[Anglo-Indians]])
* '''[[Latin America]]''' (see [[White Latin American]]) [[File:Italians Sao Paulo - original.jpg|thumb|right|Italian immigrants arriving in [[São Paulo]], Brazil, {{c.|1890}}]]
** [[Argentina]] ([[Ethnography of Argentina#Ethnic groups|European Immigration to Argentina]]): 97% European and mestizo of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Argentina|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Bolivia]]: 15% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Bolivia|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Brazil]] ([[White Brazilian]]): 47% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Brazil|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Chile]] ([[White Latin American#Chile|White Chilean]]): 60–70% of the population.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LcabJ98-t1wC&q=chile+60%25+blancos+Esteva-Fabregat&pg=PA93 |title=Composición Étnica de las Tres Áreas Culturales del Continente Americano al Comienzo del Siglo XXI |last=Fernández, Francisco Lizcano |publisher=UAEM |year=2007 |isbn=978-970-757-052-8}}</ref><ref>[http://www.infoamerica.org/primera/lb_2011.pdf Informe Latinobarómetro 2011], [[Latinobarómetro]] (p. 58).</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Cruz-Coke |first1=R. |last2=Moreno |first2=R. S. |year=1994 |title=Genetic epidemiology of single gene defects in Chile |journal=Journal of Medical Genetics |volume=31 |issue=9 |pages=702–706 |doi=10.1136/jmg.31.9.702 |pmc=1050080 |pmid=7815439}}</ref>
** [[Colombia]] ([[White Colombian]]): 37% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Columbia|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Costa Rica]]: 83% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Costa Rica|section=People and Society|access-date=21 November 2007 }} = 3.9 million whites and mestizos</ref>
** [[Cuba]] ([[White Cuban]]): 65% of the population<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.cubagob.cu/otras_info/censo/tablas_html/ii_3.htm |title=Tabla II.3 Población por color de la piel y grupos de edades, según zona de residencia y sexo |year=2002 |website=Censo de Población y Viviendas |publisher=Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas |language=es |access-date=13 October 2008 |archive-date=14 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110414135412/http://www.cubagob.cu/otras_info/censo/tablas_html/ii_3.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>
** [[Dominican Republic]]: 16% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Dominican Republic|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Ecuador]]: 7% of the population<ref name="EC">{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Ecuador|section=People and Society|access-date=26 November 2007}}</ref>
** [[Honduras]]: 1% of the population<ref name="CIATONGA">{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Honduras|date= 19 October 2021}}</ref>
** [[El Salvador]]: 12% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=El Salvador|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Mexico]] ([[White Mexican]]): 9% or ~17% of the population.<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Mexico|section=People and Society|access-date=24 January 2010}}</ref><ref name="MEG">{{Cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/379167/Mexico |title=Mexico: Ethnic Groups |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|date=23 February 2024 }}</ref> and 70–80% more as [[Mestizo]]s.<ref name="MEG"/>
** [[Nicaragua]]: 17% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Nicaragua|section=People and Society|access-date=15 November 2007}}</ref>
** [[Panama]]: 10% of the population<ref name="PA">{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Panama|section=People and Society|access-date=21 November 2007}}</ref>
** [[Puerto Rico]]: approx. 80% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Puerto Rico|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Peru]] ([[European Peruvian]]): 15% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Peru|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Paraguay]]: approx. 20% of the population<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Francisco Lizcano Fernández |title=Composición Étnica de las Tres Áreas Culturales del Continente Americano al Comienzo del Siglo XXI |journal=Convergencia |number=38 |date=May–August 2005 |url=http://convergencia.uaemex.mx/rev38/38pdf/LIZCANO.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130626010236/http://convergencia.uaemex.mx/rev38/38pdf/LIZCANO.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=26 June 2013 |publisher=UAEM, México |issn=1405-1435}}</ref>
** [[Uruguay]] ([[White Latin American#Uruguay|White Uruguayan]]): 88% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Uruguay|section=People and Society}}</ref>[[File:Menonite Children.JPG|thumb|[[Mennonites in Belize|Mennonites]] of German descent in [[Belize]] ]]
** [[Venezuela]] ([[White Venezuelan]]): 42% of the population<ref>[http://www.ine.gov.ve/CENSO2011/documentos/pdf/ResultadosBasicosCenso2011.pdf Resultado Basico del XIV Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2011] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171203105548/http://www.ine.gov.ve/CENSO2011/documentos/pdf/ResultadosBasicosCenso2011.pdf |date=3 December 2017 }} (p. 14).</ref>
* Rest of the '''[[Americas]]'''
** [[Bahamas]]: 12% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Bahamas The|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Barbados]] ([[White Barbadian]]): 4% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Barbados|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Bermuda]]: 34% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Bermuda|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Canada]] ([[European Canadians]]): 80% of the population<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/tbt/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=837928&GK=0&GRP=1&PID=92334&PRID=0&PTYPE=88971,97154&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2006&THEME=80&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF= |title=Canadian Census 2006 |access-date=23 August 2012 |archive-date=19 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019141854/http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/tbt/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=837928&GK=0&GRP=1&PID=92334&PRID=0&PTYPE=88971,97154&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2006&THEME=80&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF= |url-status=dead }}</ref>
** [[Falkland Islands]]: mostly of British descent.
** [[French Guiana]]: 12% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=French Guiana|section=People and Society|year=2006}}</ref>
** [[Greenland]]: 12% of the population<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.stalvik.com/Engelska/laegreenland.htm| title = Greenland| access-date = 23 August 2012| archive-date = 23 September 2010| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100923001626/http://www.stalvik.com/Engelska/laegreenland.htm| url-status = dead}}</ref>
** [[Martinique]]: 5% of the population<ref>[http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2003/geos/mb.html#People Martinique: People: Ethnic Groups.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180911195426/http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2003/geos/mb.html#People |date=11 September 2018 }} World Factbook of CIA</ref>
** [[Saint Barthélemy]]<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.cieux.com/stbarth/stbfact.html| title = Fact Sheet on St. Barthélemy}}</ref>
** [[Trinidad and Tobago]]:<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/trinidad.html| title = Trinidad French Creole}}</ref> 1% of the population[[File:Portuguese immigrant family in Hawaii during the 19th century.jpg|thumb|[[Portuguese American|Portuguese]] immigrant family in Hawaii during the 19th century]]
** [[United States]] ([[European American]]): 72% of the population, including [[White Hispanic and Latino Americans|Hispanic]] and [[Non-Hispanic Whites]].
* '''[[Oceania]]''' (see [[Europeans in Oceania]])
** [[Australia]] ([[European Australians]]): 90% of the population
** [[New Zealand]] ([[European New Zealanders]]): 78% of the population
** [[New Caledonia]] ([[Caldoche]]): 35% of the population
** [[French Polynesia]]: ([[Zoreilles]]) 10% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=French Polynesia|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Hawaii]]: 25% of the population<ref>{{cite web |url = https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=DEC_10_DP_DPDP1&prodType=table |title = American FactFinder – Results<!-- Bot generated title --> |archive-url=https://archive.today/20190521214830/https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=DEC_10_DP_DPDP1&prodType=table |archive-date=21 May 2019 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
** [[Christmas Island]]: approx. 20% of the population.
** [[Guam]]: 7% of the population<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Guam|section=People and Society}}</ref>
** [[Norfolk Island]]: 9→5% of the population

== See also ==
{{Portal|History}}
{{Div col|colwidth=20em|rules=yes|gap=2em}}
* [[African independence movements]]
* [[Age of Discovery]]
* [[Anti-imperialism]]
* [[Chartered company]]
* [[Chinese imperialism]]
* [[Christianity and colonialism]]
* [[Civilising mission]]
* [[Client state]]
* [[Colonial Empire]]
* [[Colonialism and the Olympic Games]]
* [[Coloniality of power]]
* [[Colonial war]]
* [[Cultural colonialism]]
* [[Decoloniality]]
* [[Decolonization of the Americas]]
* [[Developmentalism]]
* [[Direct colonial rule]]
* [[Empire of Liberty]]
* [[European colonization of Africa]]
* [[European colonization of the Americas]]
* [[European colonization of Micronesia]]
* [[European colonisation of Southeast Asia]]
* [[French law on colonialism]]
* [[German eastward expansion]]
* [[Global Empire]]
* [[Historiography of the British Empire]]
* [[Impact of Western European colonialism and colonisation]]
* [[International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)]]
* [[Early Muslim conquests|Muslim conquests]]
* [[Orientalism]]
* [[Pluricontinental]]
* [[Protectorate]]
* [[Right of conquest]]
* [[Satellite state]]
* [[Stranger King (Concept)]]
* [[Western imperialism in Asia]]
{{div col end}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

== Further reading ==
* Albertini, Rudolf von. ''European Colonial Rule, 1880–1940: The Impact of the West on India, Southeast Asia, and Africa'' (Praeger: 1982) 581 pp
* Benjamin, Thomas, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450'' (Cengage Gale: 2006)
* Cooper, Frederick. ''Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History'' (University of California Press: 2005)
* Cotterell, Arthur. ''Western Power in Asia: Its Slow Rise and Swift Fall, 1415–1999'' (Wiley: 2009) popular history; [https://www.amazon.com/Western-Power-Asia-Slow-Swift/dp/0470824891/ excerpt]
* Getz, Trevor R. and Heather Streets-Salter, eds.: ''Modern Imperialism and Colonialism: A Global Perspective'' (Pearson College Div: 2010)
* {{cite journal |last1=Jensen |first1=Niklas Thode |last2=Simonsen |first2=Gunvor |year=2016 |title=Introduction: The historiography of slavery in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies, {{c.|1950}}–2016 |journal=[[Scandinavian Journal of History]] |volume=41 |issue=4–5 |pages=475–494 |doi=10.1080/03468755.2016.1210880 |doi-access=free}}
* LeCour Grandmaison, Olivier: ''Coloniser, Exterminer – Sur la guerre et l'Etat colonial'', Fayard, 2005, {{ISBN|2-213-62316-3}}
* Lindqvist, Sven: ''Exterminate All The Brutes'', 1992, New Press; Reprint edition (June 1997), {{ISBN|978-1-56584-359-2}}
* Morris, Richard B. and Graham W. Irwin, eds. ''Harper Encyclopedia of the Modern World: A Concise Reference History from 1760 to the Present'' (1970) [https://archive.org/details/harperencycloped00morr online]
* Ness, Immanuel and Zak Cope, eds. ''The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism'' (2 vol 2015), 1456 pp
* Nuzzo, Luigi: [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0159-2012041215 ''Colonial Law''], [[European History Online]], Mainz: [[Institute of European History]], 2010, retrieved: 17 December 2012.
* Osterhammel, Jürgen: ''Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview'', Princeton, NJ: M. Wiener, 1997.
* Page, Melvin E. et al. eds. ''Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia'' (3 vol 2003)
* Petringa, Maria, ''Brazza, A Life for Africa'' (2006), {{ISBN|978-1-4259-1198-0}}.
* [[Vijay Prashad|Prashad, Vijay]]: ''The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World'', The New Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-1-56584-785-9}}
* {{cite book|first=Andres |last=[[Andres Resendez|Resendez]]|title= The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z2gpCgAAQBAJ&q=Rese%CC%81ndez%2C%20Andre%CC%81s.%202017.%20The%20other%20slavery%3A%20the%20uncovered%20story%20of%20indian%20enslavement%20in%20America.&pg=PP1|year=2016|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|pages=448|isbn=978-0544602670}}
* Rönnbäck, K. & Broberg, O. (2019) Capital and Colonialism. The Return on British Investments in Africa 1869–1969 (Palgrave Studies in Economic History)
* Schill, Pierre: ''Réveiller l'archive d'une guerre coloniale. Photographies et écrits de Gaston Chérau, correspondant de guerre lors du conflit italo-turc pour la Libye (1911–1912)'', Créaphis, 480 p., 2018 ({{ISBN|978-2-35428-141-0}}). ''Awaken the archive of a colonial war. Photographs and writings of a French war correspondent during the Italo-Turkish war in Libya (1911–1912)''. With contributions from art historian Caroline Recher, critic Smaranda Olcèse, writer Mathieu Larnaudie and historian Quentin Deluermoz.
* Stuchtey, Benedikt: [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0159-20101025319 ''Colonialism and Imperialism, 1450–1950''], [[European History Online]], Mainz: [[Institute of European History]], 2011, retrieved: 13 July 2011.
* Townsend, Mary Evelyn. ''European colonial expansion since 1871'' (1941).
* U.S. Tariff Commission. ''Colonial tariff policies'' (1922), worldwide; 922pp [https://archive.org/details/colonialtariffpo00unit survey online]
* Wendt, Reinhard: [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0159-20100921437 ''European Overseas Rule''], [[European History Online]], Mainz: [[Institute of European History]], 2011, retrieved: 13 June 2012.

=== Primary sources ===
* [[Joseph Conrad|Conrad, Joseph]], ''[[Heart of Darkness]]'', 1899
* [[Frantz Fanon|Fanon, Frantz]], ''[[The Wretched of the Earth]]'', Preface by [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]. Translated by Constance Farrington. London: Penguin Book, 2001
* [[Bartolomé de las Casas|Las Casas, Bartolomé de]], ''[[A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies]]'' (1542, published in 1552).

== External links ==
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