Colonialism

Historical Overview

Most scholars mark Portuguese and Spanish exploration and expansion that began in the 15th century as the definitive launch of colonialism. The Portuguese rediscovered and colonized the islands of Madeira in 1419 and the Azores in 1427, and they later discovered new trade routes to West Africa and India and established forts and colonies in both. By 1500, Portuguese explorers reached South America and established the colony of Brazil, and by 1557, Portugal held a monopoly as the middleman for trade between China and Japan. Establishing these colonies allowed Portugal to dominate the sugar trade, which at the time was a dominant source of agricultural wealth. Because of the intense labor associated with sugar cane cultivation, Portugal also dominated the slave trade, which primarily used African slaves to toil in the sugar plantations.

Starting with the now-famous voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, the Spanish ultimately colonized islands in the Caribbean, large portions of both South and North America, territories in North Africa, and islands in the Far East, including the Philippines, Guam, and surrounding islands. Spanish colonization, especially on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), was marked by its genocidal treatment of the indigenous people, the Taínos. Like Portugal, the Spanish turned to importing African slaves to replace Hispaniola's decimated indigenous workforce. On the American mainland, Spain's conquest of both the Inca and Aztec empires provided the Spanish with vast reserves of gold and silver. In fact, the silver reserves found in Spain's American colonies were so vast that by the late 1500s, the extractions from these mines constituted one fifth of the Spanish treasury.

Although Pope Alexander VI had issued a series of papal bulls in 1493 dividing colonial acquisitions between Spain and Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and England ignored the Vatican's allotments and pursued their own colonial interests. In the early 17th century, the Netherlands (the Dutch) began to successfully build a colonial empire. Working primarily through state-chartered corporate trading companies, the Dutch East and West India Companies, the Netherlands managed to acquire some of Portugal's colonies in Asia, especially Malacca and Jakarta. After the Japanese expelled the Portuguese from Japan in 1639, the Dutch readily stepped in, and the Netherlands was the only European power allowed to operate in Japan. The Dutch also colonized Sri Lanka, a portion of Java, and parts of Indonesia. Other important colonies established by the Dutch include the Cape Colony in 1652, which eventually evolved into modern-day South Africa, and New Amsterdam in 1626 on Manhattan Island, which, after being taken over by the English, became New York. Acquiring these colonies allowed the Dutch to control much of the spice trade, especially cloves, and of course to expand their territories and their coffers. [Page 104]Additionally, like Portugal and Spain before them, the Dutch also used African slaves in their colonies and were able to spread European culture and identity on a global scale.

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