Colonialism

Form of imperialism in which a stronger nation gains territorial, political, and economic control and establishes substantial social and psychological influence over a weaker territory. Throughout history, nations have established colonies as a way to enhance security by boosting their home economies and projecting power outside national borders.

Forms and Purposes of Colonialism

In its original sense, a colony consisted of a group of permanent settlers who moved from one region to establish residence in another territory. During the “age of exploration” from the 15th to the 17th centuries, European nations attempted, with varying success, to establish colonies throughout the Americas. However, traditional colonies were fragile and typically required a great deal of support, patience, and luck on the part of the founding nation to prosper. The first English colonies in North America fought desperately simply to survive. By the eve of the American Revolution some 150 years later, England was still struggling to make its North American colonies pay for themselves.

In some instances, strong states have established colonies by exerting military and political control over the indigenous population of a territory rather than trying to settle their own people there. This was typical of the pattern of European colonization in Africa and Asia during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This [Page 140]colonial strategy required a minimum commitment of manpower and money from the colonizing power. It was designed to create colonies that were self-supporting and could turn a rapid profit for the controlling power. The European powers used their military and technological superiority to establish control over existing local states and then passed laws and implemented discriminatory social practices that rendered the local population politically and economically powerless.

Indigenous peoples often attempted resistance to forceable colonization, but most such attempts failed. The colonizers brought superior weaponry and infectious diseases that devastated local populations, and they exploited local tensions by pitting rival indigenous groups against one another. All of these factors undermined the effectiveness of local resistance.

Although economic factors motivated much of the colonial enterprise, colonies also had strategic political and military value. Overseas colonies served as bases from which European powers could expand their national territory without coming into direct conflict with rival nations. They also occasionally served as distant theaters of war for continental armies that might otherwise fight in Europe. For example, France and Great Britain engaged in a series of colonial wars in North America and the Caribbean during the mid-1700s. These conflicts often pitted French regular army forces and their native American allies against British troops and militia formations composed of English colonists. Great Britain's colonies also served as a series of permanent naval stations from which to defend and expand its maritime empire.

Economics and Politics of Colonialism

Virtually all of the benefits of the colonial system flowed to the colonizing power, which profited from extracting the natural resources of the colony. Because the colonizer set wages and controlled extraction costs, it could obtain resources cheaply. This, in turn, often spurred economic development in the colonizing nation. For example, the cheap cotton that Great Britain obtained from its colonies during the 18th and 19th centuries stimulated the growth of the British textile industry, which developed the earliest factories to keep up with the demand for cloth. This not only helped Great Britain overtake the Netherlands as the world's leading textile producer but also ushered in the industrial age, with the British at its forefront. Colonial gains translated into relative gains in power, greater economic stability, and (by extension) greater military security.

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