What Is Colonialism? Definition and Examples

Colonialism is the practice of one country taking full or partial political control of another country and occupying it with settlers for purposes of profiting from its resources and economy. Since both practices involve the political and economic control of a dominant country over a vulnerable territory, colonialism can be hard to distinguish from imperialism. From ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century, powerful countries openly scrambled to expand their influence through colonialism. By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, European powers had colonized countries on virtually every continent. While colonialism is no longer so aggressively practiced, there is evidence that it remains a force in today’s world. Key Takeaways: Colonialism Colonialism is the process of a country taking full or partial political control of a dependent country, territory, or people. Colonialism occurs when people from one country settle in another country for the purpose of exploiting its people and natural resources. Colonial powers typically attempt to impose their own languages and cultures on the indigenous peoples of the countries they colonize. Colonialism is similar to imperialism, the process of using force and influence to control another country or people. By 1914, a majority of the world’s countries had been colonized by Europeans. Colonialism Definition In essence, colonialism is an act of political and economic domination involving the control of a country and its people by settlers from a foreign power. In most cases, the goal of the colonizing countries is to profit by exploiting the human and economic resources of the countries they colonized. In the process, the colonizers—sometimes forcibly—attempt to impose their religion, language, cultural, and political practices on the indigenous population. While colonization is typically viewed negatively due to its often-disastrous history and similarity to imperialism, some countries have benefited from having been colonized. For example, leaders of modern Singapore—a British colony from 1826 to 1965—credit the “valuable aspects of colonial heritage” with the independent city-state’s impressive economic development. In many cases, being colonized gave underdeveloped or emerging countries immediate access to the burdening European trade market. As the major European nations’ need for natural resources grew ever greater during the industrial revolution, their colonized countries were able to sell them those materials for substantial profits. Especially for many of the European, African, and Asian countries affected by British colonialism, the advantages were numerous. Besides lucrative trade contracts, English institutions, such as common law, private property rights, and formal banking and lending practices provided the colonies a positive basis for economic growth that would propel them to future independence. In many cases, however, the negative effects of colonialism far outweighed the positive. The governments of the occupying countries often imposed harsh new laws and taxes on the indigenous people. Confiscation and destruction of native lands and culture were common. Due to the combined effects of colonialism and imperialism, scores of indigenous people were enslaved, murdered, or died of disease and starvation. Countless others were driven from their homes and scattered across the globe. For example, many members of the African diaspora in the United States trace their roots to the so-called “Scramble for Africa, ” an unprecedented period of imperialism and colonialism from 1880 to 1900 that left most of the African continent colonized by European powers. Today, it is believed that only two African countries, Ethiopia and Liberia, escaped European colonialism. Imperialism vs. Colonialism While the two terms are often used interchangeably, colonialism and imperialism have slightly different meanings. While colonialism is the physical act of dominating another country, imperialism is the political ideology that drives that act. In other words, colonialism can be thought of as a tool of imperialism. Imperialism and colonialism both imply the suppression of one country by another. Similarly, through both colonialism and imperialism, the aggressor countries look to profit economically and create a strategic military advantage in the region. However, unlike colonialism, which always involves the direct establishment of physical settlements in another country, imperialism refers to the direct or indirect political and monetary dominance of another country, either with or without the need for a physical presence. Countries that undertake colonialism do so mainly to benefit economically from the exploitation of the valuable natural and human resources of the colonized country. In contrast, countries pursue imperialism in hopes of creating sprawling empires by extending their political, economic, and military dominance over entire regions if not entire continents. A few examples of countries generally considered to have been affected by colonialism during their histories include America, Australia, New Zealand, Algeria, and Brazil—countries that came to be controlled by a large number of settlers from European powers. Typical examples of imperialism, cases in which foreign control is established without any significant settlement, include the European dominance of most African countries in the late 1800s and the domination of the Philippines and Puerto Rico by the United States. History The practice of colonialism dates to around 1550 BCE when Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, and Phoenicia began extending their control into adjacent and non-contiguous territories. Using their superior military power, these ancient civilizations established colonies that made use of the skills and resources of the people they conquered to further expand their empires. The first phase of modern colonialism began in the 15th century during the Age of Exploration. Looking for new trading routes and civilizations beyond Europe, Portuguese explorers conquered the North African territory of Ceuta in 1419, creating an empire that would endure until 1999 as the longest-lived of the modern European colonial empires. After Portugal further grew its empire by colonizing the populated central Atlantic islands of Madeira and Cape Verde, its arch-rival Spain decided to try its hand at exploration. In 1492, Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus sailed searching for a western sea route to China and India. Instead, he landed in the Bahamas, marking the beginning of Spanish colonialism. Now battling each other for new territories to exploit, Spain and Portugal went on to colonize and control indigenous lands in the Americas, India, Africa, and Asia. Colonialism flourished during the 17th century with the establishment of the French and Dutch overseas empires, along with the English overseas possessions—including the colonial United States—which would later become the sprawling British Empire. Spanning the globe to cover nearly 25% of the Earth’s surface at the peak of its power in the early 1900s, the British Empire was justifiably known as “the empire on which the sun never sets. ” The end of the American Revolution in 1783 marked the beginning of the first era of decolonization during which most of the European colonies in the Americas gained their independence. Spain and Portugal were permanently weakened by the loss of their New World colonies. Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Germany made the Old World countries of South Africa, India, and Southeast Asia the targets of their colonial efforts. Between the opening of the Suez Canal and the Second Industrial Revolution in the late 1870s and the start of World War I in 1914, European colonialism became known as “New Imperialism. ” In the name of what was termed “empire for empire’s sake, ” the Western European powers, the United States, Russia, and Japan competed in acquiring vast areas of overseas territory. In many cases, this new hyper-aggressive brand of imperialism resulted in the colonization of countries in which the subjugated majority indigenous populations were denied basic human rights through the enforcement of doctrines of racial superiority such as the White minority-ruled system of apartheid in British-controlled South Africa. A final period of decolonization began after World War I, when the League of Nations divided the German colonial empire among the victorious allied powers of Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan, and the United States. Influenced by the famous 1918 Fourteen Points speech by U. S. President Woodrow Wilson, the League mandated that the former German possessions be made independent as soon as possible. During this period, the Russian and Austrian colonial empires also collapsed. Decolonization sped ahead after the end of World War II in 1945. The defeat of Japan spelled the end of the Japanese colonial empire in the Western Pacific and East Asian countries. It also showed still subjugated indigenous people around the world that colonial powers were not invincible. As a result, all remaining colonial empires were greatly weakened. During the Cold War, global independence movements such as the United Nations’ 1961 Non-Aligned Movement led to successful wars for independence from colonial rule in Vietnam, Indonesia, Algeria, and Kenya. Pressured by the United States and the then Soviet Union, the European powers accepted the inevitability of decolonization. Types of Colonialism Colonialism is generally classified by one of five overlapping types according to the practice’s particular goals and consequences on the subjugated territory and its indigenous peoples. These are settler colonialism; exploitation colonialism; plantation colonialism; surrogate colonialism; and internal colonialism.