History of colonialism

The era of modern colonialism began around 1500. /kloc-at the end of 0/5, Europeans discovered the route to the Indian Ocean and America. Since then, the commercial and trade center has gradually moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and there have been colonial countries such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain. Their colonial expansion activities spread all over the world, but also spread the European system and culture. 1450- 1763 the first stage of colonial expansion of European countries. Although the Crusades opened up new commercial and political ties between Muslims in Europe and the Near East, the eastern trade through the Mediterranean was monopolized by the Republics of Venice and Genoa, and western European countries were eager to seek wealth in the East. The progress of geographical knowledge, the introduction of compass and the development of shipbuilding technology make ocean navigation possible. /kloc-After the middle of the 5th century, Portugal first colonized Madeira Islands and Azores Islands.

1498 da gama sailed around the cape of good hope to India, which was the beginning of Portuguese trade with India. Since then, Portugal began to change the policy of pure trade, and began to conquer the strongholds on the commercial road, build fortifications, deploy officers and soldiers, and ensure the smooth flow of its trade.

15 10, Portugal occupied goa, making it the base camp of the Portuguese colonial empire in the east; Then expand in Southeast Asia and Brazil in America.

1553 leased China and Macau as a stronghold to trade with China for 300 years. The Spanish colonial period lasted nearly three centuries. Since 1492 discovered the new continent, Spain has actively colonized America.

1494, under the arbitration of Pope Alexander VI, Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Todd silas to carve up the world. Spain established a huge colonial empire in Central and South America, the Spanish Empire, and implemented a cruel slavery policy towards the indigenous people, which drastically reduced the indigenous population from 50 million when the Spanish first arrived to 4 million in the17th century. The opening of the new sea route has completely changed the situation in Europe. Countries that used to be close to the Atlantic Ocean are now in the center and begin to move towards the outside world. Colonial countries gradually replaced feudal principalities and polis. The massive inflow of gold and silver from the United States caused the price revolution in Europe. In Britain, the price of 1650 is 250% of 1500. The change of business has promoted the development of industry, and money brokers have replaced the original barter. With the development of foreign trade, the diet structure of Europeans has also changed. Coffee, chocolate, tea, tobacco and potatoes have entered the European market in large quantities. Italy's position as a commercial center and the Hanseatic League in the Baltic Sea has greatly declined, and it has been replaced by the new Britain, France and the Netherlands. By the second half of16th century, Portugal and Spain had to face the challenges of these countries.

The Netherlands won its independence at the end of 16 and developed into the earliest maritime and commercial country in the world in 17. The Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, is headquartered in Batavia, Java, which is the center of the Netherlands in the East, and trades with China, Japan, India, Ceylon and Persia through it. At first, the Dutch infiltration into the East was not mainly colonial, but monopolized local trade and supplied coffee, spices and other commodities needed by the country.

1624 The Netherlands occupied Taiwan Province Province for 38 years. At the same time, actively colonized North America and established the Dutch West India Company. /kloc-France began to colonize foreign countries in the 6th century. 1603 established a new French colony in North America, competing for India and Britain in the east, and was finally squeezed out by Britain. Britain set up Moscow Company in 1553, made a few transactions with Russia, and then turned to the northwest route.

/kloc-in 0/600, the British East India Company was established by London businessmen, and expanded vigorously in the Indian Peninsula. 1588 After Britain defeated the Spanish Armada, it also opened colonial activities to America. Britain's colonies on the North American continent are mostly in the eastern coastal areas, mainly engaged in agriculture, and many ships trade with Britain, Africa and the West Indies. By 1763, Boston, new york, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, South Carolina and other towns have all developed into cities. In order to adapt to the expansion of colonial activities, several colonial countries revived slavery that had died out frequently in the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean region. The Portuguese began to use Berbers as slaves in 1442. The Spanish began to import African blacks to America in 1502 to make up for the labor shortage caused by the mass slaughter of Indians. The slave trade in Britain and the Netherlands began in 1562 and 16 19 respectively. By the middle of18th century, the slave trade reached its peak. 1763, Britain had 150 ships to Africa to carry nearly 40,000 slaves.

From 1689 to 1763, there were four wars between Britain and France. Although the wars took place in Europe, they greatly changed the face of the colonies, especially in the fourth war, the Seven-Year War, Britain won a great victory, winning all the territories east of Canada and the Mississippi River, as well as Florida in Spain. In this way, after a century and a half of colonization, Britain became a first-class colonial power. Although the colonial area is second only to Spain, Spain has a strong navy, rich national strength and great power. From 1763, European colonial expansion entered the second stage. After the arrival of the industrial revolution era, the traditional colonial trade of sugar, tobacco and slaves is no longer of great significance. The demand for industrial raw materials such as cotton, wool, fuel, iron, copper, tin and coal in industrial countries has replaced the demand for consumer goods. At the same time, these countries urgently need to open up markets outside their own countries to digest their manufactured goods. Because the European market is saturated, we can only seek development space from America and Asia (before African colonization). For example, India has been exporting cotton cloth to Britain, but by the middle of19th century, a quarter of British cotton cloth exports were dumped to India, and India lost its own export market. Secondly, Europe immigrated to the colonies in large numbers, exterminated or drove away indigenous peoples to gain space for agricultural and industrial development, or conquered and transformed indigenous peoples' societies to meet the needs of colonial countries. The development of science and technology, transportation, especially railways, is not only an important tool for external expansion, but also creates a sense of superiority of colonial countries and inferiority under colonial people in the eyes of colonial people.

From 1763 to 100 in 1875, Britain had unparalleled maritime power, and its sphere of influence covered North America, the South Pacific, the Far East, the South Atlantic and the African coast. The original foothold on the coast has become a base for inland conquest. 1776 After the independence of the thirteen states in North America, the British colonial cause suffered a great blow, so the focus of colonial management shifted from North America to India, which has more abundant resources and a bigger market. In addition, Britain also occupied Australia, New Zealand, the Royal Coast of Africa, Gambia, Cape Colony, Myanmar and Hong Kong in Asia. With the expansion of colonial activities, Britain became the factory of the world./kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, Britain's monopoly trade changed to free trade. Due to the influence of the concept of natural human rights advocated by the French Revolution and religious, humanitarian and economic reasons, Britain declared the slave trade illegal in 1807, and then the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Denmark and other countries successively announced the prohibition of the slave trade. This measure made the strongholds of countries in the coastal areas of Africa shrink rapidly, and both Denmark and the Netherlands sold their commercial stations in the coastal areas of West Africa in the middle of the19th century. At the same time, due to the influence of the Napoleonic Wars, Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America declared their independence one after another, the demand for slaves dropped sharply, and the colonial power of these two countries in Africa also declined rapidly. In North Africa, the French took advantage of the decline of the Ottoman Empire, a feudal theocracy that once spanned Europe, Asia and Africa, and took the opportunity of eliminating pirates in North Africa to infiltrate into the territories of the Ottoman Empire such as Algeria and Tunisia. Algeria, where pirates are most active, has been hit hardest. 18 15, the U.S navy defeated the Algerian navy, 18 19, the British-Dutch joint fleet shelled Algiers.

During the period from 1825 to 1875, except for Britain and France, the activities of European countries to conquer new colonies basically stopped, and instead, they moved to overseas colonies. As far as the British situation is concerned, a sentence by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in 185 1 can be said to be the best summary of Britain's attitude towards colonies in this period: "Colonies are heavy millstones hanging around our necks". Take Gambia and Gold Coast as two small British colonies, for example, the business tax revenue is far behind the administrative expenses. On several occasions, the British Parliament suggested reducing the size of the colonies or giving them up completely. It was only because the Royal Navy's West African Sub-fleet needed to establish a naval base in the Gulf of Guinea to ban the slave trade that Britain finally retained these two areas. However, in order to resettle the freed slaves in the Caribbean islands, Britain established the Sierra Leone colony in the form of authorized companies during the colonial contraction, the American Colonial Association opened the Liberian colony at the same time, and France opened the Libreville (now Gabon) colony, all of which were used to resettle the freed slaves.

1833, the slaves in British overseas territories were finally liberated. 65438+1late 1940s. After the completion of the industrial revolution, Britain has advantages in overseas trade and finance. On the contrary, the colonial activities of Spain and Portugal began to decline in the middle of the19th century, and the Napoleonic Wars accelerated this process, while the national movement rose.

1825, Spain lost its colony in South America, and Britain took the opportunity to infiltrate. By the first half of the19th century, Latin America had become the largest market for British textiles. A wave of immigrants followed. It is estimated that in the year after 1820, the number of immigrants leaving Europe reached 55 million. From 1875 to World War I, the competition among colonial countries intensified. In addition to the old colonial countries (including Russia), there are new colonial countries such as Germany, the United States, Italy, Belgium and Japan. 1860, British and French forces invaded Beijing, and Russia seized Amur province and gained Manchuria privileges. The two Opium Wars opened the door to China, and the competition among the great powers made it impossible for any country to monopolize China, so it stepped up the division of sphere of influence in China and imposed many unequal treaties on China. China's name is independence, but in fact it keeps providing more and more privileges and concessions to foreign countries. Later, Japan itself also expanded to China and North Korea. At the beginning of the 20th century, it enjoyed special privileges in Manchuria, China, and turned Korea, Taiwan Province Province and neighboring islands into its colonies.

1870, after the Franco-Prussian War ended and Germany was unified, the German geographer Frederick Laaser began to study the expanding market of German industrial products at that time and began to use geography to defend Bismarck's imperialist policy. He believes that with the development of the world, space will become more and more important for a country, big countries will gradually expand, and small parliaments will become insignificant. World history needs more and more space. This fact can be clearly seen from the evolution of important commercial countries: Venice is a city; Holland is a delta country; Britain is an island country; America is a continent. Great powers must conform to this absolute and inevitable trend and strive to expand their space through colonization, merger and conquest. Sir Half Makinder, a British imperialist theorist, also put forward a similar theory, pointing out that a country must achieve self-sufficiency if it wants to survive. Controlling the origin of raw materials and making it an export market for products has become a strategic demand of national interests. In the first 75 years of the19th century, western countries occupied an average of 2 1000 square kilometers of colonies every year, and in the last 25 years, they occupied an average of 620,000 square kilometers of colonies every year.

From the end of15th century to the middle of19th century, colonial countries only occupied 3180,000 square kilometers of land in Africa, and in the last quarter of19th century, Europe became more interested in Africa, occupying 25.69 million square kilometers of land in Africa. Due to the rapid industrialization and population increase in Europe, the demand for vegetable oil, plant fiber, rubber and some mineral resources has increased, and these products can be exchanged for cheap industrial products in Africa. The demand for new raw materials has led to fierce competition for African raw material producing areas. The colonization of African continent by colonial countries began in the late19th century, with the gradual method initiated by France in Senegal as the starting point, that is, taking farms growing peanuts or oil palm as the forward base, using drugs to treat tropical diseases, using local aborigines to form hired troops and advancing to the hinterland along major rivers. This method is far more effective than the British coastal infiltration method, so it is imitated by other colonial countries.

In the1870s, a large number of minerals, such as diamonds and gold, were discovered in South Africa, which stimulated other colonial countries to develop similar minerals in other parts of Africa. The land for competition is no longer limited to areas suitable for planting crops, but wasteland, swamp, desert and no man's land have all become the objects for competition. 1884- 1885 The Berlin Conference established the principle that "only actual occupation can prove the sovereignty of a colony". Britain, France, Portugal and other countries that have occupied the coastal areas of Africa quickly signed agreements and treaties with local chiefs to expand their influence inland. Germany, Belgium and Italy, emerging industrial powers, have also joined the fight for Africa.

From 1885 to 1900, European countries completed the division of Africa. Apart from Ethiopia and Liberia, two politically independent countries, traditional African kingdoms such as Ashanti, Dahomey, sokoto and Buganda, as well as countries such as Transvaal and Orange Free State established by European Africans, have all become colonies or protectorates of western countries. Egypt is nominally an independent country, but it is completely controlled by Britain. In Asia, the colonial expansion of the Russian Empire was different, and it adopted the way of assimilating the culture and society of indigenous peoples and pushed forward to Siberia, the Far East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. And tried to infiltrate into China; Successively occupied Daruzi, Zhongluzi, Xiaoluzi, Shiva Khan, Bukhara Khan and Hao Han Khan, and infiltrated into Xinjiang, Outer Mongolia and Manchuria in China.

By 1876, Russia, an orthodox country in Eastern Europe and North Asia, had occupied170,000 square kilometers of land. France conquered Annan, Laos and Cambodia, while Britain in western Europe occupied the Malay Peninsula and North Borneo in Southeast Asia, and controlled the Persian Gulf and the southern Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East. In Oceania, Germany, a capitalist country in Central Europe, bought colonies such as Caroline Islands and Mariana Islands from Spain. In addition to directly conquering colonies, colonial countries also turned some economically backward countries into semi-colonies, such as China (Qing Dynasty), Korea, Siam (now Thailand), Persia (now Iran), Afghanistan and Ottoman Empire. And seized the rights and interests of customs, transportation, trade, road construction, mining, factory building, bank opening and training in these countries. By the beginning of the 20th century, colonial countries and colonies had occupied 85% of the world land area. Several big countries have completely controlled the world politics and economy. Countries that were originally self-sufficient have been brought into the century economy more and more, and there has been an international division of labor. Major industrial countries manufacture and sell high-end products, while other countries become their raw materials and supply bases. Colonial competition has also intensified the revival of militarism, because the colonial distribution in various countries is uneven. In addition to Britain and France, which are still powerful, Spain and Portugal, which have already declined, still control large colonies, while emerging countries such as the United States, Germany, Japan and Italy only occupy some "leftover land" with small area and poor resources. With the intensification of the means of fighting for colonies, major colonial countries were involved in a series of diplomatic and military conflicts from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century, such as the first moroccan crises between Britain, France and Germany, the second Fashoda crisis between moroccan crises and Britain, the two Boer wars, the Spanish-American war, the Russo-Japanese war and the Italian-Turkish war.

From 1900 to 19 14, on the eve of the outbreak of World War I, various colonial countries formed extremely complicated conflicts of interest in order to compete for new colonies or protect existing colonies: Germany challenged Britain's world hegemony; Japan challenges Russia's hegemony in Asia; Russia challenges Britain's hegemony in Asia; Britain used France to contain Germany; Britain used Japan to contain Russia; France used Russia to contain Germany; Germany was surrounded by Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in Russia ... In order to consolidate the existing colonies, two groups, the British-French Allied Forces and the German-Austrian-Italian Allied Forces, were formed successively. World War I ended with the defeat of the Allies (Italy defected). As a punishment, the German Empire in Central and Western Europe collapsed, one-seventh of its native land was cut off, and all its overseas colonies were deprived. The Austro-Hungarian Empire in Central Europe collapsed, its territory was divided up by neighboring countries or a new country was formed, and the Ottoman Empire lost all its possessions in the Arab region. With the modernization of economy, the adjustment of market, the development of urbanization, the progress of social culture and the upsurge of national liberation and anti-colonialism movement, the old colonial system has been greatly weakened by1920s, and colonial countries have realized that they cannot acquire new colonies by war. The colonies deprived by the defeated countries became the mandated areas of the League of Nations, and were managed by the victorious countries. Although it is still a colony in essence, the mandate clause of the League of Nations stipulates that the trusteeship must promote the welfare of the residents in the mandate area and establish an independent country in due course.

In the 1930' s, a new trend of thought of colonialism emerged-the fascist colonial view originated from geopolitical theory and the concept of "living space". After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan also began to put forward the slogan that Asian countries should resist the aggression of the white world under Japan's "leadership", and in the 1930 s, it evolved into the theory of "Greater East Asia * * * glory circle". Italy, Spain and other fascist countries also put forward the slogans of "fascist imperialism" and "Spain's Spain". In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler did not advocate that Germany should expand overseas, thinking that overseas expansion was not as good as European expansion, but he later approved the colonial requirements in the Nazi Party's "25-Point Program" and encouraged the activities of the German colonial movement after 1933.

193 1 year, the Japanese launched the September 18th Incident, occupied the northeast of China, and announced that the world division had begun again, followed by 1935 when Italy invaded Ethiopia. The cause of the Second World War is very complicated and cannot be simply attributed to the development of traditional forms of colonialism, but the theory of "living space" as a variant of colonialism and the struggle for "living space" are obviously one of the main reasons for its outbreak. Due to the influence of World War II, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and other remaining major colonial countries were weakened in the war. During the war, the national industries of India, East Africa, Nigeria, Belgian Congo and other unoccupied allied colonies developed to a certain extent, and the division of labor system within the colonial empire was broken. At the same time, because Japan and Germany weakened their allies by fostering colonial nationalist movements, the national liberation movement of the allied colonies also developed under the egg wing of the Axis countries in the war. After the end of World War II, the colonial liberation movement first broke out in Dutch East India, British Burma, French India, zhina and other places once occupied by Japan. Nationalists in these areas cooperated with Japanese occupation forces in the war to establish nominally "independent" puppet countries. On the eve of surrender, Japan handed over power and weapons to local nationalists, causing chaos to its allies.

1945 August 17, Indonesia was the first to declare independence, and Vietnam declared independence on September 2. The wave of colonial independence movement immediately spread to Myanmar, India, Malaya, the Philippines and other Asian countries and regions. 1953 After Cambodia became independent, the colonies of France, the Netherlands and the United States in Asia became independent countries. For example, Britain was once a colonial empire. After World War II, it passed the "Westminster Act" and granted the dominion the right of independence. Some countries, such as Canada, declared independence, but these countries still belong to the Commonwealth. For example, in Australia's constitution, the King of England is the head of state. After the 1960s and 1950s, especially after the 1955 Bandung Conference, with the encouragement of independent colonial and semi-colonial countries, this movement developed to Africa.

1956 After the Second Middle East War, Britain announced the policy of "retreating from the east of Suez". From 1957 to 1963, Britain successively withdrew from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Malaya, North Borneo, Straits Colonies (Singapore, Malacca, Penang), South Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait and Penang. The wave of post-war African countries' independence began with the independence of Britain, Egypt and Sudan in 1956 and Ghana in 1957.

/kloc-since 0/960, the African colonial independence movement has reached its climax. 1960, 17 countries in Africa declared their independence, which was called the "Year of African Independence". Among them, 13 countries were former French colonies, 3 countries were former British colonies (including Italy and Somalia), and 65438+.

By the end of1960s, most colonies belonging to Britain and France declared their independence. Portugal, the earliest colonial empire, was also the last country to give up its colony. After years of war, Portuguese Guinea, Mozambique and Angola gained independence in 1975 [1]. Colonialism has become a historical term.