Colonisation Lecture 1 02/10/23
What is an Empire?
- Robert Aldrich writes that it is ‘the rule by a particular group in a political
centre over a diverse and different set of other,
more distant countries and peoples, generally as a result of military conquest’
(‘Introduction’, Age of Empires, p.8)
- This course is about European empires, imperialism and colonialism
The legacies of those empires continue, in the forms of inequality, race-based
inequity, racism and exploitation
- The history of empire is being questioned all the time. We are going to question
it from across the range of European empires
When did imperialism and colonialism begin?
- There have always been empires, in East Asia, in the middle East, in Africa, in
South America, in Europe, north and south.
- Many of these empires involved the direct extension of a people’s rule (or a
monarch’s rule to be accurate)
- Only the European empires from 1492 from sought to control regions and peoples
across the globe
- It was a specific choice from the European empires to install a system
where they use trading etc to create a self-benefiting colony
- China had the resources and technology to start colonies but specifically
chose not to colonise
Colony, empire, imperialism
- A colony is a place people settle in from another place through immigration
- A colony usually already has people living there
- Colonisation was thought to be by the colonists as improve the colonised
- While imperialism is the process of controlling as much land as possible
- Colonisation is the process of taking that land and controlling it
- Colonisation has had disastrous effects on local populations
- Colonisation often claims to be benevolent
- Imperialism is the process or the attempt to control as much land and resources
as possible
- Imperialism does not recognise the rights of local populations
- European Imperialism was part of a struggle to control the world engaged in by
Portugal, Spain, Holland, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden
Empire and Rights
- In a world dominated by would-be empires, only Europeans had rights.
- These were determined by God or the Pope, or by international law, which cemented
the rights of European colonisation
- Local populations had the right to be converted to Christianity and to work for
free
- The first practical effect of international rights is then to create racialised
hierarchy
There were boats before 1492
- Before being ‘discovered’, all continents had had rich and varied histories and
were often far in advance of Europe in technology, science, philosophy and medicine
- Before Columbus, sailors in Polynesia has travelled thousands of miles to new
lands, so had Vikings, Phoenicians and people trading between Africa and South and
East Asia
- The most historically gifted sailors were the Polynese sailors e.g. the vikings
people trading between africa and West Asia
Columbus as mass murderer
- Columbus was in charge of Hispaniola from 1492 to 1509
- In that time, the Taino population fell from 300 000+ to 100 000. 30 years later,
there were 200 left
- In the course of the 1500s, about 90% of people indigenous to the Americas were
wiped out by violence, disease, famine and slavery
Portuguese Empire --- Not all outright colonies but trading posts, like the Dutch
Empire.
Dutch Empire ----- wasnt as bad in their treatment of their colonies
French Empire --- A mission to 'Civilise' the world
Sovereignty and early International law
- Pope Alexander VI divided the world between Spain and Portugal in 1493. With some
changes, this took form in the Treaty of Tordesillas (7 June 1494)
- This agreement was confirmed by Pope Julius II in 1506
- While other nations did not recognise the validity of the treaty, the principle
of ownership of all lands being available to European countries was accepted
- This is the first stage in a racialised hierarchy of global power, rights and
sovereignty
- Early International Law was brought about by colonisation and was racially
motivated
Persistence of Empire's Effects
- A lot of the colonies are still damaged by the effects of colonialism
Legacies of Empire
- Early period of Western colonialism established racialisation of global
hierarchy. 'They are not Christian we are helping them'. Land control was used to
control the
economies of people. A global racism that persists to this day, with future poverty
persists from an era of slavery
- First, through the enslavement and trafficking of people from Africa, then
developing supposed rationale for that
- Second, through fixing future inequalities in place through population
destruction and wealth extraction
- In the 19th century, philosophers, early anthropologists and biologists who
wilfully misunderstood Darwin,
attempted what looked like scientific definitions of human race(s). This solidified
existing practices of discrimination and exploitation
Lubaina Himid, Le Rodeur: The Lock (2016).
This series of paintings reflects on an 1819 incident where 36 enslaved people were
thrown overboard as an illness had made them blind
- Enslaved people were treated as commodities at every stage
- All ‘undiscovered’ land was open to be Western property
- These presumptions provided the bedrock for Western growth from 1500s
onward
- This is from a way of understanding Christianity and Biology
Legacies of empire: capitalism
Eric Williams (the first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago), writing in 1944,
argued that colonial slavery is already a ‘capitalist undertaking’.
Not only extraction of labour and life for profit, but agriculture (plantations),
refining, shipping, investment, property
Profits from enslavement fed nascent industry in Britain (textiles) and France
(sugar) in particular
Free land in US a crucial part of profitmaking, with enslaved labour imported and
maintained up to 1865
Long term impact of enslavement
In addition to establishing global racialised inequality through genocide in
America and enslavement of millions of African people, inequality remains thanks to
reparations
Reparation were paid to enslavers, not to enslaved peoples. Britain finished its
payment to slave owners in 2013, approximate value £100 billion.
Property was transferred to Western companies that continue to extract mineral
wealth and profit form cheap labour in countries impoverished by earlier waves of
violent colonisation
