Since the settlement of the European continent, its people have shown an
inclination to explore
and expand from their geographic centre. Exploration of the Mediterranean
world led to contacts
with northern and western Europeans that extended the knowledge and culture
of both groups.
The impetus toward expansion, demonstrated in the establishment of the
Hellenistic and Roman
empires, continued as Christianity spread through Europe and beyond. Colonization
of conquered
territories was undertaken, especially by the Romans, but on a much smaller
scale than that which
followed in the early modern world. The major benefit of early, indeed
of all, European expansion
was the cultural enrichment that resulted from contact with other civilizations.
( J.B.Mi./Ed.)
The major period of European colonization had its origin with the Renaissance,
the development
of modern science, and the great voyages of discovery. This period began
about 1500 and reached
its peak in the early 1900s, when the last independent territories of Asia
and Africa were parcelled
out. Following World War II the strengthening of nationalistic movements
opposed to colonialism
and the erosion of dominance caused by the modernization of economic systems
brought about the
decline of the colonial empires.
EUROPEAN EXPLORATION
The threads of geographical exploration are continuous and, being entwined
one with another, are
difficult to separate; three major phases of investigation may nevertheless
be distinguished. The first
phase is the exploration of the Old World centred on the Mediterranean
Sea; the second is the
so-called Age of Discovery, during which, in the search for sea routes
to Cathay (the name by
which China was known to medieval Europe), a New World was found; the third
is the
establishment of the political, social, and commercial relationships of
the New World to the Old
and the elucidation of the major physical features of the continental interiors--in
short, the
delineation of the modern world. (see also Index: Earth)
The exploration of the Old World
From the time of the earliest recorded history to the beginning of the
15th century, Western
knowledge of the world widened from a river valley surrounded by mountains
or desert (the views
of Babylonia and Egypt) to a Mediterranean world with hinterlands extending
from the Sahara to
the Gobi deserts and from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans (the view of
Greece and Rome). It later
expanded again to include the far northern lands beyond the Baltic and
another and dazzling
civilization in the Far East (the medieval view).
The earliest known surviving map, dating probably from the time of Sargon
of Akkad (about
2334-2279 BC), shows canals or rivers--perhaps the Tigris and a tributary--and
surrounding
mountains. The rapid colonization of the shores of the Mediterranean and
of the Black Sea by
Phoenicia and the Greek city-states in the first millennium BC must have
been accompanied by the
exploration of their hinterlands by countless unknown soliders and traders.
Herodotus prefaces his
History (written in the 5th century BC) with a geographical description
of the then known world:
this introductory material reveals that the coastlines of the Mediterranean
and the Black Sea had by
then been explored.
Stories survive of a few men who are credited with bringing new knowledge
from distant journeys.
Herodotus tells of five young adventurers of the tribe of the Nasamones
living on the desert edge of
Cyrenaica in North Africa, who journeyed southwest for many months across
the desert, reaching
a great river flowing from west to east; this presumably was the Niger,
although Herodotus thought
it to be the Upper Nile. EXPLORATION OF THE ATLANTIC COASTLINES
Beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar), the Carthaginians
(from the Phoenician city
of Carthage in what is now Tunisia), holding both shores of the strait,
early ventured out into the
Atlantic. A Greek translation of a Punic (Carthaginian) inscription states
that Hanno, a
Carthaginian, was sent forth about 500 BC with 60 ships and 30,000 colonists
"to found cities."
Even allowing for a possible great exaggeration of numbers, this expedition,
if it occurred, can
hardly have been the first exploratory voyage along the coast of West Africa;
indeed, Herodotus
reports that Phoenicians circumnavigated the continent about 600 BC. Some
scholars think that
Hanno reached only the desert edge south of the Atlas; other scholars identify
the "deep river
infested with crocodiles and hippopotamuses" with the Sénégal
River; and still others believe that
the island where men "scampered up steep rocks and pelted us with stones"
was an island off the
coast of Sierra Leone. There is no record that Hanno's voyage was followed
up before the era of
Henry the Navigator, a Portuguese prince of the 15th century.
About the same time, Himilco, another Carthaginian, set forth on a voyage
northward; he explored
the coast of Spain, reached Brittany, and in his four-month cruise may
have visited Britain. Two
centuries later, about 300 BC, Carthaginian power at the gate of the Mediterranean
temporarily
slackened as a result of squabbles with the Greek city of Syracuse on the
island of Sicily, so
Pytheas, a Greek explorer of Massilia (Marseille), sailed through. His
story is known only from
fragments of the work of a contemporary historian, Timaeus (who lived in
the 4th and 3rd centuries
BC), as retold by the Roman savant Pliny the Elder, the Greek geographer
Strabo, and the Greek
historian Diodorus Siculus, all of whom were critical of its truth. It
is probable that Pytheas, having
coasted the shores of the Bay of Biscay, crossed from the island of Ouessant
(Ushant), off the
French coast of Brittany, to Cornwall in southwestern England, perhaps
seeking tin. He may have
sailed around Britain; he describes it as a triangle and also relates that
the inhabitants "harvest grain
crops by cutting off the ears . . . and storing them in covered granges."
Around Thule, "the
northernmost of the British Isles, six days sail from Britain," there is
"neither sea nor air but a
mixture like sea-lung . . . binds everything together," a reference perhaps
to drift ice or dense sea
fog. Thule has been identified with Iceland (too far north), with Mainland
island of the Shetland
group (too far south), and perhaps, most plausibly, with Norway. Pytheas
returned to Brittany and
explored "beyond the Rhine"; he may have reached the Elbe. The voyage of
Pytheas, like that of
Hanno, does not seem to have been followed up. Herodotus concludes by saying,
"whether the sea
girds Europe round on the north none can tell."
It was not Mediterranean folk but Northmen from Scandinavia, emigrating
from their difficult lands
centuries later, who carried exploration farther in the North Atlantic.
From the 8th to the 11th
century bands of Northmen, mainly Swedish, trading southeastward across
the Russian plains,
were active under the name of Varangians in the ports of the Black Sea.
At the same time other
groups, mainly Danish, raiding, trading, and settling along the coasts
of the North Sea, arrived in the
Mediterranean in the guise of Normans. Neither the Swedes nor the Danes
travelling in these
regions were exploring lands that were unknown to civilized Europeans,
but it is doubtless that
contact with them brought to these Europeans new knowledge of the distant
northern lands.
It was the Norsemen of Norway who were the true explorers though, since
little of their exploits
was known to contemporaries and that little soon forgotten, they perhaps
added less to the
common store of Europe's knowledge than their less adventurous compatriots.
About AD 890,
Ohthere of Norway, "desirous to try how far that country extended north,"
sailed round the North
Cape, along the coast of Lapland to the White Sea. But most Norsemen sailing
in high latitudes
explored not eastward but westward. Sweeping down the outer edge of Britain,
settling in Orkney,
Shetland, the Hebrides, and Ireland, they then voyaged on to Iceland, where
in 870 they settled
among Irish colonists who had preceded them by some two centuries. The
Norsemen may well
have arrived piloted by Irish sailors; and Irish refugees from Iceland,
fleeing before the Norsemen,
may have been the first discoverers of Greenland and Newfoundland, although
this is mere surmise.
The saga of Erik the Red (Eiríks saga rauda; also called Thorfinns
saga Karlsefnis), gives the
story of the Norse discovery of Greenland in 982; the west coast was explored,
and at least two
settlements were established on it. About AD 1000, one Bjarni Herjulfsson,
on his way from
Iceland to Greenland, was blown off course far to the southwest; he saw
an unknown shore and
returned to tell his tale. Leif, Erik's son, together with some 30 others,
set out in 1001 to explore.
They probably reached the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland; some think
that the farthest
point south reached by the settlers, as described in the sagas, fits best
with Maryland or Virginia,
but others contend that the lands about the Gulf of St. Lawrence are more
probably designated.
The area was named Vinland, as grapes grew there, but it has been suggested
that the "grapes"
referred to were in fact cranberries. Attempts at colonization were unsuccessful;
the Norsemen
withdrew; and, although the Greenland colonies lingered on for some four
centuries, little
knowledge of these first discoveries came down to colour the vision of
the seamen of Cádiz or
Bristol; the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot had their strongest
inspirations in
quite other traditions. THE EXPLORATION OF THE COASTLINES OF THE INDIAN
OCEAN AND THE
CHINA SEA
Trade, across the land bridges and through the gulfs linking those parts
of Asia, Africa, and Europe
that lie between the Mediterranean and Arabian seas, was actively pursued
from very early times.
It is therefore not surprising that exploratory voyages early revealed
the coastlines of the Indian
Ocean. Herodotus wrote of Necho II, king of Egypt in the late 7th and early
6th centuries BC, that
"when he stopped digging the canal . . . from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf
. . . [he] sent forth
Phoenician men in ships ordering them to sail back by the Pillars of Hercules."
According to the
story, this, in three years, they did. Upon their return, "they told things
. . . unbelievable by me,"
says Herodotus, "namely that in sailing round Libya they had the sun on
the right hand." Whatever
he thought of the story of the sun, Herodotus was inclined to believe in
the voyage: "Libya, that is
Africa, shows that it has sea all round except the part that borders on
Asia." Strabo records
another story with the same theme: one Eudoxus, returning from a voyage
to India about 108 BC,
was blown far to the south of Cape Guardafui. Where he landed he found
a wooden prow with a
horse carved on it, and he was told by the Africans that it came from a
wrecked ship of men from
the west.
About 510 BC Darius the Great, king of Persia, sent one of his officers,
Scylax of Caria, to
explore the Indus. Scylax travelled overland to the Kabul River, reached
the Indus, followed it to
the sea, sailed westward, and, passing by the Persian Gulf (which was already
well known),
explored the Red Sea, finally arriving at Arsinoë, near modern Suez.
The greater part of the
campaigns of the famous conqueror Alexander the Great were military exploratory
journeys. The
earlier expeditions through Babylonia and Persia were through regions already
familiar to the
Greeks, but the later ones through the enormous tract of land from the
south of the Caspian Sea to
the mountains of the Hindu Kush brought the Greeks a great deal of new
geographical knowledge.
Alexander and his army crossed the mountains to the Indus Valley and then
made a westward
march from the lower Indus to Susa through the desolate country along the
southern edge of the
Iranian plateau; Nearchus, his admiral, in command of the naval forces
of the expedition, waited for
the favourable monsoon and then sailed from the mouth of the Indus to the
mouth of the Euphrates,
exploring the northern coast of the Persian Gulf on his way.
As Roman power grew, increasing wealth brought increasing demands for Oriental
luxuries; this led
to great commercial activity in the eastern seas. As the coasts became
well known, the seasonal
character of the monsoonal winds was skillfully used; the southwest monsoon
was long known as
Hippalus, named for a sailor who was credited with being the first to sail
with it direct from the Gulf
of Aden to the coast of the Indian peninsula. During the reign of the Roman
emperor Hadrian in the
1st century BC, Western traders reached Siam (now Thailand), Cambodia,
Sumatra, and Java; a
few also seem to have penetrated northward to the coast of China. In AD
161, according to
Chinese records, an "embassy" came from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius
to the emperor
Huan-ti, bearing goods that Huan-ti gratefully received as "tribute." Ptolemy,
however, did not
know of these voyages: he swept his peninsula of Colmorgo (Malay) southwestward
to join the
eastward trend of his coast of Africa, thus creating a closed Indian Ocean.
He presumably did not
believe the story of the circumnavigation of Africa. As the 2nd century
AD passed and Roman
power declined, trade with the eastern seas did not cease but was gradually
taken over by
Ethiopians, Parthians, and Arabs. The Arabs, most successful of all, dominated
eastern sea routes
from the 3rd to the 15th century. In the tales of derring-do of Sindbad
the Sailor (a hero of the
collection of Arabian tales called The Thousand and One Nights), there
may be found, behind the
fiction, the knowledge of these adventurous Arab sailors and traders, supplying
detail to fill in the
outline of the geography of the Indian Ocean. THE LAND ROUTES OF CENTRAL
ASIA
The prelude to the Age of Discovery, however, is to be found neither in
the Norse explorations in
the Atlantic nor in the Arab activities in the Indian Ocean but, rather,
in the land journeys of Italian
missionaries and merchants that linked the Mediterranean coasts to the
China Sea. Cosmas
Indicopleustes, an Alexandrian geographer writing in the 6th century, knew
that Tzinitza (China)
could be reached by sailing eastward, but he added: "One who comes by the
overland route from
Tzinitza to Persia makes a very short cut." Goods had certainly passed
this way since Roman times,
but they usually changed hands at many a mart, for disorganized and often
warring tribes lived
along the routes. In the 13th century the political geography changed.
In 1206 a Mongol chief
assumed the title of Genghis Khan and, after campaigns in China that gave
him control there, turned
his conquering armies westward. He and his successors built up an enormous
empire until, in the
late 13th century, one of them, Kublai Khan, reigned supreme from the Black
Sea to the Yellow
Sea. Europeans of perspicacity saw the opportunities that friendship with
the Mongol power might
bring. If Christian Europe could only convert the Mongols, this would at
one and the same time
heavily tip the scales against Muslim and in favour of Christian power
and also give political
protection to Christian merchants along the silk routes to the legendary
sources of wealth in China.
With these opportunities in mind, Pope Innocent IV sent friars to "diligently
search out all things that
concerned the state of the Tartars" and to exhort them "to give over their
bloody slaughter of
mankind and to receive the Christian faith." Among others, Giovanni da
Pian del Carpini in 1245
and Willem van Ruysbroeck in 1253 went forth to follow these instructions.
Travelling the great
caravan routes from southern Russia, north of the Caspian and Aral seas
and north of the Tien
Shan (Tien Mountains), both Carpini and Ruysbroeck eventually reached the
court of the emperor
at Karakorum. Carpini returned confident that the Emperor was about to
become a Christian;
Ruysbroeck told of the city in Cathay "having walls of silver and towers
of gold"; he had not seen it
but had been "credibly informed" of it. (see also Index: Yüan dynasty)
But the greatest of the 13th-century travellers in Asia were the Polos,
wealthy merchants of Venice.
In 1260 the brothers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo set out on a trading expedition
to the Crimea. After
two years they were ready to return to Venice, but, finding the way home
blocked by war, they
travelled eastward to Bukhara (now in Uzbekistan in Central Asia), where
they spent another three
years. The Polos then accepted an invitation to accompany a party of Tatar
envoys returning to the
court of Kublai Khan at Cambaluc, near Peking. The Khan received them well,
provided them with
a gold tablet as a safe-conduct back to Europe, and gave them a letter
begging the pope to send
"some hundred wise men, learned in the law of Christ and conversant with
the seven arts to preach
to his people." The Polos arrived home, "having toiled three years on the
way," to find that Pope
Clement IV was dead. Two years later they set off again, travelling without
the wise men but taking
with them Nicolo's son, Marco Polo, then a youth of 17. (Marco kept detailed
notes of all he saw
and, late in life when a captive of the Genoese, dictated to a fellow prisoner
a book containing an
account of his travels and adventures.) This time the Polos took a different
route: starting from the
port of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, they crossed Persia to the Pamirs and
then followed a caravan
route along the southern edge of the Tarim Basin and Gobi Desert to Cambaluc.
Information about
the route is interesting, but the great contribution of Marco Polo to the
geographical knowledge of
the West lay in his vivid descriptions of the East. He had tremendous opportunities
of seeing China
and appreciating its life, for he was taken into the service of the Khan
and was sent as an
administrator to great cities, busy ports, and remote provinces, with instructions
to write full
reports. In his book he described how, upon every main highroad, at a distance
apart of 25 or 30
miles (40 to 50 kilometres), there were stations, with houses of accommodation
for travellers, with
400 good horses kept in constant readiness at each station. He also reported
that, along the roads,
the Great Khan had caused trees to be planted, both to provide shade in
summer and to mark the
route in winter when the ground was covered with snow. Marco Polo lived
and worked in western
China, visiting the provinces of Shensi, Szechwan, and Yunnan, as well
as the borders of Burma.
He frequently visited "the noble and magnificent city of Quinsay [Hang-chou],
a name that signifies
the Celestial City and which it merits from its pre-eminence to all others
in the world in point of
grandeur and beauty." Cipango (Japan) he did not visit, but he heard about
it from merchants and
sailors: "it is situated at a distance of 1,500 miles from the mainland.
. . . They have gold in the
greatest abundance, its sources being inexhaustible." The most detailed
descriptions and the
greatest superlatives were reserved for Cambaluc, capital of Cathay, whose
splendours were
beyond compare; to this city, he said,
everything that is most rare and valuable in all parts of the world finds
its way: . . . for
not fewer than 1,000 carriages and pack-horses loaded with raw silk make
their daily
entry; and gold tissues and silks of various kinds are manufactured to
an immense
extent.
No wonder that, when Europe learned of these things, it became enthralled.
After 17 years, the
Venetians were permitted to depart; they returned to Europe by sea. After
visiting Java they sailed
through the Strait of Malacca (again proving the error of Ptolemy); and,
landing at Hormuz, they
travelled cross-country to Armenia, and so home to Venice, which they reached
in 1295.
A few travellers followed the Polos. Giovanni da Montecorvino, a Franciscan
friar from Italy,
became archbishop of Peking and lived in China from 1294 to 1328. Friar
Oderic of Pordenone,
an Italian monk, became a missionary, journeying throughout the greater
part of Asia between
1316 and 1330. He reached Peking by way of India and Malaya, then travelled
by sea to Canton;
he returned to Europe by way of Central Asia, visiting Tibet in 1325--the
first European to do so.
Friar Oderic's account of his journeys had considerable influence in his
day: it was from it that the
spurious traveller, the English writer Sir John Mandeville, quarried most
of his stories.
Ibn Battutah, an Arab of Tangier, journeyed farther perhaps than any other
medieval traveller. In
1325 he set out to make the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca, and in some
30 years he visited the
greater part of the Old World, covering, it has been said, more than 75,000
miles. He was the first
to explore much of Arabia; he travelled extensively in India; he reached
Java and Southeast Asia.
Then toward the end of his life he returned to the west, where, after visiting
Spain, he explored
western Sudan "to the northernmost province of the Negroes." He reached
the Niger, which he
called the Nile, and was astonished by the huge hippopotamuses "taking
them to be elephants."
When he finally returned to Fès in Morocco he "kissed the hand of
the Commander of the Faithful
the Sultan . . . and settled down under the wing of his bounty." He wrote
a vivid and perspicacious
account of his travels, but his book did not become known to Christian
Europe for centuries. It
was Marco Polo's book that was the most popular of all. Some 138 manuscripts
of it survive: it
was translated before 1500 into Latin, German, and Spanish, and the first
English translation was
published in 1577. For centuries Europe's maps of the Far East were based
on the information
provided by Marco Polo; even as late as 1533 Johannes Schöner, the
German maker of globes,
wrote:
Behind the Sinae and the Ceres [legendary cities of Central Asia] . . .
many countries
were discovered by one Marco Polo . . . and the sea coasts of these countries
have
now recently again been explored by Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci in navigating
the Indian Ocean.
Columbus possessed and annotated a copy of the Latin edition (1483-85)
of Marco Polo's book,
and in his journal he identified many of his own discoveries with places
that Marco Polo describes.
Thus, with Ptolemy in one hand and Marco Polo in the other, the European
explorers of the Age
of Discovery set forth to try to reach Cathay and Cipango by new ways;
Ptolemy promised that the
way was short; Marco Polo promised that the reward was great. The Age of
Discovery
In the 100 years from the mid-15th to the mid-16th century, a combination
of circumstances
stimulated men to seek new routes; and it was new routes rather than new
lands that filled the
minds of kings and commoners, scholars and seamen. First, toward the end
of the 14th century, the
vast empire of the Mongols was breaking up; thus, Western merchants could
no longer be ensured
of safe-conduct along the land routes. Second, the growing power of the
Ottoman Turks, who
were hostile to Christians, blocked yet more firmly the outlets to the
Mediterranean of the ancient
sea routes from the East. Third, new nations on the Atlantic shores of
Europe were now ready to
seek overseas trade and adventure. THE SEA ROUTE EAST BY SOUTH TO CATHAY
Henry the Navigator, prince of Portugal, initiated the first great enterprise
of the Age of
Discovery--the search for a sea route east by south to Cathay. His motives
were mixed. He was
curious about the world; he was interested in new navigational aids and
better ship design and was
eager to test them; he was also a crusader and hoped that, by sailing south
and then east along the
coast of Africa, Arab power in North Africa could be attacked from the
rear. The promotion of
profitable trade was yet another motive; he aimed to divert the Guinea
trade in gold and ivory away
from its routes across the Sahara to the Moors of Barbary (North Africa)
and instead channel it via
the sea route to Portugal.
Expedition after expedition was sent forth throughout the 15th century
to explore the coast of
Africa. In 1445 the Portuguese navigator Dinís Dias reached the
mouth of the Sénégal, which "men
say comes from the Nile, being one of the most glorious rivers of Earth,
flowing from the Garden of
Eden and the earthly paradise." Once the desert coast had been passed,
the sailors pushed on: in
1455 and 1456 Alvise Ca' da Mosto made voyages to Gambia and the Cape Verde
Islands.
Prince Henry died in 1460 after a career that had brought the colonization
of the Madeira Islands
and the Azores and the traversal of the African coast to Sierra Leone.
Henry's captain, Diogo Cão,
discovered the Congo River in 1482. All seemed promising; trade was good
with the riverine
peoples, and the coast was trending hopefully eastward. Then the disappointing
fact was realized:
the head of a great gulf had been reached, and, beyond, the coast seemed
to stretch endlessly
southward. Yet, when Columbus sought backing for his plan to sail westward
across the Atlantic to
the Indies, he was refused--"seeing that King John II [of Portugal] ordered
the coast of Africa to
be explored with the intention of going by that route to India."
King John II sought to establish two routes: the first, a land and sea
route through Egypt and
Ethiopia to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean and, the second, a sea route
around the southern
shores of Africa, the latter an act of faith, since Ptolemy's map showed
a landlocked Indian Ocean.
In 1487, a Portuguese emissary, Pêro da Covilhã, successfully
followed the first route; but, on
returning to Cairo, he reported that, in order to travel to India, the
Portuguese "could navigate by
their coasts and the seas of Guinea." In the same year another Portuguese
navigator, Bartolomeu
Dias, found encouraging evidence that this was so. In 1487 he rounded the
Cape of Storms in such
bad weather that he did not see it, but he satisfied himself that the coast
was now trending
northeastward; before turning back, he reached the Great Fish River, in
what is now South Africa.
On the return voyage, he sighted the Cape and set up a pillar upon it to
mark its discovery.
The seaway was now open, but eight years were to elapse before it was exploited.
In 1492
Columbus had apparently reached the East by a much easier route. By the
end of the decade,
however, doubts of the validity of Columbus' claim were current. Interest
was therefore renewed in
establishing the sea route south by east to the known riches of India.
In 1497 a Portuguese captain,
Vasco da Gama, sailed in command of a fleet under instructions to reach
Calicut, on India's west
coast. This he did after a magnificent voyage around the Cape of Storms
(which he renamed the
Cape of Good Hope) and along the unknown coast of East Africa. Yet another
Portuguese fleet
set out in 1500, this one being under the command of Pedro Álvarez
Cabral; on the advice of da
Gama, Cabral steered southwestward to avoid the calms of the Guinea coast;
thus, en route for
Calicut, Brazil was discovered. Soon trading depots, known as factories,
were built along the
African coast, at the strategic entrances to the Red Sea and the Persian
Gulf, and along the shores
of the Indian peninsula. In 1511 the Portuguese established a base at Malacca
(now Melaka,
Malaysia), commanding the straits into the China Sea; in 1511 and 1512,
the Moluccas, or Spice
Islands, and Java were reached; in 1557 the trading port of Macau was founded
at the mouth of
the Canton River. Europe had arrived in the East. It was in the end the
Portuguese, not the Turks,
who destroyed the commercial supremacy of the Italian cities, which had
been based on a
monopoly of Europe's trade with the East by land. But Portugal was soon
overextended; it was
therefore the Dutch, the English, and the French who in the long run reaped
the harvest of
Portuguese enterprise.
Some idea of the knowledge that these trading explorers brought to the
common store may be
gained by a study of contemporary maps. The map of the German Henricus
Martellus, published in
1492, shows the shores of North Africa and of the Gulf of Guinea more or
less correctly and was
probably taken from numerous seamen's charts. The delineation of the west
coast of southern
Africa from the Guinea Gulf to the Cape suggests a knowledge of the charts
of the expedition of
Bartolomeu Dias. The coastlines of the Indian Ocean are largely Ptolemaic
with two exceptions:
first, the Indian Ocean is no longer landlocked; and second, the Malay
Peninsula is shown
twice--once according to Ptolemy and once again, presumably, according
to Marco Polo. The
Contarini map of 1506 shows further advances; the shape of Africa is generally
accurate, and there
is new knowledge of the Indian Ocean, although it is curiously treated.
Peninsular India (on which
Cananor and Calicut are named) is shown; although too small, it is, however,
recognizable. There is
even an indication to the east of it of the Bay of Bengal, with a great
river running into it. Eastward
of this is Ptolemy's India, with the huge island of Taprobane--a muddled
representation of the
Indian peninsula and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). East again, as on the map
of Henricus Martellus, the
Malay Peninsula appears twice. Ptolemy's bonds were hard to break. THE
SEA ROUTE WEST TO CATHAY
It is not known when the idea originated of sailing westward in order to
reach Cathay. Many sailors
set forth searching for islands in the west; and it was a commonplace among
scientists that the east
could be reached by sailing west, but to believe this a practicable voyage
was an entirely different
matter. Christopher Columbus, a Genoese who had settled in Lisbon about
1476, argued that
Cipango lay a mere 2,500 nautical miles west of the Canary Islands in the
eastern Atlantic. He took
45 instead of 60 nautical miles as the value of a degree; he accepted Ptolemy's
exaggerated
west-east extent of Asia and then added to it the lands described by Marco
Polo, thus reducing the
true distance between the Canaries and Cipango by about one-third. He could
not convince the
Portuguese scientists nor the merchants of Lisbon that his idea was worth
backing; but eventually
he obtained the support of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.
The sovereigns probably
argued that the cost of equipping the expedition would not be very great;
the loss, if it failed, could
be borne; the gain, should it succeed, was incalculable--indeed, it might
divert to Spain all the
wealth of Asia.
On August 3, 1492, Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, with three small
ships manned by
Spaniards. From the Canaries he sailed westward, for, on the evidence of
the globes and maps in
which he had faith, Japan was on the same latitude. If Japan should be
missed, Columbus thought
that the route adopted would land him, only a little further on, on the
coast of China itself. Fair
winds favoured him, the sea was calm, and, on October 12, landfall was
made on the Bahama
island of Guanahaní, which he renamed San Salvador (also called
Watling Island, though Samana
Cay and other islands have been identified as Guanahaní). With the
help of the local Indians, the
ships reached Cuba and then Haiti. Although there was no sign of the wealth
of the lands of Kublai
Khan, Columbus nevertheless seemed convinced that he had reached China,
since, according to
his reckoning, he was beyond Japan. A second voyage in 1493 and 1494, searching
fruitlessly for
the court of Kublai Khan, further explored the islands of "the Indies."
Doubts seem to have arisen
among the would-be colonists as to the identity of the islands since Columbus
demanded that all
take an oath that Cuba was the southeast promontory of Asia--the Golden
Chersonese. On his
third voyage, in 1498, Columbus sighted Trinidad, entered the Gulf of Paria,
on the coast of what is
now Venezuela, and annexed for Spain "a very great continent . . . until
today unknown." On a
fourth voyage, from 1502 to 1504, he explored the coast of Central America
from Honduras to
Darien on the Isthmus of Panama, seeking a navigable passage to the west.
What passage he had
in mind is obscure; if at this point he still believed he had reached Asia,
it is conceivable that he
sought a way through Ptolemy's Golden Chersonese into the Indian Ocean.
Columbus' tenacity, courage, and skill in navigation make him stand out
among the few explorers
who have changed substantially ideas about the world. At the time, however,
his efforts must have
seemed ill-rewarded: he found no emperor's court rich in spices, silks,
gold, or precious stones but
had to contend with mutinous sailors, dissident colonists, and disappointed
sovereigns. He died at
Valladolid in 1506. Did he believe to the end that he indeed had reached
Cathay, or did he,
however dimly, perceive that he had found a New World?
Whatever Columbus thought, it was clear to others that there was much to
be investigated, and
probably much to be gained, by exploration westward. Not only in Lisbon
and Cádiz but also in
other Atlantic ports, groups of men congregated in hopes of joining in
the search. In England,
Bristol, with its western outlook and Icelandic trade, was the port best
placed to nurture
adventurous seamen. In the latter part of the 15th century, John Cabot,
with his wife and three
sons, came to Bristol from Genoa or Venice. His project to sail west gained
support, and with one
small ship, the "Matthew," he set out in May 1497, taking a course due
west from Dursey Head,
Ireland. His landfall on the other side of the ocean was probably on the
northern peninsula of what
is now known as Newfoundland. From there, Cabot explored southward, perhaps
encouraged to
do so, even if seeking a westward passage, by ice in the Strait of Belle
Isle. Little is known of John
Cabot's first voyage, and almost nothing of his second, in 1498, from which
he did not return, but
his voyages in high latitudes represented almost as great a navigational
feat as those of Columbus.
The coasts between the landfalls of Columbus and of John Cabot were charted
in the first quarter
of the 16th century by Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese sailors.
Sebastian Cabot, son of
John, gained a great reputation as a navigator and promoter of Atlantic
exploration, but whether
this was based primarily on his own experience or on the achievements of
his father is uncertain. In
1499 Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian merchant living in Seville, together
with the Spanish explorer
Alonso de Ojeda, explored the north coast of South America from Suriname
to the Golfo de
Venezuela. His lively and embellished description of these lands became
popular, and
Waldseemüller, on his map of 1507, gave the name America to the southern
part of the continent.
The 1506 map of Contarini represented a brave attempt to collate the mass
of new information,
true and false, that accrued from these western voyages. The land explored
by Columbus on his
third voyage and by Vespucci and de Ojeda in 1499 is shown at the bottom
left of the map as a
promontory of a great northern bulge of a continent extending far to the
south. The northeast coast
of Asia at the top left is pulled out into a great peninsula on which is
shown a big river and some
mountains representing Contarini's concept of Newfoundland and the lands
found by the Cabots
and others. In the wide sea that separates these northern lands from South
America, the West
Indies are shown. Halfway between the Indies and the coast of Asia, Japan
is drawn. A legend
placed between Japan and China reveals the state of opinion among at least
some contemporary
geographers; it presumably refers to the fourth voyage of Columbus in 1502
and may be an
addition to the map. It runs:
Christopher Columbus, Viceroy of Spain, sailing westwards, reached the
Spanish
islands after many hardships and dangers. Weighing anchor thence he sailed
to the
province called Ciambra [a province which then adjoined Cochinchina].
Others did not agree with Contarini's interpretation. To more and more
people it was becoming
plain that a New World had been found, although for a long time there was
little inclination to
explore it but instead a great determination to find a way past it to the
wealth of Asia. The voyage
of the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, from 1519 to 1521, dispelled
two long-cherished
illusions: first, that there was an easy way through the barrier and, second,
that, once the barrier
was passed, Cathay was near at hand.
Ferdinand Magellan had served in the East Indies as a young man. Familiar
with the long sea route
to Asia eastward from Europe via the Cape of Good Hope, he was convinced
that there must be
an easier sea route westward. His plan was in accord with Spanish hopes;
five Spanish ships were
fitted out in Seville, and in August 1519 they sailed under his command
first to the Cape Verde
Islands and thence to Brazil. Standing offshore, they then sailed southward
along the east coast of
South America; the estuary of the Río de la Plata was explored in
the vain hope that it might prove
to be a strait leading to the Pacific. Magellan's ships then sailed south
along the coast of Patagonia.
The Gulf of St. George, and doubtless many more small embayments, raised
hopes that a strait had
been found, only to dash them; at last at Port Julian, at 49° 15' S,
winter quarters were established.
In September 1520 a southward course was set once more, until, finally,
on October 21, Magellan
found a strait leading westward. It proved to be an extremely difficult
one: it was long, deep,
tortuous, rock-walled, and bedevilled by icy squalls and dense fogs. It
was a miracle that three of
the five ships got through its 325-mile length. After 38 days, they sailed
out into the open ocean.
Once away from land, the ocean seemed calm enough; Magellan consequently
named it the Pacific.
The Pacific, however, proved to be of vast extent, and for 14 weeks the
little ships sailed on a
northwesterly course without encountering land. Short of food and water,
the sailors ate sawdust
mixed with ship's biscuits and chewed the leather parts of their gear to
keep themselves alive. At
last, on March 6, 1521, exhausted and scurvy-ridden, they landed at the
island of Guam. Ten days
later they reached the Philippines, where Magellan was killed in a local
quarrel. The survivors, in
two ships, sailed on to the Moluccas; thus, sailing westward, they arrived
at last in territory already
known to the Portuguese sailing eastward. One ship attempted, but failed,
to return across the
Pacific. The remaining ship, the "Vittoria," laden with spices, under the
command of the Spanish
navigator Juan Sebastián de Elcano, sailed alone across the Indian
Ocean, rounded the Cape of
Good Hope, and arrived at Seville on September 9, 1522, with a crew of
four Indians and only 17
survivors of the 239 Europeans who had set sail with the expedition three
years earlier. Elcano,
not having allowed for the fact that his circumnavigation had caused him
to lose a day, was greatly
puzzled to find that his carefully kept log was one day out; he was, however,
delighted to discover
that the cargo that he had brought back more than paid for the expenses
of the voyage. (see also
Index: Pacific Ocean)
It is fitting to consider this first circumnavigation as marking the close
of the Age of Discovery.
Magellan and his men had demonstrated that Columbus had discovered a New
World and not the
route to China and that Columbus' "Indies"--the West Indies--were separated
from the East Indies
by a vast ocean.
Not all the major problems of world geography were, however, now solved.
Two great questions
still remained unanswered. Were there "northern passages" between the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans
more easily navigable than the dangerous Strait of Magellan to the south?
Was there a great
landmass somewhere in the vastness of the southern oceans--a Terra Australis
("southern land")
that would balance the northern continents? The emergence of the modern
world
The centuries that have elapsed since the Age of Discovery have seen the
end of dreams of easy
routes to the East by the north, the discovery of Australasia and Antarctica
in place of Terra
Australis Incognita, and the identification of the major features of the
continental interiors.
While, as in earlier centuries, traders and missionaries often proved themselves
also to be intrepid
explorers, in this period of geographical discovery the seeker after knowledge
for its own sake
played a greater part than ever before. THE NORTHERN PASSAGES
Roger Barlow, in his Briefe Summe of Geographie, written in 1540-41, asserted
that "the
shortest route, the northern, has been reserved by Divine Providence for
England."
The concept of a Northeast Passage was at first favoured by the English:
it was thought that,
although its entry was in high latitudes, it "turning itself, trendeth
towards the southeast . . . and
stretcheth directly to Cathay." It was also argued that the cold lands
bordering this route would
provide a much needed market for English cloth. In 1553 a trading company,
later known as the
Muscovy Company, was formed with Sebastian Cabot as its governor. Under
its auspices
numerous expeditions were sent out. In 1553 an expedition set sail under
the command of Sir Hugh
Willoughby; Willoughby's ship was lost, but the exploration continued under
the leadership of its
pilot general, Richard Chancellor. Chancellor and his men wintered in the
White Sea, and next
spring "after much adoe at last came to Mosco." Between 1557 and 1560,
another English
voyager, Anthony Jenkinson, following up this opening, travelled from the
White Sea to Moscow,
then to the Caspian, and so on to Bukhara, thus reaching the old east-west
trade routes by a new
way. Soon, attempts to find a passage to Cathay were replaced by efforts
to divert the trade of the
ancient silk routes from their traditional outlets on the Black Sea to
new northern outlets on the
White Sea.
The Dutch next took up the search for the passage. The Dutch navigator
William Barents made
three expeditions between 1594 and 1597 (when he died in Novaya Zemlya,
modern Soviet
Union). The English navigator Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch,
discovered between
1605 and 1607 that ice blocked the way both east and west of Svalbard (Spitsbergen).
Between
1725 and 1729 and from 1734 to 1743, a series of expeditions inspired by
the Danish-Russian
explorer Vitus Bering attempted the passage from the eastern end, but it
was not until 1878-79 that
Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, the Finnish-Swedish scientist and explorer,
sailed through it. (see
also Index: Netherlands, The)
The Northwest Passage, on the other hand, also had its strong supporters.
In 1576 Humphrey
Gilbert, the English soldier and navigator, argued that "Mangia [South
China], Quinzay
[Hang-chou] and the Moluccas are nearer to us by the North West than by
the North East," while
John Dee in 1577 set out the view that the Strait of Anian, separating
America from Asia, led
southwest "along the backeside of Newfoundland." In 1534 Jacques Cartier,
the French navigator,
explored the St. Lawrence estuary. In 1576 the English explorer Sir Martin
Frobisher found the
bay named after him. Between 1585 and 1587, the English navigator John
Davis explored
Cumberland Sound and the western shore of Greenland to 73° N; although
he met "a mighty block
of ice," he reported that "the passage is most probable and the execution
easy." In 1610 Henry
Hudson sailed through Hudson Strait to Hudson Bay, confident, before he
was set adrift by a
mutinous crew, that success was at hand. Between 1612 and 1615, three English
voyagers--Robert Bylot, Sir Thomas Button, and William Baffin--thoroughly
explored the bay,
returning convinced that there was no strait out of it leading westward.
As in the quest for a
Northeast Passage, interest turned from the search for a route leading
to the riches of the East to
the exploitation of local resources. Englishmen of the Hudson's Bay Company,
founded in 1670 to
trade in furs, explored the wide hinterlands of the St. Lawrence estuary
and Hudson Bay. Further
search for the passage itself did not take place until the 19th century:
expeditions led by Sir William
Parry (1819-25) and Sir John Franklin (1819-45), as well as more than 40
expeditions sent out to
search for Franklin and his party, failed to find the passage. It was left
to the Norwegian explorer
Roald Amundsen to be the first to sail through the passage, which he did
in 1903-05. EASTWARD VOYAGES TO THE PACIFIC
By the end of the 16th century, Portugal in the East held only the ports
of Goa and Diu, in India,
and Macau, in China. The English dominated the trade of India, and the
Dutch that of the East
Indies. It was the Dutch, trading on the fringes of the known world, who
were the explorers.
Victualling their ships at the Cape, they soon learned that, by sailing
east for some 3,000 miles
(5,000 kilometres) before turning north, they would encounter favourable
winds in setting a course
toward the Spice Islands (now the Moluccas). Before long, reports were
received of landfalls
made on an unknown coast; as early as 1618, a Dutch skipper suggested that
"this land is a fit
point to be made by ships . . . in order to get a fixed course for Java."
Thereafter, the west coast
of Australia was gradually charted: it was identified by some as the coast
of the great southern
continent shown on Mercator's map and, by others, as the continent of Loach
or Beach mentioned
by Marco Polo, interpreted as lying to the south of Malacca (Melaka); Polo,
however, was
probably describing the Malay Peninsula.
In 1642, a farsighted governor general of the Dutch East India Company,
Anthony van Diemen,
sent out the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman for the immediate purpose of making
an exploratory
voyage, but with the ultimate aim of developing trade. Sailing first south
then east from Mauritius,
Tasman landed on the coast of Tasmania, after which he coasted round the
island to the south and,
sailing east, discovered the South Island of New Zealand; "we trust that
this is the mainland coast
of the unknown South land," he wrote. He sailed north without finding Cook
Strait, and, making a
sweeping arc on his voyage back to the Dutch port of Batavia (now Jakarta,
Indonesia), he
discovered the Tonga and the Fiji Islands. In 1644, on a second voyage,
he traced the north coast
of Australia from Cape York (which he thought to be a part of New Guinea)
to the North West
Cape. WESTWARD VOYAGES TO THE PACIFIC
The earlier European explorers in the Pacific were primarily in search
of trade or booty; the later
ones were primarily in search of information.
The traders, for the most part Spaniards, established land portages from
harbours on the
Caribbean to harbours on the west coast of Central and South America; from
the Pacific coast
ports of the Americas, they then set a course westward to the Philippines.
Many of their ships
crossed and recrossed the Pacific without making a landfall; many islands
were found, named, and
lost, only to be found again without recognition, renamed, and perhaps
lost yet again. In the days
before longitude could be accurately fixed, such uncertainty was not surprising.
Some voyages--for example, those of Álvaro de Mendaña de
Neira, the Spanish explorer, in 1567
and 1568; Mendaña and the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernández
de Quirós in 1595; Quirós
and another Portuguese explorer, Luis de Torres, in 1606--had, among other
motives, the purpose
of finding the great southern continent. Quirós was sure that in
Espíritu Santo in the New Hebrides
he had found his goal; he "took possession of the site on which is to be
founded the New
Jerusalem." Torres sailed from there to New Guinea and thence to Manila,
in the Philippines. In
doing so, he coasted the south shore of New Guinea, sailing through Torres
Strait, unaware that
another continent lay on his left hand.
The English were rivals of the Spaniards in the search for wealth in unknown
lands in the Pacific.
Two English seamen, Sir Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish, circumnavigated
the world from
west to east in 1577 to 1580 and 1586 to 1588, respectively. One of Drake's
avowed objects
was the search for Terra Australis. Once he was through Magellan's straits,
however, strong winds
made him turn north--perhaps not reluctantly. He then sailed along the
coast of Peru, surprising and
plundering Spanish ships laden with gold, silver, precious stones, and
pearls. His fortune made,
Drake continued northward perhaps in search of the Northwest Passage. He
explored the west
coast of North America to 48° N. He returned south to winter in New
Albion (California); the next
summer he sailed on the Spanish route to Manila, then returned home by
the Cape.
Despite the fact that he participated in several buccaneering voyages,
the English seaman William
Dampier, who was active in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, may
be regarded as the first to
travel mainly to satisfy scientific curiosity. He wrote: "I was well satisfied
enough knowing that, the
further we went, the more knowledge and experience I should get, which
was the main thing I
regarded." His book A New Voyage Round the World, published in 1697, further
popularized the
idea of a great southern continent.
In the late 18th century, the final phase of Pacific exploration occurred.
The French sent the
explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville to the Pacific in 1768. He appears
to have been more of a
skeptic than many of his contemporaries, for, while he agreed "that it
is difficult to conceive such a
number of low islands and almost drowned lands without a continent near
them," at the same time
he maintained that "if any considerable land existed hereabouts we could
not fail meeting with it."
The British, for their part, commissioned John Byron in 1764 and Samuel
Wallis and Phillip
Carteret in 1766 "to discover unknown lands and to explore the coast of
New Albion." For all the
navigational skill and personal endurance shown by captains and crews,
the rewards of these
voyages in increasing geographical knowledge were not great. The courses
sailed were in the
familiar waters of the southern tropics; none was through the dangerous
waters of higher latitudes.
Capt. James Cook, the English navigator, in three magnificent voyages at
long last succeeded in
demolishing the fables about Pacific geography. He was given command of
an expedition to
observe the transit of the planet Venus at Tahiti on June 3, 1769; with
the observation completed,
he carried out his instructions to search the area between 40° and
35° S "until you discover it
[Terra Australis] or fall in with the eastern side of the land discovered
by Tasman and now called
New Zealand." He reached New Zealand, circumnavigated both islands, sailed
westward, and on
April 19, 1770, made landfall on the eastern coast of Australia. He then
turned northward, charting
carefully, being well aware of the dangers of the Great Barrier Reef. At
Cape York, Cook took
possession of the whole eastern coast, to which he gave the name New South
Wales. He sailed
through Torres Strait, recognizing as he did so that New Guinea was an
island. When Cook sailed
back to England by Batavia and the Cape, the coastline of the fifth continent
was almost complete;
only in the south did it still remain unknown. In 1798 to 1799, two British
navigators, George Bass
and Matthew Flinders, circumnavigated Tasmania, and in 1801-03 Flinders
charted the coast of
the Great Australian Bight and circumnavigated the continent, thereby proving
that there was no
strait from the bight to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
In a second voyage, from 1772 to 1775, which in many ways was the greatest
of the three, Cook
searched systematically for the elusive continent that many still believed
might exist. The first
summer he examined the area to the south of the Indian Ocean; in the second,
he searched the
ocean between New Zealand and Cape Horn; and, in the third, the ocean between
Cape Horn and
the Cape of Good Hope. He sailed home convinced that the great South Pacific
continent of the
map makers was a fable.
With the exploration of the Pacific completed, interest in a Northwest
Passage revived. In 1778
Cook proceeded to latitude 65° N, but he found no way through the ice
barrier either to east or to
west. He then sailed south to Hawaii, where he was killed in a dispute
with the islanders.
Terra Australis Incognita had disappeared: there was now no unknown landmass
in the southern
oceans. It was Matthew Flinders who suggested that the fifth continent
should be named
Australia--a name that had long associations with the South Seas and that
accorded well with the
names of the other continents.
THE CONTINENTAL INTERIORS
At the opening of the 19th century, the major features of Europe, Asia,
and North and
South America were known; in Africa some classical misconceptions still
persisted;
inland Australia was still almost blank; and Antarctica was not on the
map at all.
Africa.
The river systems were the key to African geography. The existence of a
great river in
the interior of West Africa was known to the Greeks, but in which direction
it flowed
and whether it found an outlet in the Sénégal, the Gambia,
the Congo, or even the Nile
were in dispute. A young Scottish surgeon, Mungo Park, was asked to explore
it by the
African Association of London. In 1796 Park, who had travelled inland from
the
Gambia, saw "the long sought for majestic Niger flowing slowly eastwards."
On a
second expedition, attempting to follow its course to the mouth, he was
drowned near
Bussa, in what is now Nigeria. In 1830 an English explorer, Richard Lander,
travelled
from the Bight of Benin, on the West African coast, to Bussa, and he then
navigated the
river down to its mouth, which was revealed as being one of the delta distributaries
that,
because of the trade in palm oil, were known to traders as "the oil rivers"
on the Gulf of
Guinea.
The Zambezi, in south central Africa, was not known at all until, in the
mid-19th century,
the Scottish missionary-explorer David Livingstone crossed the Kalahari
from the south,
found Lake Ngami, and, hearing of populous areas farther north, came upon
the river in
midcourse. On a great exploratory journey from 1852 to 1856, the main purpose
of
which was to expose the slave trade, he first travelled upstream, crossed
the watershed
between the tributaries of the upper Zambezi and those of the lower Congo,
and
reached the west coast at Luanda, Angola. From there a year's march brought
him back
to his starting point near the falls that the Africans called "smoke does
sound" but that
Livingstone prosaically renamed the Victoria Falls; from here he followed
the Zambezi
downstream, reaching the east coast at Quelimane, in Portuguese East Africa
(Mozambique). On his second journey, sent out by the British government
to test the
navigability of the lower Zambezi, he explored the Shire (Chire) and Rovuma
rivers and
reached Lake Nyasa. His last journey, from 1865 to 1871, was undertaken
at the
behest of the president of Britain's Royal Geographical Society (successor
to the
African Association) "to solve a question of intense geographical interest
. . . namely the
watershed or watersheds of southern Africa." On this journey Livingstone
investigated
the complex drainage system between Lake Nyasa and Lake Tanganyika and
explored
the headwaters of the Congo. He refused to return to England with the Welsh
explorer
Henry Morton Stanley, who was sent to his rescue in 1871, because he was
still
uncertain of the position of the watershed between the Nile and the Congo;
he
wondered if the Lualaba was perhaps a headstream of the Nile. He struggled
back to
the maze of waterways around Lake Bangweulu and died there in 1873. (see
also
Index: Zambezi River, Congo River)
The whereabouts of the source of the Nile had intrigued men since the days
of the
pharaohs. A Scottish explorer, James Bruce, travelling in Ethiopia in 1770,
visited the
two fountains in Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile, first discovered
by the Spanish
priest Paez in 1618. The English explorers Richard Burton and John Speke
discovered
Lake Tanganyika in 1857. Speke then travelled north alone and reached the
southern
creek of a lake, which he named Victoria Nyanza. Without exploring farther,
he
returned to England, sure that he had found the source of the Nile. He
was right--but he
had not seen the outlet, and Burton did not believe him. In 1862 Speke,
travelling with
the Scottish explorer James Grant, found the Ripon Falls, in Uganda (now
submerged
following the construction of a dam for Owen Falls hydroelectric station),
and "saw
without any doubt that Old Father Nile rises in Victoria Nyanza." Stanley
completed the
puzzle in 1875; he circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza, crossed to the Lualaba,
followed
that river to the Congo, and then followed the Congo to its mouth. The
pattern made by
the river systems of Africa was elucidated at last. (see also Index: Nile
River)
Australia.
The interior of Australia also posed a problem: was its heart an inland
sea or a desert?
This question did not arouse anything approaching the same degree of public
interest
that was taken in the geography of Africa. Exploration was slow; the early
settlers on
the east coast found that the valleys led to impassable walls at the valley
heads. In 1813
the Australian explorer Gregory Blaxland successfully crossed the Blue
Mountains by
following a ridge instead of taking a valley route. Rivers were found beyond
the
mountains, but they did not behave as expected. Another explorer, the Australian
John
Oxley, in 1818 observed: "on every hill a spring, in every valley a rivulet,
but the river
itself disappears." He guessed that the great fan of rivers that drained
the western slopes
of the Great Dividing Range of eastern Australia fell into an inland sea.
The Australian
Charles Sturt resolved the problem by an imaginative journey made in 1829-30.
He
embarked on the Murrumbidgee River and was "hurried into a great and noble
river [the
Murray]." A week later he encountered another big river flowing into the
Murray from
the north, that he rightly concluded was the Darling, the middle course
of which he had
explored the year before. The voyage ended when he discovered that the
Murray
drained into Encounter Bay on the south coast. The heart of Australia was
not an inland
sea but a vast desert. Many more expeditions were needed to map the continent's
major features, but two revealed its great extent. In 1840-41 the Australian
Edward
John Eyre travelled along the south coast from Adelaide to Albany, a distance
of more
than 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometres); the Australians Robert Burke and William
John
Wills travelled from Melbourne in the southeast to the Gulf of Carpentaria
in the north.
(see also Index: Murray River)
Polar regions.
The exploration of the polar regions was the work of the first half of
the 20th century.
Scientific curiosity mainly inspired the various enterprises, although
political rivalry also
played some part.
In the North Polar regions, the scientific age began with the voyaging
of William
Scoresby, an English whaler and scientist, who in 1806 reached 81°21'N.
In 1828 an
English explorer, Sir William Parry, travelling over drift ice from Svalbard,
reached 82°
N. The Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen in 1893 attempted to reach the
Pole by
allowing his ship, the "Fram," to be frozen into the ice in the East Siberian
Sea in the
hope that a current would carry it over the Pole to east Greenland. At
84° N 102° E,
Nansen with a companion left the ship and travelled by sled to 86°
13' N: the ship
eventually emerged from the pack ice north of Svalbard. In 1909 an American
explorer,
Robert Peary, reached the North Pole by journeying by sled with 50 Eskimos
from
Ellesmere Island, northwest of Greenland. Soundings of 9,000 feet (2,700
metres) were
made within five miles (eight kilometres) of the Pole; it seemed, therefore,
that there
could be no continent here. In 1958 the U.S. submarines "Skate" and "Nautilus"
travelled across the Arctic Ocean under the ice cap.
The great southern continent, which Captain Cook demonstrated could not
lie in the
South Pacific, lay there neglected for some 50 years. From 1839 to 1843,
the British
rear admiral James Ross, in command of the ships "Erebus" and "Terror,"
explored the
coast of Victoria Land. In 1894 Leonard Christensen, captain of a Norwegian
whaler,
landed a party at Cape Adare, the first to set foot on Antarctica. In the
first decade of
the 20th century, various explorers, including Britons such as William
Bruce, Robert
Falcon Scott, and Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, the German Erich von Drygalski,
and
the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Charcot, confirmed the existence of an ice
cap of
continental dimensions. In 1908-09 Shackleton led a brilliant expedition,
during which
he examined the Great Barrier, climbed to 11,000 feet (3,400 metres), and
reached 88°
23' S. Scott and his party reached the Pole on January 17, 1912, only to
find that the
Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had already been there on December 14,
1911;
Scott's party, caught in a blizzard, died on their return journey. In 1928
Sir Hubert
Wilkins, the British explorer and aviator, flew over Grahamland, using
Deception Island
as a base. In 1957 and 1958 the British explorer Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund
Hillary,
the New Zealand mountaineer, travelled across the continent.
The age of modern colonialism began about 1500, following the European
discoveries
of a sea route around Africa's southern coast (1488) and of America (1492).
With
these events sea power shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and
to the
emerging nation-states of Portugal, Spain, the Dutch Republic, France,
and England. By
discovery, conquest, and settlement, these nations expanded and colonized
throughout
the world, spreading European institutions and culture.
ANTECEDENTS OF EUROPEAN EXPANSION
Medieval Europe was largely self-contained until the First Crusade (1096-99),
which
opened new political and commercial communications with the Muslim Near
East.
Although Christian crusading states founded in Palestine and Syria proved
ephemeral,
commercial relations continued, and the European end of this trade fell
largely into the
hands of Italian cities. (see also Index: Middle Ages)
Early European trade with Asia.
The Oriental land and sea routes terminated at ports in the Crimea, until
1461 at
Trebizond (now Trabzon, Turkey), Constantinople (now Istanbul), Asiatic
Tripoli (in
modern Lebanon), Antioch (in modern Turkey), Beirut (in modern Lebanon),
and
Alexandria (Egypt), where Italian galleys exchanged European for Eastern
products.
(see also Index: international trade)
Competition between Mediterranean nations for control of Asiatic commerce
gradually
narrowed to a contest between Venice and Genoa, with the former winning
when it
severely defeated its rival city in 1380; thereafter, in partnership with
Egypt, Venice
principally dominated the Oriental trade coming via the Indian Ocean and
Red Sea to
Alexandria.
Overland routes were not wholly closed, but the conquests of the central
Asian warrior
Timur (Tamerlane)--whose empire broke into warring fragments after his
death in
1405--and the advantages of a nearly continuous sea voyage from the Middle
and Far
East to the Mediterranean gave Venice a virtual monopoly of some Oriental
products,
principally spices. The word spices then had a loose application and extended
to many
Oriental luxuries, but the most valuable European imports were pepper,
nutmeg,
cloves, and cinnamon. (see also Index: spice trade)
The Venetians distributed these expensive condiments throughout the Mediterranean
region and northern Europe; they were shipped to the latter first by pack
trains up the
Rhône Valley and, after 1314, by Flanders' galleys to the Low Countries,
western
Germany, France, and England. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman
Turks in
1453 did not seriously affect Venetian control. Although other Europeans
resented this
dominance of the trade, even the Portuguese discovery and exploitation
of the Cape of
Good Hope route could not altogether break it.
Early Renaissance Europe was short of cash money, though it had substantial
banks in
northern Italy and southern Germany. Florence possessed aggregations of
capital, and
its Bardi bank in the 14th century and the Medici successor in the 15th
financed much
of the eastern Mediterranean trade.
Later, during the great discoveries, the Augsburg houses of Fugger and
Welser
furnished capital for voyages and New World enterprises.
Gold came from Central Africa by Saharan caravan from Upper Volta (Burkina
Faso)
near the Niger, and interested persons in Portugal knew something of this.
When Prince
Henry the Navigator undertook sponsorship of Portuguese discovery voyages
down the
west coast of Africa, a principal motive was to find the mouth of a river
to be ascended
to these mines.
Technological improvements.
Europe had made some progress in discovery before the main age of exploration.
The
discoveries of the Madeira Islands and the Azores in the 14th century by
Genoese
seamen could not be followed up immediately, however, because they had
been made
in galleys built for the Mediterranean and ill suited to ocean travel;
the numerous rowers
that they required and their lack of substantial holds left only limited
room for provisions
and cargo. In the early 15th century all- sails vessels, the caravels,
largely superseded
galleys for Atlantic travel; these were light ships, having usually two
but sometimes three
masts, ordinarily equipped with lateen sails but occasionally square-rigged.
When longer
voyages began, the nao, or carrack, proved better than the caravel; it
had three masts
and square rigging and was a rounder, heavier ship, more fitted to cope
with ocean
winds. (see also Index: sailing craft)
Navigational instruments were improved. The compass, probably imported
in primitive
form from the Orient, was gradually developed until, by the 15th century,
European
pilots were using an iron pin that pivoted in a round box. They realized
that it did not
point to the true north, and no one at that time knew of the magnetic pole,
but they
learned approximately how to correct the readings. The astrolabe, used
for determining
latitude by the altitude of stars, had been known since Roman times, but
its employment
by seafarers was rare, even as late as 1300; it became more common during
the next
50 years, though most pilots probably did not possess it and often did
not need it
because most voyages took place in the narrow waters of the Mediterranean
or Baltic
or along western European coasts. For longitude, then and many years thereafter,
dead
reckoning had to be employed, but this could be reasonably accurate when
done by
experts. (see also Index: navigation system)
The typical medieval map had been the planisphere, or mappemonde, which
arranged
the three known continents in circular form on a disk surface and illustrated
a concept
more theological than geographical. The earliest surviving specimens of
the portolanic,
or harbour-finding, charts date from shortly before 1300 and are of Pisan
and Genoese
origin. Portolanic maps aided voyagers by showing Mediterranean coastlines
with
remarkable accuracy, but they gave no attention to hinterlands. As Atlantic
sailings
increased, the coasts of western Europe and Africa south of the Strait
of Gibraltar were
shown somewhat correctly, though less so than for the Mediterranean.
THE FIRST EUROPEAN EMPIRES (16TH CENTURY)
Portugal's seaborne empire.
Following Christopher Columbus' first voyage, the rulers of Portugal and
Spain, by the
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), partitioned the non-Christian world between
them by an
imaginary line in the Atlantic, 370 leagues (about 1,300 miles) west of
the Cape Verde
Islands. Portugal could claim and occupy everything to the east of the
line and Spain
everything to the west (though no one then knew where the demarcation would
bisect
the other side of the globe). Portuguese rule in India, the East Indies,
and Brazil rested
on this treaty, as well as on Portuguese discoveries and on papal sanction
(Pope Leo X,
by a bull of 1514, forbade others to interfere with Portugal's possessions).
Except for
such minor incursions as those of Ferdinand Magellan's surviving ship in
1522 and the
Englishman Sir Francis Drake's voyage around the world in 1577-80, the
Portuguese
operated in the East for nearly a century without European competition.
They faced
occasional Oriental enemies but weathered these dangers with their superior
ships,
gunnery, and seamanship.
Territorially, theirs was scarcely an empire; it was a commercial operation
based on
possession of fortifications and posts strategically situated for trade.
This policy was
carried out principally by two viceroys, Francisco de Almeida in 1505-09
and Afonso
de Albuquerque in 1509-15. Almeida seized several eastern African and Indian
points
and defeated a Muslim naval coalition off Diu (now in Goa, Daman, and Diu
union
territory, India). Albuquerque endeavoured to gain a monopoly of European
spice
trade for his country by sealing off all entrances and exits of the Indian
Ocean competing
with the Portuguese route around the Cape of Good Hope. In 1510 he took
Goa, in
western India, which became the capital and stronghold of the Portuguese
East, and in
1511 he captured Malacca at the farther end of the ocean. Later he subdued
Hormuz
(now in Iran), commanding the Persian Gulf. They brought soldiers from
the home
country in limited numbers; but the Portuguese also relied on alliances
with native states
and enlisted sepoy troops, a policy later followed by the French and English.
Portugal never fully dominated the Indian Ocean because it lacked warships
necessary
to control the vast water expanse. Albuquerque's failure to capture Aden
at the Red
Sea entrance allowed the old traffic through Egypt to Venice to resume
following an
initial dislocation, and this continued after the Ottoman Turks conquered
Egypt in 1517.
Much of the Indian Ocean trade was local and, until the Portuguese incursion,
had been
conducted by Arabs or at least by Muslims. The Portuguese, who at first
had intended
to oust the Arabs entirely, found it impossible to manage without them.
The Hindus,
whom they hoped to use for local trade purposes, proved unenterprising
and had caste
restrictions regarding sea voyages. Muslims were soon trafficking again
vigorously, with
Portuguese sanction.
Portuguese subjects also pressed beyond the Strait of Malacca to the East
Indies, Siam
(now Thailand), and Canton in Ming-dynasty China. Trade with the celestial
empire,
difficult at first because of China's exclusionist policies, at length
grew, especially after
Portugal in 1557 leased Macau, through which for the next 300 years passed
much of
the Occidental trade with China. Individual Portuguese reached Japan in
1542, followed
by traders and Francis Xavier (later made a saint), a renowned Jesuit missionary
who
laboured with small success to make converts. In the 17th century, the
Japanese
adopted a rigorous exclusionist policy, although they allowed Portugal's
successors, the
Dutch, to conduct a limited trade from the small island of Deshima, near
Nagasaki.
Partial domination of the Indian Ocean and much of its valuable trade did
not bring
Portugal's crown as much profit as had been anticipated. The intention
had been to
make Oriental trade a royal monopoly; but Portuguese, from viceroys to
humble
soldiers and seamen, became private merchants and lined their own pockets
to the
deprivation of the royal treasury. The Eastern footholds were expensive
to maintain, and
frequent mishaps to vessels of the Indian fleets, from shipwreck or enemies,
reduced
gains. The lack of a true monopoly prevented the Portuguese from charging
the prices
that they wished in European markets. Moreover, Lisbon, while an ideal
starting point
for voyages around the Cape, proved poorly situated as a distribution centre
for spice
to northern and central Europe. Antwerp, on the Scheldt, was far superior,
and for a
time Portugal maintained a trading house there; but Portuguese agents found
spice sales
taken out of their hands by more experienced Italian, German, and Flemish
merchants,
and the Antwerp establishment was closed in 1549.
It has been asserted that the Portuguese had no racial prejudice, but their
record proves
the opposite. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they could not be expected
to be tolerant
of Oriental religions, although they soon recognized that wholesale conversion
to
Catholicism was impossible. Some Africans and Asiatics became Christians
and even
entered the clergy; but seldom if ever did they rise above the status of
parish priests. In
other affairs the Portuguese generally treated the dark-skinned peoples
as inferiors. (see
also Index: racism)
The east coast of Brazil belonged to Portugal by the Tordesillas pact.
The government
of Manuel I and his successor, John III (ruled 1521-57), paid it small
attention for 30
years. It proved nearly useless as a way station to the Cape; its Indian
population was
savage, and its products, consisting chiefly of pau-brasil (Brazilian dyewood),
yielded
much less revenue than those of India. Threats of French and Spanish intrusion
caused
John III, in 1530, to send Martim Afonso de Sousa to make a careful survey
of the
Brazilian coast and to suggest sites for colonization. Next, the littoral
was partitioned
into strips called capitanias, each colonized and governed under feudal
terms by a
proprietor, or donatário. Some limited settlement followed, and
in 1549 the capitanias
were united under a governor general who established residence at Bahia
(now
Salvador, Brazil).
In 1580 Philip II of Spain seized the Portuguese throne, which had fallen
vacant and to
which he had some blood claim. Portugal remained theoretically independent,
bound
only by a personal union to its neighbour; but succeeding Spanish monarchs
steadily
encroached on its liberties until the small kingdom became, in effect,
a conquered
province. Spain's European enemies meanwhile descended on the Portuguese
Empire
and ended its Eastern supremacy before the restoration of Portugal's independence
in
1640.
Spain's American empire.
The conquests.
Only gradually did the Spaniards realize the possibilities of America.
They had
completed the occupation of the larger West Indian islands by 1512, though
they largely
ignored the smaller ones, to their ultimate regret. Thus far they had found
lands nearly
empty of treasure, populated by naked primitives who died off rapidly on
contact with
Europeans. In 1508 an expedition did leave Hispaniola to colonize the mainland,
and,
after hardship and decimation, the remnant settled at Darién on
the Isthmus of Panama,
from which in 1513 Vasco Núñez de Balboa made his famous
march to the Pacific. On
the Isthmus the Spaniards heard garbled reports of the wealth and splendour
of Inca
Peru. Balboa was succeeded (and judicially murdered) by Pedrarias Dávila,
who turned
his attention to Central America and founded Nicaragua.
Expeditions sent by Diego Velázquez, governor of Cuba, made contact
with the
decayed Mayan civilization of Yucatán and brought news of the cities
and precious
metals of Aztec Mexico. Hernán Cortés entered Mexico from
Cuba in 1519 and spent
two years overthrowing the Aztec confederation, which dominated Mexico's
civilized
heartland. The Spaniards used firearms effectively but did most of their
fighting with
pikes and blades, aided by numerous Indian allies who hated the dominant
Aztecs. The
conquest of Aztec Mexico led directly to that of Guatemala and about half
of Yucatán,
whose geography and warlike inhabitants slowed Spanish progress.
Mexico yielded much gold and silver, and the conquerors imagined still
greater wealth
and wonders to the north. None of this existed, but it seemed real when
a northern
wanderer, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, in 1536 brought to
Mexico an exciting but
fanciful report of the fabulous lands. Expeditions explored northern Mexico
and the
southern part of what is now the United States--notably the expedition
of Juan
Rodríguez Cabrillo by sea along what are now the California and
Oregon coasts and the
expeditions of Hernando de Soto and Francisco Vázquez Coronado through
the
southeastern and southwestern U.S. regions. These brought geographical
knowledge
but nothing of value to the Spaniards, who for years thereafter ignored
the northern
regions.
Meanwhile, the Pizarro brothers--Francisco Pizarro and his half-brothers
Gonzalo and
Hernando--entered the Inca Empire from Panama in 1531 and proceeded with
its
conquest. Finding the huge realm divided by a recent civil war over the
throne, they
captured and executed the incumbent usurper, Atahualpa. But the conquest
took years
to complete; the Pizarros had to crush a formidable native rising and to
defeat their
erstwhile associate, Diego de Almagro, who felt cheated of his fair share
of the spoils.
The Pizarros and their followers took and divided a great amount of gold
and silver,
with prospects of more from the mines of Peru and Bolivia. By-products
of the Inca
conquest were the seizure of northern Chile by Pedro de Valdivia and the
descent of the
entire Amazon by Francisco de Orellana. Other conquistadors entered the
regions of
what became Ecuador, Colombia, and Argentina. (See LATIN AMERICA, THE
HISTORY OF.)
A colonial period of nearly three centuries followed the major Spanish
conquests. The
empire was created in a time of rising European absolutism, which flourished
in both
Spain and Spanish America and reached its height in the 18th century. The
overseas
colonies became and remained the king's private estate.
Spanish colonial policies.
Shortly before the death of Queen Isabella I in 1504, the Spanish sovereigns
created
the House of Trade ( Casa de Contratación) to regulate commerce
between Spain and
the New World. Their purpose was to make the trade monopolistic and thus
pour the
maximum amount of bullion into the royal treasury. This policy, seemingly
successful at
first, fell short later because Spain failed to provide necessary manufactured
goods for
its colonies, foreign competitors appeared, and smuggling grew.
In 1524 Charles V created the Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias)
as a
lawmaking body for the colonies. During the three centuries of its existence,
this council
enacted a massive amount of legislation, though much grew obsolete and
became a
dead letter. The industrious Philip II died in 1598, and his indolent or
incompetent
successors left American affairs to the Casa and Consejo; both proved generally
conscientious and hard-working bodies, though, for a time in the 17th century,
appointments to the legislating council could be purchased.
The viceregal system dated from 1535, when Antonio de Mendoza was sent
to govern
New Spain, or Mexico, bypassing the still-vigorous Cortés. A second
viceroy was
named for Peru in 1542, and the viceroyalties of New Granada and Río
de la Plata
were formed in 1739 and 1776, respectively. By the 18th century, viceroys
served
average terms of five years, and under them functioned a hierarchy of bureaucrats,
nearly all sent from Spain to occupy frequently lucrative posts. American-born
Spaniards resented this favouritism shown the peninsular Spaniards, and
their jealousy
accounted in part for their later separation from Spain. Lower socially
and economically
than either white class were the mestizo offspring of white and Indian
matings, and still
lower were the Indians and black slaves.
Though a belief to the contrary exists, Spain sent many colonists to America.
One
indication of this is the number of new cities founded, distinct from the
old Indian culture
centres. A partial list of such cities, besides the early island ones,
includes Vera Cruz,
New Spain; Panama, Cartagena, and Guayaquil, in New Granada (in modern
Panama,
Colombia, and Ecuador, respectively); Lima, Peru; and all those of what
are now Chile,
Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.
A problem early faced and never truly solved by Spain was that of the Indians.
The
home government was generally benevolent in legislating for their welfare
but could not
altogether enforce its humane policies in distant America. The foremost
controversy in
early decades involved the encomienda, by which Indian groups were entrusted
to
Spanish proprietors, who in theory cared for them physically and spiritually
in return for
rights to tribute and labour but who in practice often abused and enslaved
them. (see
also Index: American Indian)
Spanish Dominican friars were the first to condemn the encomienda and work
for its
abolition; the outstanding reformer was a missionary, Bartolomé
de Las Casas, who
devoted most of his long life to the Indian cause. He secured passage of
laws in 1542
ordering the early abolition of the encomienda, but efforts to enforce
these brought
noncompliance in New Spain and armed rebellion in Peru. A belief held by
some
Spanish theologians--that Indians were inferior beings who were destined
to be natural
slaves, to be subdued and forcibly converted to Christianity--generally
prevailed over
the opposition of Las Casas and fellow Dominicans. The encomienda or its
equivalent
endured, although this feudal institution declined as royal absolutism
grew.
The Indians became real or nominal Christians, but their numbers shrank,
less from
slaughter and exploitation than from Old World diseases, frequently smallpox,
for which
they had no inherited immunity. The aboriginal West Indian population virtually
disappeared in a few generations, to be replaced by black slaves. Indian
numbers
shrank in all mainland areas: at the beginning of Spanish settlement there
were perhaps
50,000,000 aborigines; the figure had decreased to an estimated 4,000,000
in the 17th
century, after which it slowly rose again. Meanwhile the hybrid mestizo
element grew
and--to a limited extent--replaced the Indians.
The Leyenda Negra (Black Legend) propagated by critics of Spanish policy
still
contributes to the general belief that Spain exceeded other nations in
cruelty to subject
populations; on the other hand, a review of Spain's record suggests that
it was no worse
than other nations and, in fact, produced a greater number of humanitarian
reformers.
When Dominican zeal declined, the new and powerful Jesuit order became
the major
Indian protector and led in missionary activity until its expulsion from
the Spanish
Empire in 1767; the Jesuits took charge of large converted native communities,
notably
in the area of the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata that is now Paraguay,
in their paternalism
often imposing stern discipline.
Effects of the discoveries and empires.
Before the discovery of America and the sea route to Asia, the Mediterranean
had been
the trading and naval centre of Europe and the Near East. Italian seamen
were rightly
considered to be the best, and they commanded the first royally sponsored
transatlantic
expeditions--Columbus for Spain, John Cabot for England, and Giovanni da
Verrazano
for France.
Europe's shift to the Atlantic.
Until then the Western countries had lain on the fringe of civilization,
with nothing
apparently beyond them but Iceland and small islands. With the discovery
of the Cape
route and America, nations formerly peripheral found themselves central,
with
geographical forces impelling them to leadership.
The Mediterranean did not become a backwater, and the Venetian republic
remained a
major commercial power in the 16th century. Venice's decline came in the
17th, though
the Venetians were still formidable against the Turks. As the more powerful
Dutch,
French, and English replaced the Eastern pioneers of Portugal, however,
the burden of
competition became more than the venerable republic could bear. The last
decisive
naval battle fought wholly by Mediterranean seamen was Lepanto (Náupaktos,
Greece), where Don John of Austria, in 1571, commanding Spanish and Italian
galleys,
defeated an Ottoman fleet. Although Atlantic powers thereafter often fought
in the
Mediterranean, they mainly fought each other, while the Italian cities
became pawns in
international politics. The nation-state was superseding the small principality
and
city-state, a trend that had begun before the discoveries. The new nations
lay on the
Atlantic; and, though Spain and France had Mediterranean frontages, the
advantage
went to those seaports belonging to substantial countries with ready access
to the outer
world.
Changes in Europe.
The opening of old lands in Asia and new ones in America changed Europe
forever, and
the Iberian countries understandably felt the changes first. The Portuguese
government,
for a time, made large profits from its Eastern trade, and individuals
prospered; but
Oriental luxuries were costly compared with the European goods that Portugal
offered,
and the balance had to be made up in specie. This eastward drain of gold
and silver had
gone on long before Portuguese imperial times, but it was now intensified.
Much of the
bullion reaching the Orient did not circulate but was hoarded or made into
ornaments;
consequently, there was no inflation in Asia, and prices there did not
rise enough to
create a demand for Western goods, which would have reversed the flow of
bullion
from the West. The Portuguese obtained most of the precious metal for this
trade from
spice sales through Antwerp and from Africa. The drain proved critical,
and, by the
reign of John III, the government found itself hard pressed economically
and forced to
abandon overseas posts that were a financial burden. Later, beginning in
the 17th
century, Portugal drew its own supply of jewels and gold from Brazil.
Spain's case was the reverse; although the first American lands discovered
yielded little
mineral wealth, the mines of Mexico by the 1520s and those of Potosí
(in modern
Bolivia) by the 1540s were shipping to Spain large quantities of bullion,
much of it
crown revenue. This did not furnish Charles V and Philip II their largest
income; Spanish
taxation still exceeded wealth from the New World, yet American silver
and gold
proved sufficient to cause a price revolution in Spain, where costs, depending
on the
region, were multiplied by three and five during the 16th century. The
Spanish
government wished to keep bullion from leaving the kingdom, but high prices
in Spain
made it a good market for outside products. Spanish industry declined in
the 16th
century, in part because of the sales taxes imposed by the crown, which
necessitated
more buying of foreign merchandise. Great quantities of bullion had to
be poured out to
finance the expensive Spanish European empire and the costly wars and diplomacy
of
Charles V and Philip II, both of whom were constantly in debt.
Price rises followed in other countries, largely from the influx of Spanish
bullion. In
England, where some statistics are available, costs by 1650 had risen by
250 percent
over those of 1500.
The European commercial revolution, which brought increased industry, more
trade,
and larger banks, had begun before the discoveries, but it received stimulus
from them.
Bullion from America helped create a money economy, replacing the older
and largely
barter exchange--a trend accentuated by greater European mineral production
in the
early 16th century. The trade emporiums of Italy and the Baltic Hanseatic
League
declined and were largely replaced by those of the Dutch Republic, England,
and
France. Joint-stock companies made an impressive appearance, notably the
East India
Companies of the Dutch Republic, England, and France in the 17th century.
The
mercantile theory that precious metals constitute the true wealth, though
it had attracted
advocates for a long time, now came into full vogue and continued to dominate
economic thinking.
Discovery introduced Europe to new foods and beverages. Coffee, from Ethiopia,
had
been consumed in Arabia and Egypt before its wide European use began in
the 17th
century. Tobacco, an American plant smoked by Indians, won an Old World
market
despite many individual objectors; the same proved true of chocolate from
Mexico and
tea from Asia. The South American potato became a staple food in such places
as
Ireland and central Europe. Cotton, from the Old World, took firm root
in the New,
from which Europe received an enormously increased supply. Sugar, introduced
to the
American tropics, along with its molasses and rum derivatives, in time
became the
principal exports of those regions. Spice was certainly more plentiful
than before the
discoveries, though the Dutch, when they controlled the East Indies, were
able to limit
production and thus to keep the price of cloves and nutmegs high.
The influence of the discoveries permeated literature. Sir Thomas More's
Utopia,
printed in 1516 and dealing with an imaginary island, was suggested by
South America.
The Portuguese poet Luís de Camões recounted the voyage of
Vasco da Gama, though
fancifully, in epic verse. Michel de Montaigne discoursed upon American
savages, some
of whom he had seen in France. Christopher Marlowe's drama Tamburlaine
(1587),
though based on the life of the Asiatic conqueror, was an exhortation to
his fellow
Englishmen to penetrate the New World.
Historiography acquired a broader base by taking the newly discovered lands
into
account. Astronomy was revolutionized by European penetration of the Southern
Hemisphere and discovery of constellations unknown before. Map makers,
typified by
the Fleming Gerardus Mercator and the Dutchman Abraham Ortelius, portrayed
the
world in terms that are still recognizable.
COLONIES FROM NORTHERN EUROPE AND MERCANTILISM (17TH
CENTURY)
The northern Atlantic powers, for understandable reasons, acquired no permanent
overseas possessions before 1600. The United Provinces of the Netherlands
spent the
final decades of the 16th century winning independence from Spain; France
had
constant European involvements and wars of religion; England, matrimonially
allied with
Spain as late as 1558, was undergoing its Protestant Reformation and long
was
unwilling to challenge predominant Spain openly in any manner.
The Dutch.
Although England's defeat of Philip II's Armada in 1588 helped to lessen
Spanish sea
power, it was the Dutch who early in the next century really broke that
power and
became the world's foremost naval and commercial nation, with science and
skills
commensurate with their prowess. Only late in the 17th century did they
decline,
because of Holland's limited size and the inferiority of its geographical
position to
England's. The Dutch, meanwhile, penetrated all the known oceans, including
the Arctic,
and waged unrelenting war against the Iberian kingdoms.
The Dutch coveted the Portuguese commercial empire more than the Spanish
continental one. They took much of the Portuguese East and invaded Brazil
(1624-54),
the richer half of which they controlled for a time. They also penetrated
Portuguese
Angola, which they desired because the slaves it exported were beginning
to work the
Brazilian plantations. They ultimately failed in the South Atlantic, though
they gained
Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), Curaçao, and what later became British
Guiana
(Guyana). Meanwhile, Willem Schouten, one of their free-lance voyagers,
had made the
discovery of Cape Horn in 1616.
Eastern pursuits.
The Dutch States-General, in 1602, chartered the United East India Company
(Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, popularly called the Dutch East India
Company), a joint-stock enterprise with investment open to all. In control
was a board
of 17 directors, the so-called Heeren XVII, who received a monopoly of
navigational
rights eastward around the Cape of Good Hope and westward through the Strait
of
Magellan. They could make treaties with native princes on behalf of the
States-General
(from which they were scarcely separable), establish garrisoned forts,
and appoint
governors and justices. The company had no interest in extending Protestantism,
and
there was no mention of religious conversion, though Calvinist ministers
later gained
converts in the East, mostly in communities previously made Catholic by
Portuguese
Jesuits.
The company established headquarters first at Bantam in Java in 1607, later
moving
them to Jacatra, renamed Batavia (now Jakarta), in the same island. Its
two main
objectives were the ouster of European competitors--Portuguese, English,
and
Spanish--and dominance of local trade, previously in native hands. Portuguese
vigour
had somewhat declined, and the Dutch were victorious in most armed encounters.
They
also squeezed out the English, whose own East India Company thereafter
concentrated
efforts in the Indian peninsula.
The principal builder of the Dutch Oriental empire was Jan Pieterszoon
Coen, company
governor general from 1618 to 1623 and again from 1627 until his death
in 1629.
Financially, local trade monopoly was even more important than the expulsion
of white
competitors. The extension of Dutch control to islands beyond Java had
started before
the governorship of Coen, who accentuated the process. He and other company
officials behaved ruthlessly; for example, when the inhabitants of the
nutmeg-growing
island of Great Banda (modern Pulau Banda Besar in Indonesia) resisted
the Dutch in
1621, Coen had 2,500 of the inhabitants massacred and 800 more transported
to
Batavia. Company policy was to restrict clove production to Amboina and
a few
neighbouring islands firmly under Dutch control. To insure this, about
65,000 clove trees
were destroyed in the Moluccas, and Dutch subjection of Macassar made the
monopoly virtually complete. In 1656 the famous Moluccas were described
as a
wilderness. Besides being a conqueror, Coen was an able businessman and
an
economist. When he died he was engaged in gaining a monopoly of the pepper
of
interior Sumatra, which was later sealed off securely by the fall of Portuguese
Malacca
in 1641.
Batavia became the focal point of the Dutch East, and through it passed
the commerce
of China, Japan, India, Ceylon, and Persia, bound for Europe or other Oriental
ports.
The Dutch never monopolized the China trade because the Portuguese held
Macau, the
Spaniards held Manila, and the Japanese, for a time, engaged in this commerce.
The
Dutch gained a foothold in Formosa in 1624 but lost it to a Chinese pirate
in 1662.
After Japan became exclusionist in 1641, a trickle of Dutch trade continued
to enter it
through the small island of Deshima (now part of Nagasaki, Japan), even
after the
dissolution of the United East India Company in 1799.
The economy of Java changed somewhat after the importation of the coffee
plant in
1696. Coffee, often simply called java, rapidly became a major island crop
and was
exported from there to Dutch America. The company had earlier brought coffee
to
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), but that experiment had failed when a blight attacked
its
leaves. The company ousted the Portuguese from Ceylon and dominated the
island until
it was itself dispossessed by the British in 1796. Under its jurisdiction,
as earlier, the
major Ceylonese export was cinnamon, though the Dutch also dealt in jewels
and
pepper and carried on a trade in elephants.
In their constant search for commercial outlets, the company's officials
sponsored new
exploration. Coen's ablest successor, Antonio van Diemen, governor general
in
1636-45, sent Abel Tasman to investigate the great land (Australia) previously
sighted
by Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch seamen. Tasman sailed around the continent
and
discovered Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Staatenland (New Zealand), and
the Tonga
and Fiji Islands, but their commercial possibilities seemed insufficient
to warrant further
attention.
Dutch penetration of the East was not colonization; small farmers and artisans
neither
could nor would compete with the abundant, cheap native labour. Those Dutchmen
going eastward were company officials, seamen and soldiers, overseers of
plantations
and commerce, and a few scientists and Calvinist clergymen; there was no
place for
others.
The Dutch moved into uninhabited Mauritius, which they later abandoned
and saw pass
first to France and finally to Great Britain. The Heeren XVII felt the
need of a station on
the arduous voyage between the home country and the East. They obtained
it at Cape
Town (founded in 1652 by Jan van Riebeeck), which company ships thereafter
regularly visited for fresh meat and vegetables to reduce scurvy. The town
did not
altogether live up to first expectations because the harbour was exposed,
but the
hinterland possessed a good climate and no dangerous natives. Beginning
in the 1680s
the company encouraged a moderate influx by Dutch families and French Huguenot
exiles. Although the British conquered the colony in 1806, the descendants
of these
early settlers remained the largest white element and spoke a variant of
Dutch, which
became Afrikaans.
Western pursuits.
Dutch activity in the South Atlantic, Guyana, the West Indies, and New
Netherland
(New York) was the work of the West India Company (West-Indische Compagnie),
founded in 1621. This never proved as successful as the Heeren XVII's generally
profitable enterprise, but it did produce results. Except for the Cape,
the only real Dutch
colonization undertaking was New Netherland in North America, started in
1624 by the
West India Company. Ft. Amsterdam, or New Amsterdam, was founded, and two
years later the company agent Peter Minuit made a 60-guilder ($24) transaction
with
the local Indians for the purchase of Manhattan island. Dutch settlement
along the
Hudson from New Amsterdam to Ft. Orange (Albany) remained sparse; the company's
insistence on monopolizing the Indian fur trade discouraged Dutchmen from
migrating
there. Further, the policy of creating large patroon land grants, five
in all, along the river
under feudal proprietors, limited settlement. New Amsterdam itself became
fairly
thriving because it possessed the best harbour in North America. Many besides
Dutchmen settled there; some came from nearby New England, and there was
a
sprinkling of French, Scandinavian, Irish, German, and Jewish inhabitants.
The city was
weakly defended and fell rather easily to an English fleet in 1664; it
was renamed New
York. Although the Dutch retook it briefly in 1673-74, the colony became
permanently
English by the Treaty of Westminster in 1674. The West India Company was
then
dissolved, to be reconstituted for exploitation of the Caribbean holdings
but to attempt
no further territorial expansion.
The French.
France probably could have become the leading European colonial power in
the 17th
and 18th centuries. It had the largest population and wealth, the best
army while Louis
XIV ruled, and, for a time in his reign, the strongest navy. But France
pursued a
spasmodic overseas policy because of an intense preoccupation with European
affairs;
England, France's ultimately successful rival, was freer of such entanglements.
Early settlements in the New World.
Verrazano reconnoitered the North American coast for France in 1524, and
in the next
decade Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence River; his plans to establish
a
colony, however, came to nothing. During most of the rest of the 16th century,
French
colonization efforts were confined to short-lived settlements at Guanabara
Bay (Rio de
Janeiro) and Florida; both met sad ends. France meanwhile was troubled
by internal
religious strife and, for a time, was influenced by Philip II of Spain.
But at the beginning
of the 17th century, with Spanish power declining and domestic religious
peace restored
by King Henry IV's Edict of Nantes (1598), granting religious liberty to
the Huguenots,
the King chartered a Compagnie d'Occident (Western Company). This led to
further
exploration and to a small Acadian (Nova Scotian) settlement, and in 1603
Samuel de
Champlain went to Canada, called New France. Champlain became Canada's
outstanding leader, founding Quebec in 1608, defeating the Iroquois of
New York,
stimulating fur trade, and exploring westward to Lake Huron in 1615. He
introduced
Recollet (Franciscan) friars for conversion of the American Indians, but
the Jesuit order
(the Society of Jesus) soon became the principal missionary body in Canada.
Under the ministership of Cardinal Richelieu (served 1624-42), a Council
of Marine
was created, with responsibility for colonial affairs. French West Indian
settlement,
following the activities of pirates and filibusters, began in 1625 with
the admission of
French settlers to St. Christopher (already settled by the British in 1623
and partitioned
between the two countries until its cession to the British in 1713), and
by 1664 France
held 14 Antillean islands containing 7,000 whites, the principal possessions
being
Guadeloupe and Martinique. Saint-Domingue (Haiti), not yet annexed, contained
numbers of Frenchmen, mostly buccaneers from Tortuga. Sugar became the
main crop
of the islands; the date when importation of black slaves began is uncertain,
though
some were sold at Guadeloupe as early as 1642.
French West Indian society was caste bound, with officials and large planters
(gros
blancs) at the top, followed, in descending order, by merchants, buccaneers,
and small
farmers (petits blancs). Lowest of all were contract labourers from France
(engagés)
and black slaves.
French Guiana was built around the Cayenne settlement, founded about 1637.
There
were other Frenchmen along the neighbouring coast at first, but, threatened
by
Dutchmen and natives, they finally took refuge at Cayenne. The Cayenne
settlers,
lacking any basis of prosperity, existed partly by raiding the Amazon Indians.
The 18th
century brought some improvement, but as late as 1743 French Guiana had
only 600
whites, living by coffee and cacao culture and without means to import
any but the
crudest necessities.
Activities in India.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert held a succession of high offices in France, including
the ministry
of marine, during the early reign of Louis XIV. Colbert was an archmercantilist
and
believed that an abundance of precious metals would enrich France. This
required a
favourable balance of trade and protective tariffs. Most of his policy
applied to France
itself, but he meant to supplement it with colonial markets protected by
a strong navy.
Colbert felt concern over the quantities of cash that Frenchmen paid the
Dutch for
Eastern products and intended for his countrymen to have a share of those
profits. In
1664 he placed hopes in a new French Company of the East Indies (Compagnie
Française des Indes Orientales), to which he personally subscribed
and which bought
out small predecessors. The company tried unsuccessfully to make Madagascar
a great
centre of trade, and the huge island became a stronghold of piracy, though
the French
acquired nearby Mauritius.
In the Indian peninsula, where the English East India Company had holdings,
French
progress was slow in Colbert's time and after, partly because the last
great Mughal
emperor, Aurangzeb, reigned and dominated India. The company did acquire
Pondichéry and several other posts, however, and an affiliate opened
a limited trade
with China. When Aurangzeb died in 1707, his empire declined rapidly. Thereafter,
the
question of future control of India lay chiefly between the French company
(reorganized
and renamed the Compagnie Française des Indes in 1720) and the English
company;
both companies backed or opposed warring native rulers and exacted payment
from
them for financial support and for arming and drilling the native sepoy
troops in the
European manner. By the 1740s the French had gained the upper hand, and
in the
War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48; called King George's War in North
America), the French governor general of India, Joseph-François
Dupleix, captured
Madras, the centre of British power. But in the ensuing Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
the
British, who had made gains in North America, recovered Madras. Never again
did the
French come so near success, and their fortunes soon declined. Their company
had not
made large profits because expensive wars and the costs of subsidizing
native princes
had consumed revenue. The home government seldom cooperated, and French
investors on the whole declined to speculate in overseas ventures.
Colonization of New France.
New France became a royal province in 1663, with both good and bad results.
The
arrival of troops in 1665 lessened the danger from the hostile Iroquois.
Jean Talon, the
powerful intendant sent by Colbert in the same year, strove to make Canada
a
self-sustaining economic structure, but his plan was finally thwarted by
his home
government's failure to supply financial means chiefly because of the King's
extravagance and costly European wars.
Colbert gave some stimulus to colonization of New France. Grants of land,
called
seigneuries, with frontages on the St. Lawrence, were apportioned to proprietors,
who
then allotted holdings to small farmers, or habitants. More land came under
cultivation,
and the white population grew, though immigration from France declined
sharply after
1681 because the home authorities were reluctant to spare manpower for
empty
Canada. After 1700 most French Canadians were North American born, a factor
that
weakened loyalty to the mother country.
North American exploration proceeded rapidly in Colbert's time. Fur traders
had
earlier reached Lake Superior; Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette now
travelled the
Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi in 1673 and descended it to
the Arkansas.
Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, followed the Mississippi to the Gulf
of Mexico in
1682 and claimed the entire Mississippi River Basin, or Louisiana, for
France; a later
consequence was the founding of New Orleans (Nouvelle-Orléans) in
1718 by
Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, sieur de Bienville, the governor of Louisiana. French
traders
ultimately reached Santa Fe in Spanish New Mexico, and the sons of explorer
Pierre
Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de la Vérendrye--Louis-Joseph and François--visited
the
Black Hills of South Dakota and may have seen the Rocky Mountains.
The Roman Catholic Church became firmly rooted in Canada, without the intellectual
opposition and anticlericalism that developed in 18th-century France. Jesuit
mission
work among the Indians, extending to the Middle West, saw more devotion
and
bravery by the priests than substantial results. Christianity made small
appeal to most
Indians, who could accept a supreme being but rejected the Christian ethic.
Several
zealous Jesuits became martyrs to the faith; genuine conversions were few
and
backslidings frequent.
In the 18th century, with the pioneering period over, life in New France
became
easygoing and even pleasant, despite governmental absolutism. But the fur
trade in the
west drew vigorous young men from the seigneurial estates to become coureurs
de
bois (fur traders), and their loss crippled agriculture. Civil and religious
authorities tried
to hold settlers to farming because furs paid neither tithes nor seigneurial
dues. This
drainage of manpower partly explains the slow growth of New France, which,
by a
census of 1754, had only 55,000 whites.
The English.
There is evidence that Bristol seamen reached Newfoundland before 1497,
but John
Cabot's Atlantic crossing in that year is the first recorded English exploration.
After the
death of Henry VII in 1509, England lost interest in discovery and did
not resume it until
1553 and the formation of the Muscovy Company, which tried to find a Northeast
Passage to Asia, discovered the island of Novaya Zemlya, and opened a small
trade
with Russia. The English also searched for a Northwest Passage, and Martin
Frobisher
sailed to Greenland, Baffin Island, and the adjacent mainland.
English ascendancy in India.
Francis Drake and others raided the Spanish Main, and Drake and Thomas
Cavendish
sailed around the world. The defeat of Philip II's Armada in 1588, though
less
disastrous to Spain's seapower than commonly assumed, contributed to opening
the
way for English colonization of America. Interest in the Orient at first
proved greater,
however, and, in 1600, London merchants formed an East India Company. It
could not
compete with the rival Dutch company in the region of largest profits--the
East
Indies--so it transferred its emphasis to the Indian subcontinent. The
English acquired
Masulipatam in 1611 and Madras in 1639, having meanwhile destroyed Portuguese
Hormuz in 1622. Charles II obtained Bombay in 1661, as part of his Portuguese
queen's marriage dowry, and awarded it to the company.
Collapse of the Mughal Empire after 1707 led ultimately to armed conflict
between the
British and French companies for increased trade and influence. Dupleix
had won the
upper hand for France by 1748; but in the ensuing Seven Years' War (1756-63),
fought between the major European powers in various parts of the world,
the British
company gained ascendancy in India, thanks largely to the ability of Robert
Clive, and
held it thereafter. Pondichéry surrendered; and, though France recovered
this post by
the ensuing Treaty of Paris (1763), French power in India had shrunk almost
to nothing,
while the British company's was now rivalled only by that of the native
Maratha
confederacy. (see also Index: British Empire)
Company profits from India came first from the familiar spices, but after
1660, Indian
textiles outstripped these in importance. Cheap cloths, mainly cottons,
found a mass
market among the English poorer classes, though dainty fabrics for the
wealthy also paid
well. Imports of calicoes (inexpensive cotton fabrics from Calicut) to
England grew so
large that in 1721 Parliament passed the Calico Act to protect English
manufacturers,
forbidding the use of calico in England for apparel or for domestic purposes
(repeal of
the act in 1774 coincided with inventions of mechanical devices that made
possible
English cloth production in successful competition with Eastern fabrics).
England's American colonies.
The English West Indies for many years exceeded North America in economic
importance. The Lesser Antilles, earlier passed over by Spain in favour
of the larger
islands, lay open to any colonizer, though their ferocious Carib inhabitants
sometimes
gave trouble. The Leeward Islands of Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Barbados,
as well
as the Bermudas, were settled by Englishmen between 1609 and 1632. Barbados,
at
first the most important, owed its prosperity to the introduction of sugar
culture about
1637. The size of landholdings increased in all the islands, and the white
populations
accordingly diminished as slavery came to furnish most of the raw labour.
When an
expedition sent by Oliver Cromwell took Spanish Jamaica in 1655, that island
became
the English West Indian centre. Settlement of Belize (later British Honduras)
by
buccaneers and log cutters began in 1636, although more than a century
elapsed before
Spain acknowledged that the English indeed had the right to be there.
The English islanders, to the envy of their Dutch and French neighbours,
enjoyed such
constitutional privileges as the right to elect semipopular assemblies.
Barbados once
hoped to have two representatives in Parliament, and some Barbadians, during
the
English (Glorious) Revolution (1688-89), thought of making their island
an independent
state, but nothing came of this.
The original English mainland colonies--Virginia (founded 1607), Plymouth
(1620), and
Massachusetts Bay (1630)--were founded by joint-stock companies. The later
New
England settlements--New Hampshire, New Haven, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island--began as offshoots of Massachusetts, which acquired jurisdiction
over the
Maine territory. The New England colonies were first peopled partly by
religious
dissenters, but except for the separatist Plymouth Pilgrims they did not
formally secede
from the Church of England for the time being.
Proprietary colonies, under individual entrepreneurs, began with Maryland,
founded in
1634 under the Catholic direction of Cecilius and Leonard Calvert. Also
proprietary
was Pennsylvania, which originally included Delaware, founded by the Quaker
William
Penn in 1682. Maryland and Pennsylvania, except for a brief royal interlude
in
Maryland, continued under Calvert and Penn heirs until the American Revolution;
all
other colonies except Connecticut and Rhode Island ultimately had royal
governments.
The Carolinas, after abortive attempts at colonization, were effectively
founded in 1670
and became first proprietary and, later, royal colonies. Georgia, last
of the 13, began in
1732, partly as a philanthropic enterprise headed by James Oglethorpe to
furnish a
rehabilitation home for debtors and other underprivileged Englishmen. All
the mainland
colonies eventually had representative assemblies, chosen by the propertied
classes, to
aid and often handicap their English governors.
The original settlers, predominantly English, were later supplemented by
French
Huguenots, Germans, and Scots-Irish, especially in western New York, Pennsylvania,
and the southern colonies. New York, acquired from the United Provinces
of the
Netherlands and including New Jersey, continued to have some Dutch flavour
long after
the Dutch had become a small minority. By the French and Indian War (1754-63,
the
American portion of the Seven Years' War), the total population of the
mainland
colonies was estimated as 1,296,000 whites and 300,000 blacks, enormously
in excess
of the 55,000 whites inhabiting French Canada.
The only bond of union among the British colonies was their allegiance
to the king, and
in the wars with France (c. 1689-1763) it proved hard to unite them against
the
common enemy. All the colonies were agricultural, with New England being
a region of
small farms, the Middle Atlantic colonies having a larger scaled and more
diversified
farming, and the southern ones tending to plantations on which tobacco,
rice, and indigo
were raised by slaves (although slavery was legal throughout all the colonies).
There
was much colonial shipping, especially from New England, whose merchants
and
seamen traded with England, Africa, and the West Indies; Massachusetts
shipbuilders
had built more than 700 ships by 1675. By 1763 several towns had grown
into cities,
including Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston,
South
Carolina.
Mercantilism.
By the time the term mercantile system was coined in 1776 by the Scottish
philosopher
Adam Smith, European states had been trying for two centuries to put mercantile
theory into practice. The basis of mercantilism was the notion that national
wealth is
measured by the amount of gold and silver a nation possesses. This seemed
proven by
the fact that Spain's most powerful years had occurred when it was first
reaping a
bullion harvest from its overseas possessions.
The mercantile theory held that colonies exist for the economic benefit
of the mother
country and are useless unless they help to achieve profit. The mother
nation should
draw raw materials from its possessions and sell them finished goods, with
the balance
favouring the European country. This trade should be monopolistic, with
foreign
intruders barred.
The Spanish fleet system.
Spain acted upon the as-yet-undefined mercantile theory when, in 1565,
it perfected the
fleet (flota) system, by which all legal trade with its American colonies
was restricted to
two annual fleets between Seville and designated ports on the Gulf of Mexico
and
Caribbean. The outgoing ships bore manufactured articles; returning, their
cargoes
consisted partly of gold and silver bars. Though the system continued for
nearly two
centuries, Spain was a poor country by 1700.
French mercantilist activities.
Ignoring this lesson, other European states adopted the mercantilist policy;
the France
of Louis XIV and Colbert is the outstanding example. Colbert, who dominated
French
policy for 20 years, strictly regulated the economy. He instituted protective
tariffs and
sponsored a monopolistic merchant marine. He regarded what few overseas
possessions France then had as ultimate sources of liquid wealth, which
they were
poorly situated to furnish because they lacked such supplies of bullion
as Spain
controlled in Mexico and Peru.
The English navigation acts.
England adhered to mercantilism for two centuries and, possessing a more
lucrative
empire than France, strove to implement the policy by a series of navigation
acts. The
first, passed by Oliver Cromwell's government in 1651, attempted chiefly
to exclude the
Dutch from England's carrying trade: goods imported from Africa, Asia,
or America
could be brought only in English ships, which included colonial vessels,
thus giving the
English North American merchant marine a substantial stimulus. After the
royal
Restoration in 1660, Parliament renewed and strengthened the Cromwellian
measures.
By then colonial American maritime competition with England had grown so
severe that
laws of 1663 required colonial ships carrying European goods to America
to route
them through English ports, where a duty had to be paid, but from lack
of enforcement
these soon became inoperative. In the early 18th century the English lost
some of their
enthusiasm for bullion alone and placed chief emphasis on commerce and
industry. The
Molasses Act of 1733 was in the interest of the British West Indian sugar
growers, who
complained of the amount of French island molasses imported by the mainland
colonies;
the French planters had been buying fish, livestock, and lumber brought
by North
American ships and gladly exchanging their sugar products for them at low
prices.
Prohibition of colonial purchases of French molasses, though decreed, went
largely
unenforced, and New England, home of most of the carrying trade, continued
prosperous.
THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM AND THE COMPETITION FOR EMPIRE
(18TH CENTURY)
Faith in mercantilism waned during the 18th century, first because of the
influence of
French Physiocrats, who advocated the rule of nature, whereby trade and
industry
would be left to follow a natural course. François Quesnay, a physician
at the court of
Louis XV of France, led this school of thought, fundamentally advocating
an agricultural
economy and holding that productive land was the only genuine wealth, with
trade and
industry existing for the transfer of agricultural products.
Adam Smith adopted some physiocratic ideas, but he considered labour very
important
and did not altogether accept land as the sole wealth. Smith's Inquiry
Into the Nature
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), appearing just as Britain was
about to
lose much of its older empire, established the basis of new economic thought--classical
economics. This denigrated mercantilism and advocated free, or at least
freer, trade and
state noninterference with private enterprise. Laisser-faire et laisser-aller
("to let it
alone and let it flow") became the slogan of this British economic school.
Smith thought
that regulation only reduced wealth, a view in part adopted by the British
government
56 years after his death.
Slave trade.
Slavery, though abundantly practiced in Africa itself and widespread in
the ancient
Mediterranean world, had nearly died out in medieval Europe. It was revived
by the
Portuguese in Prince Henry's time, beginning with the enslavement of Berbers
in 1442.
Portugal populated Cape Verde, Fernando Po (now Bioko), and São
Tomé largely
with black slaves and took many to the home country, especially to the
regions south of
the Tagus River.
New World black slavery began in 1502, when Gov. Nicolás de Ovando
of Hispaniola
imported a few evidently Spanish-born blacks from Spain. Rapid decimation
of the
Indian population of the Spanish West Indies created a labour shortage,
ultimately
remedied from Africa. The great reformer, Las Casas, advocated importation
of blacks
to replace the vanishing Indians, and he lived to regret having done so.
The population
of the Greater Antilles became largely black and mulatto; on the mainland,
at least in the
more populated parts, the Indians, supplemented by a growing mestizo caste
that clung
more tenaciously to life and seemed more suited to labour, kept African
slavery
somewhat confined to limited areas.
The Portuguese at first practiced Indian slavery in Brazil and continued
to employ it
partially until 1755. It was gradually replaced by the African variety,
beginning
prominently in the 17th century and coinciding with the rapid rise of Brazilian
sugar
culture.
As the English, French, Dutch, and, to a lesser extent, the Danes colonized
the smaller
West Indian islands, these became plantation settlements, largely cultivated
by blacks.
Before the latter arrived in great numbers, the bulk of manual labour,
especially in the
English islands, was performed by poor whites. Some were indentured, or
contract,
servants; some were redemptioners who agreed to pay ship captains their
passage fees
within a stated time or be sold to bidders; others were convicts. Some
were kidnapped,
with the tacit approval of the English authorities, in keeping with the
mercantilist policy
that advocated getting rid of the unemployed and vagrants. Black slavery
eventually
surpassed white servitude in the West Indies.
John Hawkins commanded the first English slave-trading expedition in 1562
and sold
his cargo in the Spanish Indies. English slaving, nevertheless, remained
minor until the
establishment of the English island colonies in the reign of James I (ruled
1603-25). A
Dutch captain sailed the first cargo of black slaves to Virginia in 1619,
the year in which
the colony exported 20,000 pounds (9,000 kilograms) of tobacco. The restored
Stuart
king, Charles II, gave English slave trade to a monopolistic company, the
Royal
Adventurers Trading to Africa, in 1663, but the Adventurers accomplished
little
because of the early outbreak of war with Holland (1665). Its successor,
the Royal
African Company, was founded in 1672 and held the English monopoly until
1698,
when all Englishmen received the right to trade in slaves. The Royal African
Company
continued slaving until 1731, when it abandoned slaving in favour of traffic
in ivory and
gold dust. A new slaving company, the Merchants Trading to Africa (founded
1750),
had directors in London, Liverpool, and Bristol, with Bristol furnishing
the largest quota
of ships, estimated at 237 in 1755. Jamaica offered the greatest single
market for slaves
and is believed to have received 610,000 between 1700 and 1786. The slave
trade still
flourished in 1763, when about 150 ships sailed yearly from British ports
to Africa with
capacity for nearly 40,000 slaves.
There was no well-organized opposition to the slave trade before 1800,
although some
individuals and ephemeral societies condemned it. The Spanish church saw
the
importation of blacks as an opportunity for converting them. The English
religionist
George Fox, founder of Quakerism (founded in the 1650s), accepted the fact
that his
followers had bought slaves in Barbados, but he urged kind treatment. The
English
novelist and political pamphleteer Daniel Defoe later denounced the traffic
but seemingly
regarded slavery itself as inevitable. The English and Pennsylvania Quakers
passed
resolutions forbidding their members to engage in the trade, but their
wording suggests
that some were doing so; in fact, 84 of them were members of the Merchants
Trading
to Africa.
Those opposing the slave trade often objected on other than humanitarian
grounds.
Some colonials feared any further growth of the black percentage of the
population.
Others, who justified English slave sales to the Spanish colonies because
payment was
in cash, condemned the same traffic with French islanders, who paid in
molasses and
thus competed with nearby English sugar planters.
olonial wars of the first half of the 18th century.
From 1689 to 1763 the British and French fought four wars that were mainly
European in origin but which determined the colonial situation, in some
cases for two
centuries. Spain entered all four, first in alliance with England and later
in partnership
with France, though it played a secondary role.
King William's War (War of the League of Augsburg).
The war known in Europe as that of the Palatinate, League of Augsburg,
or Grand
Alliance, and in America as King William's War, ended indecisively, after
eight years,
with the Treaty of Rijswijk in 1697. No territorial changes occurred in
America, and
because the great Mughal emperor Aurangzeb reigned in India, very little
of the conflict
penetrated there.
Queen Anne's War (War of the Spanish Succession).
Queen Anne's War, the American phase of the War of the Spanish Succession
(1701-14), began in 1702. Childless king Charles II of Spain, dying in
1700, willed his
entire possessions to Philip, grandson of Louis XIV of France. England,
the United
Provinces, and Austria intervened, fearing a virtual union between powerful
Louis and
Spain detrimental to the balance of power, and Queen Anne's War lasted
until
terminated by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. England (Great Britain after
1707) gained
Gibraltar and Minorca and, in North America, acquired Newfoundland and
French
Acadia (renamed Nova Scotia). It also received clear title to the northern
area being
exploited by the Hudson's Bay Company. Bourbon prince Philip was recognized
as
king of Spain, but the British secured the important asiento, or right
to supply Spanish
America with slaves, for 30 years.
King George's War (War of the Austrian Succession).
There followed a peace almost unbroken until 1739, when, with the asiento
about to
expire and Spain unwilling to renew it, Great Britain and Spain went to
war. The recent
amputation of an English seaman's ear by a Spanish Caribbean coast guard
caused the
conflict to be named the War of Jenkins' Ear. This merged in 1740 with
the War of the
Austrian Succession (called King George's War in America), between Frederick
II the
Great of Prussia and Maria Theresa of Austria over Silesia. France joined
Spain and
Prussia against Great Britain and Austria, and the war, which was terminated
in 1748 by
the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, proved indecisive. New England colonials
captured
Louisbourg, the fortified French island commanding the St. Lawrence entrance,
but
France's progress in India counterbalanced this conquest. With the Mughal
Empire now
virtually extinct, the British and French East India Companies fought each
other, the
advantage going to the French under Dupleix, who captured Madras and nearly
expelled the British. The peace treaty restored all conquests; France recovered
Louisbourg, and the British regained Madras and with it another chance
to become
paramount in India.
The French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War).
Until 1754, when the two powers resumed their conflict in the French and
Indian War in
America, the overseas possessions maintained a show of peace. During this
prewar
period the French attempted to increase their hold on the Ohio Valley and
in 1754 built
Fort-Duquesne at the future site of Pittsburgh. Lt. Col. George Washington
with
colonial forces, in 1754, and Gen. Edward Braddock with British regulars,
in 1755,
were defeated in attempts to dislodge them. Dupleix and his successor,
Charles-Joseph
Patissier, marquis de Bussy-Castelnau, increased their influence in India;
but the recall
of Dupleix in 1754 damaged French prospects there.
The Seven Years' War, fought in Europe by Frederick the Great of Prussia
against
Austria, France, and Russia, ended with his survival against overwhelming
odds. His
one ally, Great Britain, helped financially but could render small military
assistance.
Overseas, the British triumphed completely over France, aided by Spain
in the last
years of the war. The French at first had the upper hand in both India
and America, but
the turning point came after William Pitt the Elder, later earl of Chatham,
assumed
direction of the British war effort. In 1757 Clive won victory at Plassey
over the Nawab
of Bengal, an enemy of the British company; Sir Eyre Coote's victory at
Wandewash in
1760, over the French governor Thomas Lally, was followed by the capture
of
Pondichéry.
In America, thanks largely to the vigorous policy of Pitt, the British
won repeated
victories. The French forts Frontenac, Duquesne, and Carillon fell in 1758
and 1759.
British generals Sir Jeffrey Amherst and James Wolfe took Louisbourg in
1758,
Quebec in 1759, and Montreal in 1760, and the surrender of Montreal included
that of
the entire French colony. Meanwhile, Adm. Edward Hawke destroyed or immobilized
the principal French line fleet at Quiberon Bay in 1759. Spanish intervention
in the war
in 1761 merely enabled the British to seize Havana and Manila.
The Treaty of Paris in 1763 gave Britain all North America east of the
Mississippi,
including Spanish Florida. France ceded the western Mississippi Valley
to Spain as
compensation for the loss of Florida. Besides having a clear path to domination
of India
in the Old World, Great Britain also gained African Senegal. In the West
Indies, it
returned Martinique and Guadeloupe to France for the sake of peace but
remained
easily second to Spain there in importance.
The first great era of colonial conflict had ended, and the British Empire,
a century and a
half old, had become the world's foremost overseas domain. Though exceeded
in size
by that of Spain, it was the wealthiest, backed by the overwhelming naval
power of
Great Britain. British prestige had reached a new height, greater perhaps
than it would
ever attain again.
European expansion since 1763
The global expansion of western Europe between the 1760s and the 1870s
differed in
several important ways from the expansionism and colonialism of previous
centuries.
Along with the rise of the Industrial Revolution, which economic historians
generally
trace to the 1760s, and the continuing spread of industrialization in the
empire-building
countries came a shift in the strategy of trade with the colonial world.
Instead of being
primarily buyers of colonial products (and frequently under strain to offer
sufficient
salable goods to balance the exchange), as in the past, the industrializing
nations
increasingly became sellers in search of markets for the growing volume
of their
machine-produced goods. Furthermore, over the years there occurred a decided
shift in
the composition of demand for goods produced in the colonial areas. Spices,
sugar, and
slaves became relatively less important with the advance of industrialization,
concomitant
with a rising demand for raw materials for industry (e.g., cotton, wool,
vegetable oils,
jute, dyestuffs) and food for the swelling industrial areas (wheat, tea,
coffee, cocoa,
meat, butter).
This shift in trading patterns entailed in the long run changes in colonial
policy and
practice as well as in the nature of colonial acquisitions. The urgency
to create markets
and the incessant pressure for new materials and food were eventually reflected
in
colonial practices, which sought to adapt the colonial areas to the new
priorities of the
industrializing nations. Such adaptation involved major disruptions of
existing social
systems over wide areas of the globe. Before the impact of the Industrial
Revolution,
European activities in the rest of the world were largely confined to:
(1) occupying
areas that supplied precious metals, slaves, and tropical products then
in large demand;
(2) establishing white-settler colonies along the coast of North America;
and (3) setting
up trading posts and forts and applying superior military strength to achieve
the transfer
to European merchants of as much existing world trade as was feasible.
However
disruptive these changes may have been to the societies of Africa, South
America, and
the isolated plantation and white-settler colonies, the social systems
over most of the
Earth outside Europe nevertheless remained much the same as they had been
for
centuries (in some places for millennia). These societies, with their largely
self-sufficient
small communities based on subsistence agriculture and home industry, provided
poor
markets for the mass-produced goods flowing from the factories of the technologically
advancing countries; nor were the existing social systems flexible enough
to introduce
and rapidly expand the commercial agriculture (and, later, mineral extraction)
required
to supply the food and raw material needs of the empire builders.
The adaptation of the nonindustrialized parts of the world to become more
profitable
adjuncts of the industrializing nations embraced, among other things: (1)
overhaul of
existing land and property arrangements, including the introduction of
private property in
land where it did not previously exist, as well as the expropriation of
land for use by
white settlers or for plantation agriculture; (2) creation of a labour
supply for commercial
agriculture and mining by means of direct forced labour and indirect measures
aimed at
generating a body of wage-seeking labourers; (3) spread of the use of money
and
exchange of commodities by imposing money payments for taxes and land rent
and by
inducing a decline of home industry; and (4) where the precolonial society
already had a
developed industry, curtailment of production and exports by native producers.
The classic illustration of this last policy is found in India. For centuries
India had been
an exporter of cotton goods, to such an extent that Great Britain for a
long period
imposed stiff tariff duties to protect its domestic manufacturers from
Indian competition.
Yet, by the middle of the 19th century, India was receiving one-fourth
of all British
exports of cotton piece goods and had lost its own export markets.
Clearly, such significant transformations could not get very far in the
absence of
appropriate political changes, such as the development of a sufficiently
cooperative local
elite, effective administrative techniques, and peace-keeping instruments
that would
assure social stability and environments conducive to the radical social
changes imposed
by a foreign power. Consistent with these purposes was the installation
of new, or
amendments of old, legal systems that would facilitate the operation of
a money,
business, and private land economy. Tying it all together was the imposition
of the
culture and language of the dominant power.
The changing nature of the relations between centres of empire and their
colonies, under
the impact of the unfolding Industrial Revolution, was also reflected in
new trends in
colonial acquisitions. While in preceding centuries colonies, trading posts,
and
settlements were in the main, except for South America, located along the
coastline or
on smaller islands, the expansions of the late 18th century and especially
of the 19th
century were distinguished by the spread of the colonizing powers, or of
their emigrants,
into the interior of continents. Such continental extensions, in general,
took one of two
forms, or some combination of the two: (1) the removal of the indigenous
peoples by
killing them off or forcing them into specially reserved areas, thus providing
room for
settlers from western Europe who then developed the agriculture and industry
of these
lands under the social system imported from the mother countries, or (2)
the conquest
of the indigenous peoples and the transformation of their existing societies
to suit the
changing needs of the more powerful militarily and technically advanced
nations.
At the heart of Western expansionism was the growing disparity in technologies
between those of the leading European nations and those of the rest of
the world.
Differences between the level of technology in Europe and some of the regions
on other
continents were not especially great in the early part of the 18th century.
In fact, some
of the crucial technical knowledge used in Europe at that time came originally
from Asia.
During the 18th century, however, and at an accelerating pace in the 19th
and 20th
centuries, the gap between the technologically advanced countries and technologically
backward regions kept on increasing despite the diffusion of modern technology
by the
colonial powers. The most important aspect of this disparity was the technical
superiority of Western armaments, for this superiority enabled the West
to impose its
will on the much larger colonial populations. Advances in communication
and
transportation, notably railroads, also became important tools for consolidating
foreign
rule over extensive territories. And along with the enormous technical
superiority and the
colonizing experience itself came important psychological instruments of
minority rule by
foreigners: racism and arrogance on the part of the colonizers and a resulting
spirit of
inferiority among the colonized.
Naturally, the above description and summary telescope events that transpired
over
many decades and the incidence of the changes varied from territory to
territory and
from time to time, influenced by the special conditions in each area, by
what took place
in the process of conquest, by the circumstances at the time when economic
exploitation
of the possessions became desirable and feasible, and by the varying political
considerations of the several occupying powers. Moreover, it should be
emphasized
that expansion policies and practices, while far from haphazard, were rarely
the result of
long-range and integrated planning. The drive for expansion was persistent,
as were the
pressures to get the greatest advantage possible out of the resulting opportunities.
But
the expansions arose in the midst of intense rivalry among major powers
that were
concerned with the distribution of power on the continent of Europe itself
as well as with
ownership of overseas territories. Thus, the issues of national power,
national wealth,
and military strength shifted more and more to the world stage as commerce
and
territorial acquisitions spread over larger segments of the globe. In fact,
colonies were
themselves often levers of military power--sources of military supplies
and of military
manpower and bases for navies and merchant marines. What appears, then,
in tracing
the concrete course of empire is an intertwining of the struggle for hegemony
between
competing national powers, the manoeuvring for preponderance of military
strength, and
the search for greatest advantage practically obtainable from the world's
resources.
EUROPEAN COLONIAL ACTIVITY (1763-C. 1875)
Stages of history rarely, if ever, come in neat packages: the roots of
new historical
periods begin to form in earlier eras, while many aspects of an older phase
linger on and
help shape the new. Nonetheless, there was a convergence of developments
in the early
1760s, which, despite many qualifications, delineates a new stage in European
expansionism and especially in that of the most successful empire builder,
Great Britain.
It is not only the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain that can be traced
to this period
but also the consequences of England's decisive victory over France in
the Seven Years'
War and the beginnings of what turned out to be the second British Empire.
As a result
of the Treaty of Paris, France lost nearly all of its colonial empire,
while Britain became,
except for Spain, the largest colonial power in the world.
The second British Empire.
The removal of threat from the strongest competing foreign power set the
stage for
Britain's conquest of India and for operations against the North American
Indians to
extend British settlement in Canada and westerly areas of the North American
continent. In addition, the new commanding position on the seas provided
an
opportunity for Great Britain to probe for additional markets in Asia and
Africa and to
try to break the Spanish trade monopoly in South America. During this period,
the
scope of British world interests broadened dramatically to cover the South
Pacific, the
Far East, the South Atlantic, and the coast of Africa.
The initial aim of this outburst of maritime activity was not so much the
acquisition of
extensive fresh territory as the attainment of a far-flung network of trading
posts and
maritime bases. The latter, it was hoped, would serve the interdependent
aims of
widening foreign commerce and controlling ocean shipping routes. But in
the long run
many of these initial bases turned out to be steppingstones to future territorial
conquests.
Because the indigenous populations did not always take kindly to foreign
incursions into
their homelands, even when the foreigners limited themselves to small enclaves,
penetration of interiors was often necessary to secure base areas against
attack.
Loss of the American colonies.
The path of conquest and territorial growth was far from orderly. It was
frequently
diverted by the renewal or intensification of rivalry between, notably,
England, France,
Spain, and the Low Countries in colonial areas and on the European continent.
The
most severe blow to Great Britain's 18th-century dreams of empire, however,
came
from the revolt of the 13 American colonies. These contiguous colonies
were at the
heart of the old, or what is often referred to as the first, British Empire,
which consisted
primarily of Ireland, the North American colonies, and the plantation colonies
of the
West Indies. Ironically, the elimination of this core of the first British
Empire was to a
large extent influenced by the upsurge of empire building after the Seven
Years' War.
Great Britain harvested from its victory in that war a new expanse of territory
about
equal to its prewar possessions on the North American continent: French
Canada, the
Floridas, and the territory between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi
River. The
assimilation of the French Canadians, control of the Indians and settlement
of the
trans-Allegheny region, and the opening of new trade channels created a
host of
problems for the British government. Not the least of these were the burdensome
costs
to carry out this program on top of a huge national debt accumulated during
the war. To
cope with these problems, new imperial policies were adopted by the mother
country:
raising (for the first time) revenue from the colonies; tightening mercantile
restrictions,
imposing firm measures against smuggling (an important source of income
for colonial
merchants), and putting obstacles in the way of New England's substantial
trade with the
West Indies. The strains generated by these policies created or intensified
the hardships
of large sections of the colonial population and, in addition, disrupted
the relative
harmony of interests that had been built up between the mother country
and important
elite groups in the colonies. Two additional factors, not unrelated to
the enlargement of
the British Empire, fed the onset and success of the American War of Independence
(1775-83): first, a lessening need for military support from the mother
country once the
menacing French were removed from the continent and, second, support for
the
American Revolutionary forces from the French and Spanish, who had much
to fear
from the enhanced sea power and expansionism of the British.
The shock of defeat in North America was not the only problem confronting
British
society. Ireland--in effect, a colonial dependency--also experienced a
revolutionary
upsurge, giving added significance to attacks by leading British free traders
against
existing colonial policies and even at times against colonialism itself.
But such criticism
had little effect except as it may have hastened colonial administrative
reforms to
counteract real and potential independence movements in dependencies such
as Canada
and Ireland.
Conquest of India.
Apart from reforms of this nature, the aftermath of American independence
was a
diversion of British imperial interests to other areas--the beginning of
the settlement of
Australia being a case in point. In terms of amount of effort and significance
of results,
however, the pursuit of conquest in India took first place. Starting with
the assumption
of control over the province of Bengal (after the Battle of Plassey, 1757)
and especially
after the virtual removal of French influence from the Indian Ocean, the
British waged
more or less continuous warfare against the Indian people and took over
more and
more of the interior. The Marathas, the main source of resistance to foreign
intrusion,
were decisively defeated in 1803, but military resistance of one sort or
another
continued until the middle of the 19th century. The financing and even
the military
manpower for this prolonged undertaking came mainly from India itself.
As British
sovereignty spread, new land-revenue devices were soon instituted, which
resulted in
raising the revenue to finance the consolidation of power in India and
the conquest of
other regions, breaking up the old system of self-sufficient and self-perpetuating
villages
and supporting an elite whose self-interests would harmonize with British
rule.
Global expansion.
Except for the acquisition of additional territory in India and colonies
in Sierra Leone
and New South Wales, the important additions to British overseas possessions
between
the Seven Years' War and the end of the Napoleonic era came as prizes of
victory in
wars with rival European colonial powers. In 1763 the first British Empire
primarily
centred on North America. By 1815, despite the loss of the 13 colonies,
Britain had a
second empire, one that straddled the globe from Canada and the Caribbean
in the
Western Hemisphere around the Cape of Good Hope to India and Australia.
This
empire was sustained by and in turn was supported by maritime power that
far
exceeded that of any of Britain's European rivals.
Policy changes.
The half century of global expansion is only one aspect of the transition
to the second
British Empire. The operations of the new empire in the longer run also
reflected
decisive changes in British society. The replacement of mercantile by industrial
enterprise as the main source of national wealth entailed changes to make
national and
colonial policy more consistent with the new hierarchy of interests. The
restrictive trade
practices and monopolistic privileges that sustained the commercial explosion
of the
16th and most of the 17th centuries--built around the slave trade, colonial
plantations,
and monopolistic trading companies--did not provide the most effective
environment for
a nation on its way to becoming the workshop of the world.
The desired restructuring of policies occurred over decades of intense
political conflict:
the issues were not always clearly delineated, interest groups frequently
overlapped, and
the balance of power between competing vested interests shifted from time
to time. The
issues were clearly drawn in some cases, as for example over the continuation
of the
British East India Company's trade monopoly. The company's export of Indian
silk,
muslins, and other cotton goods was seen by all who were involved in any
way in the
production of British textiles to be an obstacle to the development of
markets for
competing British manufactures. Political opposition to this monopoly was
strong at the
end of the 18th century, but the giant step on the road to free trade was
not taken until
the early decades of the 19th century (termination of the Indian trade
monopoly, 1813;
of the Chinese trade monopoly, 1833).
In contrast, the issues surrounding the strategic slave trade were much
more
complicated. The West Indies plantations relied on a steady flow of slaves
from Africa.
British merchants and ships profited not only from supplying these slaves
but also from
the slave trade with other colonies in the Western Hemisphere. The British
were the
leading slave traders, controlling at least half of the transatlantic slave
trade by the end of
the 18th century. But the influential planter and slave-trade interests
had come under
vigorous and unrelenting attack by religious and humanitarian leaders and
organizations,
who propelled the issue of abolition to the forefront of British politics
around the turn of
the 19th century. Historians are still unravelling the threads of conflicting
arguments
about the priority of causes in the final abolition of the slave trade
and, later, of slavery
itself, because economic as well as political issues were at play: glutted
sugar markets
(to which low-cost producers in competing colonies contributed) stimulated
thoughts
about controlling future output by limiting the supply of fresh slaves;
the compensation
paid to plantation owners by the British government at the time of the
abolition of
slavery rescued many planters from bankruptcy during a sugar crisis, with
a substantial
part of the compensation money being used to pay off planters' debts to
London
bankers. Moreover, the battle between proslavery and antislavery forces
was fought in
an environment in which free-trade interests were challenging established
mercantilist
practices and the West Indies sugar economy was in a secular decline. (see
also Index:
abolitionism)
The British were not the first to abolish the slave trade. Denmark had
ended it earlier,
and the U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, had already provided for its
termination in
1808. But the British Act of 1807 formally forbidding the slave trade was
followed up
by diplomatic and naval pressure to suppress the trade. By the 1820s Holland,
Sweden,
and France had also passed anti-slave-trade laws. Such laws and attempts
to enforce
them by no means stopped the trade, so long as there was buoyant demand
for this
commodity and good profit from dealing in it. Some decline in the demand
for slaves did
follow the final emancipation in 1833 of slaves in British possessions.
On the other hand,
the demand for slaves elsewhere in the Americas took on new life--e.g.,
to work the
virgin soils of Cuba and Brazil and to pick the rapidly expanding U.S.
cotton crops to
feed the voracious appetite of the British textile industry. Accordingly,
the number of
slaves shipped across the Atlantic accelerated at the same time Britain
and other
maritime powers outlawed this form of commerce.
Involvement in Africa.
Although Britain's energetic activity to suppress the slave trade was far
from effective,
its diplomatic and military operations for this end led it to much greater
involvement in
African affairs. Additional colonies were acquired (Sierra Leone, 1808;
Gambia, 1816;
Gold Coast, 1821) to serve as bases for suppressing the slave trade and
for stimulating
substitute commerce. British naval squadrons touring the coast of Africa,
stopping and
inspecting suspected slavers of other nations, and forcing African tribal
chiefs to sign
antislavery treaties did not halt the expansion of the slave trade, but
they did help Britain
attain a commanding position along the west coast of Africa, which in turn
contributed
to the expansion of both its commercial and colonial empire.
The growth of informal empire.
The transformation of the old colonial and mercantilist commercial system
was
completed when, in addition to the abolition of slavery and the slave trade,
the Corn
Laws and the Navigation Acts were repealed in the late 1840s. The repeal
of the
Navigation Acts acknowledged the new reality: the primacy of Britain's
navy and
merchant shipping. The repeal of the Corn Laws (which had protected agricultural
interests) signalled the maturation of the Industrial Revolution. In the
light of Britain's
manufacturing supremacy, exclusivity and monopolistic trade restraints
were less
important than, and often detrimental to, the need for ever-expanding world
markets
and sources of inexpensive raw materials and food.
With the new trade strategy, under the impetus of freer trade and technical
progress,
came a broadening of the concept of empire. It was found that the commercial
and
financial advantages of formal empire could often be derived by informal
means. The
development of a worldwide trade network, the growth of overseas banking,
the export
of capital to less advanced regions, the leading position of London's money
markets--all
under the shield of a powerful and mobile navy--led to Great Britain's
economic
preeminence and influence in many parts of the world, even in the absence
of political
control.
Anticolonial sentiment.
The growing importance of informal empire went hand in hand with increased
expressions of dissatisfaction with the formal colonial empire. The critical
approach to
empire came from leading statesmen, government officials in charge of colonial
policy,
the free traders, and the philosophic Radicals (the latter, a broad spectrum
of opinion
makers often labelled the Little Englanders, whose voices of dissent were
most
prominent in the years between 1840 and 1870). Taking the long view, however,
some
historians question just how much of this current of political thought
was really
concerned with the transformation of the British Empire into a Little England.
Those
who seriously considered colonial separation were for the most part thinking
of the
more recent white-settler colonies, such as Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand, and
definitely not of independence for India nor, for that matter, for Ireland.
Differences of
opinion among the various political factions naturally existed over the
best use of limited
government finance, colonial administrative tactics, how much foreign territory
could in
practice be controlled, and such issues as the costs of friction with the
United States
over Canada. Yet, while there were important differences of opinion on
the choice
between formal and informal empire, no important conflict arose over the
desirability of
continued expansion of Britain's world influence and foreign commercial
activity.
Indeed, during the most active period of what has been presumed to be anticolonialism,
both the formal and informal empires grew substantially: new colonies were
added, the
territory of existing colonies was enlarged, and military campaigns were
conducted to
widen Britain's trading and investment area, as in the Opium Wars of the
mid-19th
century.
Decline of colonial rivalry.
An outstanding development in colonial and empire affairs during the period
between
the Napoleonic Wars and the 1870s was an evident lessening in conflict
between
European powers. Not that conflict disappeared entirely, but the period
as a whole
was one of relative calm compared with either the almost continuous wars
for colonial
possessions in the 18th century or the revival of intense rivalries during
the latter part of
the 19th and early 20th centuries. Instead of wars among colonial powers
during this
period, there were wars against colonized peoples and their societies,
incident either to
initial conquest or to the extension of territorial possessions farther
into the interior.
Examples are Great Britain in India, Burma, South Africa (Kaffir Wars),
New Zealand
(Maori Wars); France in Algeria and Indochina; the Low Countries in Indonesia;
Russia
in Central Asia; and the United States against the North American Indians.
Contributing to the abatement of intercolonial rivalries was the undisputable
supremacy
of the British Navy during these years. The increased use of steamships
in the 19th
century helped reinforce this supremacy: Great Britain's ample domestic
coal supply and
its numerous bases around the globe (already owned or newly obtained for
this
purpose) combined to make available needed coaling stations. Over several
decades of
the 19th century and until new developments toward the end of the century
opened up a
new age of naval rivalry, no country was in a position to challenge Britain's
dominance
of the seas. This may have temporarily weakened Britain's acquisitive drive:
the motive
of preclusive occupation of foreign territory still occurred, but it was
not as pressing as
at other times.
On the whole, despite the relative tranquillity and the rise of anticolonial
sentiment in
Britain, the era was marked by a notable wave of European expansionism.
Thus, in
1800 Europe and its possessions, including former colonies, claimed title
to about 55
percent of the Earth's land surface: Europe, North and South America, most
of India,
the Russian part of Asia, parts of the East Indies, and small sections
along the coast of
Africa. But much of this was merely claimed; effective control existed
over a little less
than 35 percent, most of which consisted of Europe itself. By 1878--that
is, before the
next major wave of European acquisitions began--an additional 6,500,000
square
miles (16,800,000 square kilometres) were claimed; during this period,
control was
consolidated over the new claims and over all the territory claimed in
1800. Hence,
from 1800 to 1878, actual European rule (including former colonies in North
and
South America) increased from 35 to 67 percent of the Earth's land surface.
Decline of the Spanish and Portuguese empires.
During the early 19th century, however, there was a conspicuous exception
to the trend
of colonial growth, and that was the decline of the Portuguese and Spanish
empires in
the Western Hemisphere. The occasion for the decolonization was provided
by the
Napoleonic Wars. The French occupation of the Iberian Peninsula in 1807,
combined
with the ensuing years of intense warfare until 1814 on that peninsula
between the
British and French and their respective allies, effectively isolated the
colonies from their
mother countries. During this isolation the long-smouldering discontents
in the colonies
erupted in influential nationalist movements, revolutions of independence,
and civil wars.
The stricken mother countries could hardly interfere with events on the
South American
continent, nor did they have the resources, even after the Peninsular War
was over, to
bring enough soldiers and armaments across the Atlantic to suppress the
independence
forces.
Great Britain could have intervened on behalf of Spain and Portugal, but
it declined.
British commerce with South America had blossomed during the Napoleonic
Wars.
New vistas of potentially profitable opportunities opened up in those years,
in contrast
with preceding decades when British penetration of Spanish colonial markets
consisted
largely of smuggling to get past Spain's mercantile restrictions. The British
therefore now
favoured independence for these colonies and had little interest in helping
to reimpose
colonial rule, with its accompanying limitations on British trade and investment.
Support
for colonial independence by the British came in several ways: merchants
and financiers
provided loans and supplies needed by insurrectionary governments; the
Royal Navy
protected the shipment of those supplies and the returning specie; and
the British
government made it clear to other nations that it considered South American
countries
independent. The British forthright position on independence, as well as
the availability
of the Royal Navy to support this policy, gave substance to the U.S. Monroe
Doctrine
(1823), which the United States had insufficient strength at that time
to really enforce.
After some 15 years of uprisings and wars, Spain by 1825 no longer had
any colonies
in South America itself, retaining only the islands of Cuba and Puerto
Rico. During the
same period Brazil achieved its independence from Portugal. The advantages
to the
British economy made possible by the consequent opening up of the Latin-American
ports were eagerly pursued, facilitated by commercial treaties signed with
these young
nations. The reluctance of France to recognize their new status delayed
French
penetration of their markets and gave an advantage to the British. In one
liberated area
after another, brokers and commercial agents arrived from England to ferret
out
business opportunities. Soon the continent was flooded with British goods,
often
competing with much weaker native industries. Actually, Latin America provided
the
largest single export market for British cotton textiles in the first half
of the 19th century.
Despite the absence of formal empire, the British were able to attain economic
preeminence in South America. Spanish and Portuguese colonialism had left
a heritage
of disunity and conflict within regions of new nations and between nations,
along with
conditions that led to unstable alliances of ruling elite groups. While
this combination of
weaknesses militated against successful self-development, it was fertile
ground for
energetic foreign entrepreneurs, especially those who had technically advanced
manufacturing capacities, capital resources, international money markets,
insurance and
shipping facilities, plus supportive foreign policies. The early orgy of
speculative loans
and investments soon ended. But before long, British economic penetration
entered into
more lasting and self-perpetuating activities, such as promoting Latin-American
exports,
providing railroad equipment, constructing public works, and supplying
banking
networks. Thus, while the collapse of the Spanish and Portuguese empires
led to the
decline of colonialism in the Western Hemisphere, it also paved the way
for a significant
expansion of Britain's informal empire of trade, investment, and finance
during the 19th
century.
The emigration of European peoples.
European influence around the globe increased with each new wave of emigration
from
Europe. Tides of settlers brought with them the Old World culture and,
often, useful
agricultural and industrial skills. An estimated 55,000,000 Europeans left
their native
lands in the 100 years after 1820, the product chiefly of two forces: (1)
the push to
emigrate as a result of difficulties arising from economic dislocations
at home and (2) the
pull of land, jobs, and recruitment activities of passenger shipping lines
and agents of
labour-hungry entrepreneurs in the New World. Other factors were also clearly
at
work, such as the search for religious freedom, escape from tyrannical
governments,
avoidance of military conscription, and the desire for greater upward social
and
economic mobility. Such motives had existed throughout the centuries, however,
and
they are insufficient to explain the massive population movements that
characterized the
19th century. Unemployment induced by rapid technological changes in agriculture
and
industry was an important incentive for English emigration in the mid-1800s.
The surge
of German emigration at roughly the same time is largely attributable to
an agricultural
revolution in Germany, which nearly ruined many farmers on small holdings
in
southwestern Germany. Under English rule, the Irish were prevented from
industrial
development and were directed to an economy based on export of cereals
grown on
small holdings. A potato blight, followed by famine and eviction of farm
tenants by
landlords, gave large numbers of Irish no alternative other than emigration
or starvation.
These three nationalities--English, German, and Irish--composed the largest
group of
migrants in the 1850s. In later years Italians and Slavs contributed substantially
to the
population spillover. The emigrants spread throughout the world, but the
bulk of the
population transfer went to the Americas, Siberia, and Australasia. The
population
outflow, greatly facilitated by European supremacy outside Europe, helped
ease the
social pressures and probably abated the dangers of social upheaval in
Europe itself.
(see also Index: human migration)
Advance of the U.S. frontier.
The outward movement of European peoples in any substantial numbers naturally
was
tied in with conquest and, to a greater or lesser degree, with the displacement
of
indigenous populations. In the United States, where by far the largest
number of
European emigrants went, acquisition of space for development by white
immigrants
entailed activity on two fronts: competition with rival European nations
and disposition
of the Indians. During a large part of the 19th century, the United States
remained alert
to the danger of encirclement by Europeans, but in addition the search
for more fertile
land, pursuit of the fur trade, and desire for ports to serve commerce
in the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans nourished the drive to penetrate the American continent.
The most
pressing points of tension with European nations were eliminated during
the first half of
the century: purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 gave
the United
States control over the heartland of the continent; settlement of the War
of 1812 ended
British claims south of the 49th parallel up to the Rocky Mountains; Spain's
cession of
the Floridas in 1819 rounded out the Atlantic coastal frontier; and Russia's
(1824) and
Great Britain's (1846) relinquishment of claims to the Oregon territory
gave the United
States its window on the Pacific. The expansion of the United States, however,
was not
confined to liquidating rival claims of overseas empires; it also involved
taking territory
from neighbouring Mexico. Settlers from the United States wrested Texas
from Mexico
(1836), and war against Mexico (1846-48) led to the U.S. annexation of
the
southwestern region between New Mexico and Utah to the Pacific Ocean.
Diplomatic and military victories over the European nations and Mexico
were but one
precondition for the transcontinental expansion of the United States. In
addition, the
Indian tribes sooner or later had to be rooted out to clear the new territory.
At times,
treaties were arranged with Indian tribes, by which vast areas were opened
up for white
settlement. But even where peaceful agreements had been reached, the persistent
pressure of the search for land and commerce created recurrent wars with
Indian tribes
that were seeking to retain their homes and their land. Room for the new
settlers was
obtained by forced removal of natives to as yet non-white-settled land--a
process that
was repeated as white settlers occupied ever more territory. Massacres
during wars,
susceptibility to infectious European diseases, and hardships endured during
forced
migrations all contributed to the decline in the Indian population and
the weakening of its
resistance. Nevertheless, Indian wars occupied the U.S. Army's attention
during most of
the 19th century, ending with the eventual isolation of the surviving Indians
on
reservations set aside by the U.S. government.
THE NEW IMPERIALISM (C. 1875-1914)
Reemergence of colonial rivalries.
Although there are sharp differences of opinion over the reasons for, and
the
significance of, the " new imperialism," there is little dispute that at
least two
developments in the late 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century
signify a new
departure: (1) notable speedup in colonial acquisitions; (2) an increase
in the number of
colonial powers.
New acquisitions.
The annexations during this new phase of imperial growth differed significantly
from the
expansionism earlier in the 19th century. While the latter was substantial
in magnitude, it
was primarily devoted to the consolidation of claimed territory (by penetration
of
continental interiors and more effective rule over indigenous populations)
and only
secondarily to new acquisitions. On the other hand, the new imperialism
was
characterized by a burst of activity in carving up as yet independent areas:
taking over
almost all Africa, a good part of Asia, and many Pacific islands. This
new vigour in the
pursuit of colonies is reflected in the fact that the rate of new territorial
acquisitions of
the new imperialism was almost three times that of the earlier period.
Thus, the increase
in new territories claimed in the first 75 years of the 19th century averaged
about
83,000 square miles (215,000 square kilometres) a year. As against this,
the colonial
powers added an average of about 240,000 square miles (620,000 square kilometres)
a year between the late 1870s and World War I (1914-18). By the beginning
of that
war, the new territory claimed was for the most part fully conquered, and
the main
military resistance of the indigenous populations had been suppressed.
Hence, in 1914,
as a consequence of this new expansion and conquest on top of that of preceding
centuries, the colonial powers, their colonies, and their former colonies
extended over
approximately 85 percent of the Earth's surface. Economic and political
control by
leading powers reached almost the entire globe, for, in addition to colonial
rule, other
means of domination were exercised in the form of spheres of influence,
special
commercial treaties, and the subordination that lenders often impose on
debtor nations.
New colonial powers.
This intensification of the drive for colonies reflected much more than
a new wave of
overseas activities by traditional colonial powers, including Russia. The
new imperialism
was distinguished particularly by the emergence of additional nations seeking
slices of
the colonial pie: Germany, the United States, Belgium, Italy, and, for
the first time, an
Asian power, Japan. Indeed, this very multiplication of colonial powers,
occurring in a
relatively short period, accelerated the tempo of colonial growth. Unoccupied
space
that could potentially be colonized was limited. Therefore, the more nations
there were
seeking additional colonies at about the same time, the greater was the
premium on
speed. Thus, the rivalry among the colonizing nations reached new heights,
which in turn
strengthened the motivation for preclusive occupation of territory and
for attempts to
control territory useful for the military defense of existing empires against
rivals.
The impact of the new upsurge of rivalry is well illustrated in the case
of Great Britain.
Relying on its economic preeminence in manufacturing, trade, and international
finance
as well as on its undisputed mastery of the seas during most of the 19th
century, Great
Britain could afford to relax in the search for new colonies, while concentrating
on
consolidation of the empire in hand and on building up an informal empire.
But the
challenge of new empire builders, backed up by increasing naval power,
put a new
priority on Britain's desire to extend its colonial empire. On the other
hand, the more
that potential colonial space shrank, the greater became the urge of lesser
powers to
remedy disparities in size of empires by redivision of the colonial world.
The struggle
over contested space and for redivision of empire generated an increase
in wars among
the colonial powers and an intensification of diplomatic manoeuvring.
Rise of new industrialized nations.
Parallel with the emergence of new powers seeking a place in the colonial
sun and the
increasing rivalry among existing colonial powers was the rise of industrialized
nations
able and willing to challenge Great Britain's lead in industry, finance,
and world trade. In
the mid-19th century Britain's economy outdistanced by far its potential
rivals. But, by
the last quarter of that century, Britain was confronted by restless competitors
seeking a
greater share of world trade and finance; the Industrial Revolution had
gained a strong
foothold in these nations, which were spurred on to increasing industrialization
with the
spread of railroad lines and the maturation of integrated national markets.
Moreover, the major technological innovations of the late 19th and early
20th centuries
improved the competitive potential of the newer industrial nations. Great
Britain's
advantage as the progenitor of the first Industrial Revolution diminished
substantially as
the newer products and sources of energy of what has been called a second
Industrial
Revolution began to dominate industrial activity. The late starters, having
digested the
first Industrial Revolution, now had a more equal footing with Great Britain:
they were
all starting out more or less from the same base to exploit the second
Industrial
Revolution. This new industrialism, notably featuring mass-produced steel,
electric
power and oil as sources of energy, industrial chemistry, and the internal-combustion
engine, spread over western Europe, the United States, and eventually Japan.
A world economy.
To operate efficiently, the new industries required heavy capital investment
in large-scale
units. Accordingly, they encouraged the development of capital markets
and banking
institutions that were large and flexible enough to finance the new enterprises.
The larger
capital markets and industrial enterprises, in turn, helped push forward
the geographic
scale of operations of the industrialized nations: more capital could now
be mobilized for
foreign loans and investment, and the bigger businesses had the resources
for the
worldwide search for and development of the raw materials essential to
the success and
security of their investments. Not only did the new industrialism generate
a voracious
appetite for raw materials, but food for the swelling urban populations
was now also
sought in the far corners of the world. Advances in ship construction (steamships
using
steel hulls, twin screws, and compound engines) made feasible the inexpensive
movement of bulk raw materials and food over long ocean distances. Under
the
pressures and opportunities of the later decades of the 19th century, more
and more of
the world was drawn upon as primary producers for the industrialized nations.
Self-contained economic regions dissolved into a world economy, involving
an
international division of labour whereby the leading industrial nations
made and sold
manufactured products and the rest of the world supplied them with raw
materials and
food.
New militarism.
The complex of social, political, and economic changes that accompanied
the new
industrialism and the vastly expanded and integrated world commerce also
provided a
setting for intensified commercial rivalry, the rebuilding of high tariff
walls, and a revival
of militarism. Of special importance militarily was the race in naval construction,
which
was propelled by the successful introduction and steady improvement of
radically new
warships that were steam driven, armour-plated, and equipped with weapons
able to
penetrate the new armour. Before the development of these new technologies,
Britain's
naval superiority was overwhelming and unchallengeable. But because Britain
was now
obliged in effect to build a completely new navy, other nations with adequate
industrial
capacities and the will to devote their resources to this purpose could
challenge Britain's
supremacy at sea.
The new militarism and the intensification of colonial rivalry signalled
the end of the
relatively peaceful conditions of the mid-19th century. The conflict over
the partition of
Africa, the South African War (the Boer War), the Sino-Japanese War, the
Spanish-American War, and the Russo-Japanese War were among the indications
that
the new imperialism had opened a new era that was anything but peaceful.
The new imperialism also represented an intensification of tendencies that
had originated
in earlier periods. Thus, for example, the decision by the United States
to go to war with
Spain cannot be isolated from the long-standing interest of the United
States in the
Caribbean and the Pacific. The defeat of Spain and the suppression of the
independence revolutions in Cuba and the Philippines gave substance to
the Monroe
Doctrine: the United States now became the dominant power in the Caribbean,
and the
door was opened for acquisition of greater influence in Latin America.
Possession of the
Philippines was consistent with the historic interest of the United States
in the commerce
of the Pacific, as it had already manifested by its long interest in Hawaii
(annexed in
1898) and by an expedition by Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan (1853).
Historiographical debate.
The new imperialism marked the end of vacillation over the choice of imperialist
military
and political policies; similar decisions to push imperialist programs
to the forefront were
made by the leading industrial nations over a relatively short period.
This historical
conjuncture requires explanation and still remains the subject of debate
among historians
and social scientists. The pivot of the controversy is the degree to which
the new
imperialism was the product of primarily economic forces and in particular
whether it
was a necessary attribute of the capitalist system.
Serious analysts on both sides of the argument recognize that there is
a multitude of
factors involved: the main protagonists of economic imperialism recognize
that political,
military, and ideological influences were also at work; similarly, many
who dispute the
economic imperialism thesis acknowledge that economic interests played
a significant
role. The problem, however, is one of assigning priority to causes.
Economic imperialism.
The father of the economic interpretation of the new imperialism was the
British liberal
economist John Atkinson Hobson. In his seminal study, Imperialism, a Study
(first
published in 1902), he pointed to the role of such drives as patriotism,
philanthropy, and
the spirit of adventure in advancing the imperialist cause. As he saw it,
however, the
critical question was why the energy of these active agents takes the particular
form of
imperialist expansion. Hobson located the answer in the financial interests
of the
capitalist class as "the governor of the imperial engine." Imperialist
policy had to be
considered irrational if viewed from the vantage point of the nation as
a whole: the
economic benefits derived were far less than the costs of wars and armaments;
and
needed social reforms were shunted aside in the excitement of imperial
adventure. But it
was rational, indeed, in the eyes of the minority of financial interest
groups. The reason
for this, in Hobson's view, was the persistent congestion of capital in
manufacturing. The
pressure of capital needing investment outlets arose in part from a maldistribution
of
income: low mass consuming power blocks the absorption of goods and capital
inside
the country. Moreover, the practices of the larger firms, especially those
operating in
trusts and combines, foster restrictions on output, thus avoiding the risks
and waste of
overproduction. Because of this, the large firms are faced with limited
opportunities to
invest in expanding domestic production. The result of both the maldistribution
of
income and monopolistic behaviour is a need to open up new markets and
new
investment opportunities in foreign countries.
Hobson's study covered a broader spectrum than the analysis of what he
called its
economic taproot. It also examined the associated features of the new imperialism,
such
as political changes, racial attitudes, and nationalism. The book as a
whole made a
strong impression on, and greatly influenced, Marxist thinkers who were
becoming more
involved with the struggle against imperialism. The most influential of
the Marxist studies
was a small book published by Lenin in 1917, Imperialism, the Highest Stage
of
Capitalism. Despite many similarities, at bottom there is a wide gulf between
Hobson's
and Lenin's frameworks of analysis and also between their respective conclusions.
While Hobson saw the new imperialism serving the interests of certain capitalist
groups,
he believed that imperialism could be eliminated by social reforms while
maintaining the
capitalist system. This would require restricting the profits of those
classes whose
interests were closely tied to imperialism and attaining a more equitable
distribution of
income so that consumers would be able to buy up a nation's production.
Lenin, on the
other hand, saw imperialism as being so closely integrated with the structure
and normal
functioning of an advanced capitalism that he believed that only the revolutionary
overthrow of capitalism, with the substitution of Socialism, would rid
the world of
imperialism. (see also Index: Marxism)
Lenin placed the issues of imperialism in a context broader than the interests
of a special
sector of the capitalist class. According to Lenin, capitalism itself changed
in the late
19th century; moreover, because this happened at pretty much the same time
in several
leading capitalist nations, it explains why the new phase of capitalist
development came
when it did. This new phase, Lenin believed, involves political and social
as well as
economic changes; but its economic essence is the replacement of competitive
capitalism by monopoly capitalism, a more advanced stage in which finance
capital, an
alliance between large industrial and banking firms, dominates the economic
and political
life of society. Competition continues, but among a relatively small number
of giants who
are able to control large sectors of the national and international economy.
It is this
monopoly capitalism and the resulting rivalry generated among monopoly
capitalist
nations that foster imperialism; in turn, the processes of imperialism
stimulate the further
development of monopoly capital and its influence over the whole society.
The difference between Lenin's more complex paradigm and Hobson's shows
up clearly
in the treatment of capital export. Like Hobson, Lenin maintained that
the increasing
importance of capital exports is a key figure of imperialism, but he attributed
the
phenomenon to much more than pressure from an overabundance of capital.
He also
saw the acceleration of capital migration arising from the desire to obtain
exclusive
control over raw material sources and to get a tighter grip on foreign
markets. He thus
shifted the emphasis from the general problem of surplus capital, inherent
in capitalism in
all its stages, to the imperatives of control over raw materials and markets
in the
monopoly stage. With this perspective, Lenin also broadened the concept
of
imperialism. Because the thrust is to divide the world among monopoly interest
groups,
the ensuing rivalry extends to a struggle over markets in the leading capitalist
nations as
well as in the less advanced capitalist and colonial countries. This rivalry
is intensified
because of the uneven development of different capitalist nations: the
latecomers
aggressively seek a share of the markets and colonies controlled by those
who got there
first, who naturally resist such a redivision. Other forces--political,
military, and
ideological--are at play in shaping the contours of imperialist policy,
but Lenin insisted
that these influences germinate in the seedbed of monopoly capitalism.
Noneconomic imperialism.
Perhaps the most systematic alternative theory of imperialism was proposed
by Joseph
Alois Schumpeter, one of the best known economists of the first half of
the 20th
century. His essay "Zur Soziologie des Imperialismus" ("The Sociology of
Imperialism")
was first published in Germany in the form of two articles in 1919. Although
Schumpeter was probably not familiar with Lenin's Imperialism at the time
he wrote his
essay, his arguments were directed against the Marxist currents of thought
of the early
20th century and in particular against the idea that imperialism grows
naturally out of
capitalism. Unlike other critics, however, Schumpeter accepted some of
the
components of the Marxist thesis, and to a certain extent he followed the
Marxist
tradition of looking for the influence of class forces and class interests
as major levers of
social change. In doing so, he in effect used the weapons of Marxist thought
to rebut the
essence of Marxist theory.
A survey of empires, beginning with the earliest days of written history,
led Schumpeter
to conclude that there are three generic characteristics of imperialism:
(1) At root is a
persistent tendency to war and conquest, often producing nonrational expansions
that
have no sound utilitarian aim. (2) These urges are not innate in man. They
evolved from
critical experiences when peoples and classes were molded into warriors
to avoid
extinction; the warrior mentality and the interests of warrior classes
live on, however,
and influence events even after the vital need for wars and conquests disappears.
(3)
The drift to war and conquest is sustained and conditioned by the domestic
interests of
ruling classes, often under the leadership of those individuals who have
most to gain
economically and socially from war. But for these factors, Schumpeter believed,
imperialism would have been swept away into the dustbin of history as capitalist
society
ripened; for capitalism in its purest form is antithetical to imperialism:
it thrives best with
peace and free trade. Yet despite the innate peaceful nature of capitalism,
interest
groups do emerge that benefit from aggressive foreign conquests. Under
monopoly
capitalism the fusion of big banks and cartels creates a powerful and influential
social
group that pressures for exclusive control in colonies and protectorates,
for the sake of
higher profits.
Notwithstanding the resemblance between Schumpeter's discussion of monopoly
and
that of Lenin and other Marxists, a crucial difference does remain. Monopoly
capitalism
in Lenin's frame of reference is a natural outgrowth of the previous stage
of competitive
capitalism. But according to Schumpeter, it is an artificial graft on the
more natural
competitive capitalism, made possible by the catalytic effect of the residue
from the
preceding feudal society. Schumpeter argued that monopoly capitalism can
only grow
and prosper under the protection of high tariff walls; without that shield
there would be
large-scale industry but no cartels or other monopolistic arrangements.
Because tariff
walls are erected by political decisions, it is the state and not a natural
economic
process that promotes monopoly. Therefore, it is in the nature of the state--and
especially those features that blend the heritage of the previous autocratic
state, the old
war machine, and feudal interests and ideas along with capitalist interests--that
the cause
of imperialism will be discovered. The particular form of imperialism in
modern times is
affected by capitalism, and capitalism itself is modified by the imperialist
experience. In
Schumpeter's analysis, however, imperialism is not an inevitable product
of capitalism.
Quest for a general theory of imperialism.
The main trend of academic thought in the Western world is to follow Schumpeter's
conclusion--that modern imperialism is not a product of capitalism--without
paying
close attention to Schumpeter's sophisticated sociological analysis. Specialized
studies
have produced a variety of interpretations of the origin or reawakening
of the new
imperialism: for France, bolstering of national prestige after its defeat
in the
Franco-German War (1870-71); for Germany, Bismarck's design to stay in
power
when threatened by political rivals; for England, the desire for greater
military security in
the Mediterranean and India. These reasons--along with other frequently
mentioned
contributing causes, such as the spirit of national and racial superiority
and the drive for
power--are still matters of controversy with respect to specific cases
and to the
problem of fitting them into a general theory of imperialism. For example,
if it is found
that a new colony was acquired for better military defense of existing
colonies, the
questions still remain as to why the existing colonies were acquired in
the first place and
why it was considered necessary to defend them rather than to give them
up. Similarly,
explanations in terms of the search for power still have to account for
the close
relationship between power and wealth, because in the real world adequate
economic
resources are needed for a nation to hold on to its power, let alone to
increase it.
Conversely, increasing a nation's wealth often requires power. As is characteristic
of
historical phenomena, imperialist expansion is conditioned by a nation's
previous history
and the particular situation preceding each expansionist move. Moreover,
it is carried
forth in the midst of a complex of political, military, economic, and psychological
impulses. It would seem, therefore, that the attempt to arrive at a theory
that explains
each and every imperialist action--ranging from a semifeudal Russia to
a relatively
undeveloped Italy to an industrially powerful Germany--is a vain pursuit.
But this does
not eliminate the more important challenge of constructing a theory that
will provide a
meaningful interpretation of the almost simultaneous eruption of the new
imperialism in a
whole group of leading powers.
PENETRATION OF THE WEST IN ASIA
Russia's eastward expansion.
European nations and Japan at the end of the 19th century spread their
influence and
control throughout the continent of Asia. Russia, because of its geographic
position, was
the only occupying power whose Asian conquests were overland. In that respect
there
is some similarity between Russia and the United States in the forcible
outward push of
their continental frontiers. But there is a significant difference: the
United States advance
displaced the indigenous population, with the remaining Indians becoming
wards of the
state. On the other hand, the Russian march across Asia resulted in the
incorporation of
alien cultures and societies as virtual colonies of the Russian Empire,
while providing
room for the absorption of Russian settlers.
Although the conquest of Siberia and the drive to the Pacific had been
periodically
absorbing Russia's military energies since the 16th century, the acquisition
of additional
Asian territory and the economic integration of previously acquired territory
took a new
turn in the 19th century. Previously, Russian influence in its occupied
territory was quite
limited, without marked alteration of the social and economic structure
of the conquered
peoples. Aside from looting and exacting tribute from subject tribes, the
major objects
of interest were the fur trade, increased commerce with China and in the
Pacific, and
land. But changes in 19th-century Russian society, especially those coming
after the
Crimean War (1853-56), signalled a new departure. First, Russia's resounding
defeat in
that war temporarily frustrated its aspirations in the Balkans and the
Near East; but,
because its dynastic and military ambitions were in no way diminished,
its expansionist
energies turned with increased vigour to its Asian frontiers. Second, the
emancipation of
the serfs (1861), which eased the feudal restrictions on the landless peasants,
led to
large waves of migration by Russians and Ukrainians--first to Siberia and
later to
Central Asia. Third, the surge of industrialization, foreign trade, and
railway building in
the post-Crimean War decades paved the way for the integration of Russian
Asia,
which formerly, for all practical purposes, had been composed of separate
dependencies, and for a new type of subjugation for many of these areas,
especially in
Central Asia, in which the conquered societies were "colonized" to suit
the political and
economic needs of the conqueror.
This process of acquisition and consolidation in Asia spread out in four
directions:
Siberia, the Far East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. This pursuit of
tsarist ambitions
for empire and for warm-water ports involved numerous clashes and conflicts
along the
way. Russian expansion was ultimately limited not by the fierce opposition
of the native
population, which was at times a stumbling block, but by the counterpressure
of
competitive empire builders, such as Great Britain and Japan. Great Britain
and Russia
were mutually alarmed as the distances between the expanding frontiers
of Russia and
India shortened. One point of conflict was finally resolved when both powers
agreed on
the delimitation of the northern border of Afghanistan. A second major
area of conflict
in Central Asia was settled by an Anglo-Russian treaty (1907) to divide
Persia into two
separate spheres of influence, leaving a nominally independent Persian
nation.
As in the case of Afghanistan and Persia, penetration of Chinese territory
produced
clashes with both the native government and other imperialist powers. At
times China's
preoccupation with its struggle against other invading powers eased the
way for Russia's
penetration. Thus, in 1860, when Anglo-French soldiers had entered Peking,
Russia
was able to wrest from China the Amur Province and special privileges in
Manchuria
(Northeast Provinces) south of the Amur River. With this as a stepping-stone,
Russia
took over the seacoast north of Korea and founded the town of Vladivostok.
But,
because the Vladivostok harbour is icebound for some four months of the
year, the
Russians began to pay more attention to getting control of the Korean coastline,
where
many good year-round harbours could be found. Attempts to acquire a share
of Korea,
as well as all of Manchuria, met with the resistance of Britain and Japan.
Further thrusts
into China beyond the Amur and maritime provinces were finally thwarted
by defeat in
1905 in the Russo-Japanese War.
The partitioning of China.
The evolution of the penetration of Asia was naturally influenced by a
multiplicity of
factors--economic and political conditions in the expanding nations, the
strategy of the
military officials of the latter nations, the problems facing colonial
rulers in each locality,
pressures arising from white settlers and businessmen in the colonies,
as well as the
constraints imposed by the always limited economic and military resources
of the
imperialist powers. All these elements were present to a greater or lesser
extent at each
stage of the forward push of the colonial frontiers by the Dutch in Indonesia,
the French
in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and the British in Malaya, Burma,
and
Borneo.
Yet, despite the variety of influences at work, three general types of
penetration stand
out. One of these is expansion designed to overcome resistance to foreign
rule.
Resistance, which assumed many forms ranging from outright rebellion to
sabotage of
colonial political and economic domination, was often strongest in the
border areas
farthest removed from the centres of colonial power. The consequent extension
of
military control to the border regions tended to arouse the fears and opposition
of
neighbouring states or tribal societies and thus led to the further extension
of control.
Hence, attempts to achieve military security prompted the addition of border
areas and
neighbouring nations to the original colony.
A second type of expansion was a response to the economic opportunities
offered by
exploitation of the colonial interiors. Traditional trade and the free
play of market forces
in Asia did not produce huge supplies of raw materials and food or the
enlarged export
markets sought by the industrializing colonial powers. For this, entrepreneurs
and capital
from abroad were needed, mines and plantations had to be organized, labour
supplies
mobilized, and money economies created. All these alien intrusions functioned
best
under the firm security of an accommodating alien law and order.
The third type of expansion was the result of rivalry among colonial powers.
When
possible, new territory was acquired or old possessions extended in order
either to
preclude occupation by rivals or to serve as buffers for military security
against the
expansions of nearby colonial powers. Where the crosscurrents of these
rivalries
prevented any one power from obtaining exclusive control, various substitute
arrangements were arrived at: parts of a country were chipped off and occupied
by one
or more of the powers; spheres of influence were partitioned; unequal commercial
treaties were imposed--while the countries subjected to such treatment
remained
nominally independent.
The penetration of China is the outstanding example of this type of expansion.
In the
early 19th century the middle part of eastern Asia (Japan, Korea, and China),
containing about half the Asian population, was still little affected by
Western
penetration. By the end of the century, Korea was on the way to becoming
annexed by
Japan, which had itself become a leading imperialist power. China remained
independent politically, though it was already extensively dominated by
outside powers.
Undoubtedly, the intense rivalry of the foreign powers helped save China
from being
taken over outright (as India had been). China was pressed on all sides
by competing
powers anxious for its trade and territory: Russia from the north, Great
Britain (via India
and Burma) from the south and west, France (via Indochina) from the south,
and Japan
and the United States (in part, via the Philippines) from the east.
The Opium Wars.
The first phase of the forceful penetration of China by western Europe
came in the two
Opium Wars. Great Britain had been buying increasing quantities of tea
from China, but
it had few products that China was interested in buying by way of exchange.
A resulting
steady drain of British silver to pay for the tea was eventually stopped
by Great Britain's
ascendancy in India. With British merchants in control of India's foreign
trade and with
the financing of this trade centred in London, a three-way exchange developed:
the tea
Britain bought in China was paid for by India's exports of opium and cotton
to China.
And because of a rapidly increasing demand for tea in England, British
merchants
actively fostered the profitable exports of opium and cotton from India.
An increasing Chinese addiction to opium fed a boom in imports of the drug
and led to
an unfavourable trade balance paid for by a steady loss of China's silver
reserves. In
light of the economic effect of the opium trade plus the physical and mental
deterioration
of opium users, Chinese authorities banned the opium trade. At first this
posed few
obstacles to British merchants, who resorted to smuggling. But enforcement
of the ban
became stringent toward the end of the 1830s; stores of opium were confiscated,
and
warehouses were closed down. British merchants had an additional and longstanding
grievance because the Chinese limited all trade by foreigners to the port
of Canton.
In June 1840 the British fleet arrived at the mouth of the Canton River
to begin the
Opium War. The Chinese capitulated in 1842 after the fleet reached the
Yangtze,
Shanghai fell, and Nanking was under British guns. The resulting Treaty
of Nanking--the
first in a series of commercial treaties China was forced to sign over
the
years--provided for: (1) cession of Hong Kong to the British crown; (2)
the opening of
five treaty ports, where the British would have residence and trade rights;
(3) the right of
British nationals in China who were accused of criminal acts to be tried
in British courts;
and (4) the limitation of duties on imports and exports to a modest rate.
Other countries
soon took advantage of this forcible opening of China; in a few years similar
treaties
were signed by China with the United States, France, and Russia.
The Chinese, however, tried to retain some independence by preventing foreigners
from
entering the interior of China. With the country's economic and social
institutions still
intact, markets for Western goods, such as cotton textiles and machinery,
remained
disappointing: the self-sufficient communities of China were not disrupted
as those in
India had been under direct British rule, and opium smuggling by British
merchants
continued as a major component of China's foreign trade. Western merchants
sought
further concessions to improve markets. But meanwhile China's weakness,
along with
the stresses induced by foreign intervention, was further intensified by
an upsurge of
peasant rebellions, especially the massive 14-year Taiping Rebellion (1850-64).
The Western powers took advantage of the increasing difficulties by pressing
for even
more favourable trade treaties, culminating in a second war against China
(1856-60),
this time by France and England. Characteristically, the Western powers
invading China
played a double role: in addition to forcing a new trade treaty, they also
helped to
sustain the Chinese ruling establishment by participating in the suppression
of the Taiping
Rebellion; they believed that a Taiping victory would result in a reformed
and centralized
China, more resistant to Western penetration. China's defeat in the second
war with the
West produced a series of treaties, signed at Tientsin with Britain, France,
Russia, and
the United States, which brought the Western world deeper into China's
affairs. The
Tientsin treaties provided, among other things, for the right of foreign
nationals to travel
in the interior, the right of foreign ships to trade and patrol on the
Yangtze River, the
opening up of more treaty ports, and additional exclusive legal jurisdiction
by foreign
powers over their nationals residing in China.
Foreign privileges in China.
Treaties of this general nature were extended over the years to grant further
privileges to
foreigners. Furthermore, more and more Western nations--including Germany,
Italy,
Denmark, The Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and Austria-Hungary--took advantage
of
the new opportunities by signing such treaties. By the beginning of the
20th century,
some 90 Chinese ports had been opened to foreign control. While the Chinese
government retained nominal sovereignty in these ports, de facto rule was
exercised by
one or more of the powers: in Shanghai, for example, Great Britain and
the United
States coalesced their interests to form the Shanghai International Settlement.
In most of
the treaty ports, China leased substantial areas of land at low rates to
foreign
governments. The consulates in these concessions exercised legal jurisdiction
over their
nationals, who thereby escaped China's laws and tax collections. The foreign
settlements had their own police forces and tax systems and ran their own
affairs
independently of nominally sovereign China.
These settlements were not the only intrusion on China's sovereignty. In
addition, the
opium trade was finally legalized, customs duties were forced downward
to facilitate
competition of imported Western goods, foreign gunboats patrolled China's
rivers, and
aliens were placed on customs-collection staffs to ensure that China would
pay the
indemnities imposed by various treaties. In response to these indignities
and amid
growing antiforeign sentiment, the Chinese government attempted reforms
to modernize
and develop sufficient strength to resist foreign intrusions. Steps were
taken to master
Western science and technology, erect shipyards and arsenals, and build
a more
effective army and navy. The reforms, however, did not get very far: they
did not tackle
the roots of China's vulnerability, its social and political structure;
and they were
undertaken quite late, after foreign nations had already established a
strong foothold.
Also, it is likely that the reforms were not wholehearted because two opposing
tendencies were at play: on the one hand, a wish to seek independence and,
on the
other hand, a basic reliance on foreign support by a weak Manchu government
beset
with rebellion and internal opposition.
The Open Door Policy.
In any event, preliminary attempts to Westernize Chinese society from within
did not
deter further foreign penetration; nor did the subsequent revolution (1911)
succeed in
freeing China from Western domination. Toward the end of the 19th century,
under the
impact of the new imperialism, the spread of foreign penetration accelerated.
Germany
entered a vigorous bid for its sphere of influence; Japan and Russia pushed
forward
their territorial claims; and U.S. commercial and financial penetration
of the Pacific, with
naval vessels patrolling Chinese rivers, was growing rapidly. But at the
same time this
mounting foreign interest also inhibited the outright partition of China.
Any step by one
of the powers toward outright partition or sizable enlargement of its sphere
of influence
met with strong opposition from other powers. This led eventually to the
Open Door
Policy, advocated by the United States, which limited or restricted exclusive
privileges
of any one power vis-à-vis the others. It became generally accepted
after the
anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion (1900) in China. With the foreign armies that
had been
brought in to suppress the rebellion now stationed in North China, the
danger to the
continued existence of the Chinese government and the danger of war among
the
imperialist powers for their share of the country seemed greater than ever.
Agreement
on the Open Door Policy helped to retain both a compliant native government
and equal
opportunity for commerce, finance, and investment by the more advanced
nations.
Japan's rise as a colonial power.
Japan was the only Asian country to escape colonization from the West.
European
nations and the United States tried to "open the door," and to some extent
they
succeeded; but Japan was able to shake off the kind of subjugation, informal
or formal,
to which the rest of Asia succumbed. Even more important, it moved onto
the same
road of industrialization as did Europe and the United States. And instead
of being
colonized it became one of the colonial powers.
Japan had traditionally sought to avoid foreign intrusion. For many years,
only the Dutch
and the Chinese were allowed trading depots, each having access to only
one port. No
other foreigners were permitted to land in Japan, though Russia, France,
and England
tried, but with little success. The first significant crack in Japan's
trade and travel barriers
was forced by the United States in an effort to guarantee and strengthen
its shipping
interests in the Far East. Japan's guns and ships were no match for those
of
Commodore Perry in his two U.S. naval expeditions to Japan (1853, 1854).
The Japanese, well aware of the implications of foreign penetration through
observing
what was happening to China, tried to limit Western trade to two ports.
In 1858,
however, Japan agreed to a full commercial treaty with the United States,
followed by
similar treaties with the Low Countries, Russia, France, and Britain. The
treaty pattern
was familiar: more ports were opened; resident foreigners were granted
extraterritorial
rights, as in China; import and export duties were predetermined, thus
removing control
that Japan might otherwise exercise over its foreign trade.
Many attempts have been made to explain why a weak Japan was not taken
over as a
colony or, at least, did not follow in China's footsteps. Despite the absence
of a
commonly accepted theory, two factors were undoubtedly crucial. On the
one hand, the
Western nations did not pursue their attempts to control Japan as aggressively
as they
did elsewhere. In Asia the interests of the more aggressively expanding
powers had
centred on India, China, and the immediately surrounding areas. When greater
interest
developed in a possible breakthrough in Japan in the 1850s and 1860s, the
leading
powers were occupied with other pressing affairs, such as thhe 1857 Indian
mutiny, the
Taiping Rebellion, the Crimean War, French intervention in Mexico, and
the U.S. Civil
War. International jealousy may also have played a role in deterring any
one power
from trying to gain exclusive control over the country. On the other hand,
in Japan itself,
the danger of foreign military intervention, a crisis in its traditional
feudal society, the rise
of commerce, and a disaffected peasantry led to an intense internal power
struggle and
finally to a revolutionary change in the country's society and a thoroughgoing
modernization program, one that brought Japan the economic and military
strength to
resist foreign nations.
The opposing forces in Japan's civil war were lined up between the supporters
of the
ruling Tokugawa family, which headed a rigid hierarchical feudal society,
and the
supporters of the emperor Meiji, whose court had been isolated from any
significant
government role. The civil war culminated in 1868 in the overthrow of the
Tokugawa
government and the restoration of the rule of the Emperor. The Meiji Restoration
also
brought new interest groups to the centre of political power and instigated
a radical
redirection of Japan's economic development. The nub of the changeover
was the
destruction of the traditional feudal social system and the building of
a political, social,
and economic framework conducive to capitalist industrialization. The new
state actively
participated in the turnabout by various forms of grants and guarantees
to enterprising
industrialists and by direct investment in basic industries such as railways,
shipbuilding,
communications, and machinery. The concentration of resources in the industrial
sector
was matched by social reforms that eliminated feudal restrictions, accelerated
mass
education, and encouraged acquisition of skills in the use of Western technology.
The
ensuing industrialized economy provided the means for Japan to hold its
own in modern
warfare and to withstand foreign economic competition.
Soon Japan not only followed the Western path of internal industrialization,
but it also
began an outward aggression resembling that of the European nations. First
came the
acquisition and colonization of neighbouring islands: Ryukyu Islands (including
Okinawa), the Kuril Islands, Bonin Islands, and Hokkaido. Next in Japan's
expansion
program was Korea, but the opposition of other powers postponed the transformation
of Korea into a Japanese colony. The pursuit of influence in Korea involved
Japan in
war with China (1894-95), at the end of which China recognized Japan's
interest in
Korea and ceded to Japan Taiwan, the Pescadores, and southern Manchuria.
At this
point rival powers interceded to force Japan to forgo taking over the southern
Manchuria peninsula. While France, Britain, and Germany were involved in
seeking to
frustrate Japan's imperial ambitions, the most direct clash was with Russia
over Korea
and Manchuria. Japan's defeat of Russia in the war of 1904-05 procured
for Japan the
lease of the Liaotung Peninsula, the southern part of the island of Sakhalin,
and
recognition of its "paramount interest" in Korea. Still, pressure by Britain
and the United
States kept Japan from fulfillment of its plan to possess Manchuria outright.
By the early
20th century, however, Japan had, by means of economic and political penetration,
attained a privileged position in that part of China, as well as colonies
in Korea and
Taiwan and neighbouring islands. (see also Index: Russo-Japanese War)
ARTITION OF AFRICA
By the turn of the 20th century, the map of Africa looked like a huge jigsaw
puzzle, with
most of the boundary lines having been drawn in a sort of game of give-and-take
played
in the foreign offices of the leading European powers. The division of
Africa, the last
continent to be so carved up, was essentially a product of the new imperialism,
vividly
highlighting its essential features. In this respect, the timing and the
pace of the scramble
for Africa are especially noteworthy. Before 1880 colonial possessions
in Africa were
relatively few and limited to coastal areas, with large sections of the
coastline and almost
all the interior still independent. By 1900 Africa was almost entirely
divided into
separate territories that were under the administration of European nations.
The only
exceptions were Liberia, generally regarded as being under the special
protection of the
United States; Morocco, conquered by France a few years later; Libya, later
taken
over by Italy; and Ethiopia.
The second feature of the new imperialism was also strongly evident. It
was in Africa
that Germany made its first major bid for membership in the club of colonial
powers:
between May 1884 and February 1885, Germany announced its claims to territory
in
South West Africa (now South West Africa/Namibia), Togoland, Cameroon,
and part
of the East African coast opposite Zanzibar. Two smaller nations, Belgium
and Italy,
also entered the ranks, and even Portugal and Spain once again became active
in
bidding for African territory. The increasing number of participants in
itself sped up the
race for conquest. And with the heightened rivalry came more intense concern
for
preclusive occupation, increased attention to military arguments for additional
buffer
zones, and, in a period when free trade was giving way to protective tariffs
and
discriminatory practices in colonies as well as at home, a growing urgency
for protected
overseas markets. Not only the wish but also the means were at hand for
this carving up
of the African pie. Repeating rifles, machine guns, and other advances
in weaponry gave
the small armies of the conquering nations the effective power to defeat
the much larger
armies of the peoples of Africa. Rapid railroad construction provided the
means for
military, political, and economic consolidation of continental interiors.
With the new
steamships, settlers and materials could be moved to Africa with greater
dispatch, and
bulk shipments of raw materials and food from Africa, prohibitively costly
for some
products in the days of the sailing ship, became economically feasible
and profitable.
Penetration of Islamic North Africa was complicated, on the one hand, by
the struggle
among European powers for control of the Mediterranean Sea and, on the
other hand,
by the suzerainty that the Ottoman Empire exercised to a greater or lesser
extent over
large sections of the region. Developments in both respects contributed
to the wave of
partition toward the end of the 19th century. First, Ottoman power was
perceptibly
waning: the military balance had tipped decisively in favour of the European
nations,
and Turkey was becoming increasingly dependent on loans from European centres
of
capital (in the late 1870s Turkey needed half of its government income
just to service its
foreign debt). Second, the importance of domination of the Mediterranean
increased
significantly after the Suez Canal was opened in 1869.
France was the one European nation that had established a major beachhead
in Islamic
North Africa before the 1880s. At a time when Great Britain was too preoccupied
to
interfere, the French captured the fortress of Algiers in 1830. Frequent
revolts kept the
French Army busy in the Algerian interior for another 50 years before all
Algeria was
under full French rule. While Tunisia and Egypt had been areas of great
interest to
European powers during the long period of France's Algerian takeover, the
penetration
of these countries had been informal, confined to diplomatic and financial
manoeuvres.
Italy, as well as France and England, had loaned large sums to the ruling
bey s of
Tunisia to help loosen that country's ties with Turkey. The inability of
the bey s to
service the foreign debt in the 1870s led to the installation of debt commissioners
by the
lenders. Tunisia's revenues were pledged to pay the interest due on outstanding
bonds;
in fact, the debt charges had first call on the government's income. With
this came
increased pressure on the people for larger tax payments and a growing
popular
dissatisfaction with a government that had "sold out" to foreigners. The
weakness of the
ruling group, intensified by the danger of popular revolt or a military
coup, opened the
door further for formal occupation by one of the interested foreign powers.
When Italy's
actions showed that it might be preparing for outright possession, France
jumped the
gun by invading Tunisia in 1881 and then completed its conquest by defeating
the
rebellions precipitated by this occupation.
The Europeans in North Africa.
The course of Egypt's loss of sovereignty resembled somewhat the same process
in
Tunisia: easy credit extended by Europeans, bankruptcy, increasing control
by
foreign-debt commissioners, mulcting of the peasants to raise revenue for
servicing the
debt, growing independence movements, and finally military conquest by
a foreign
power. In Egypt, inter-imperialist rivalry, mainly between Great Britain
and France,
reached back to the early 19th century but was intensified under the circumstances
of
the new imperialism and the construction of the Suez Canal. By building
the Suez Canal
and financing Egypt's ruling group, France had gained a prominent position
in Egypt. But
Britain's interests were perhaps even more pressing because the Suez Canal
was a
strategic link to its empire and its other Eastern trade and colonial interests.
The
successful nationalist revolt headed by the Egyptian army imminently threatened
in the
1880s the interests of both powers. France, occupied with war in Tunisia
and with
internal political problems, did not participate in the military intervention
to suppress the
revolt. Great Britain bombarded Alexandria in 1882, landed troops, and
thus obtained
control of Egypt. Unable to find a stable collaborationist government that
would also
pay Egypt's debts and concerned with suppressing not only the rebellion
but also a
powerful anti-Egyptian Mahdist revolt in the Sudan, Britain completely
took over the
reins of government in Egypt.
The rest of North Africa was carved up in the early 20th century. France,
manoeuvring
for possession of Morocco, which bordered on her Algerian colony, tried
to obtain the
acquiescence of the other powers by both secret and open treaties granting
Italy a free
hand in Libya, allotting to Spain a sphere of influence, and acknowledging
Britain's
paramountcy in Egypt. France had, however, overlooked Germany's ambitions,
now
backed by an increasingly effective army and navy. The tension created
by Germany led
to an international conference at Algeciras (1906), which produced a short-lived
compromise, including recognition of France's paramount interest, Spanish
participation
in policing Morocco, and an open door for the country's economic penetration
by other
nations. But France's vigorous pursuit of her claims, reinforced by the
occupation of
Casablanca and surrounding territory, precipitated critical confrontations,
which reached
their peak in 1911 when French troops were suppressing a Moroccan revolt
and a
German cruiser appeared before Agadir in a show of force. The resulting
settlements
completed the European partition of North Africa: France obtained the lion's
share of
Morocco; in return, Germany received a large part of the French Congo;
Italy was
given the green light for its war with Turkey over control of Tripoli,
the first step in its
eventual acquisition of Libya; and Spain was enabled to extend its Río
de Oro
protectorate to the southern frontier of Morocco. The more or less peaceful
trade-offs
by the occupying powers differed sharply from the long, bitter, and expensive
wars they
waged against the indigenous peoples and rulers of Islamic North Africa
to solidify
European rule. (see also Index: Algeciras Conference)
The race for colonies in sub-Saharan Africa.
The partition of Africa below the Sahara took place at two levels: (1)
on paper--in
deals made among colonial powers who were seeking colonies partly for the
sake of the
colonies themselves and partly as pawns in the power play of European nations
struggling for world dominance--and (2) in the field--in battles of conquest
against
African states and tribes and in military confrontations among the rival
powers
themselves. This process produced, over and above the ravages of colonialism,
a
wasp's nest of problems that was to plague African nations long after they
achieved
independence. Boundary lines between colonies were often drawn arbitrarily,
with little
or no attention to ethnic unity, regional economic ties, tribal migratory
patterns, or even
natural boundaries.
Before the race for partition, only three European powers--France, Portugal,
and
Britain--had territory in tropical Africa, located mainly in West Africa.
Only France had
moved into the interior along the Sénégal River. The other
French colonies or spheres of
influence were located along the Ivory Coast and in Dahomey (now Benin)
and Gabon.
Portugal held on to some coastal points in Angola, Mozambique (Moçambique),
and
Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau). While Great Britain had a virtual
protectorate
over Zanzibar in East Africa, its actual possessions were on the west coast
in the
Gambia, the Gold Coast, the Sierra Leone, all of them surrounded by African
states that
had enough organization and military strength to make the British hesitate
about further
expansion. Meanwhile, the ground for eventual occupation of the interior
of tropical
Africa was being prepared by explorers, missionaries, and traders. But
such penetration
remained tenuous until the construction of railroads and the arrival of
steamships on
navigable waterways made it feasible for European merchants to dominate
the trade of
the interior and for European governments to consolidate conquests.
Once conditions were ripe for the introduction of railroads and steamships
in West
Africa, tensions between the English and French increased as each country
tried to
extend its sphere of influence. As customs duties, the prime source of
colonial revenue,
could be evaded in uncontrolled ports, both powers began to stretch their
coastal
frontiers, and overlapping claims and disputes soon arose. The commercial
penetration
of the interior created additional rivalry and set off a chain reaction.
The drive for
exclusive control over interior areas intensified in response to both economic
competition and the need for protection from African states resisting foreign
intrusion.
This drive for African possessions was intensified by the new entrants
to the colonial
race who felt menaced by the possibility of being completely locked out.
Perhaps the most important stimulants to the scramble for colonies south
of the Sahara
were the opening up of the Congo Basin by Belgium's king Leopold II and
Germany's
energetic annexationist activities on both the east and west coasts. As
the dash for
territory began to accelerate, 15 nations convened in Berlin in 1884 for
the West
African Conference, which, however, merely set ground rules for the ensuing
intensified
scramble for colonies. It also recognized the Congo Free State ruled by
King Leopold,
while insisting that the rivers in the Congo Basin be open to free trade.
From his base in
the Congo, the King subsequently took over mineral-rich Katanga, transferring
both
territories to Belgium in 1908.
In West Africa, Germany concentrated on consolidating its possessions of
Togoland
and Cameroon (Kamerun), while England and France pushed northward and eastward
from their bases: England concentrated on the Niger region, the centre
of its commercial
activity, while France aimed at joining its possessions at Lake Chad within
a grand
design for an empire of contiguous territories from Algeria to the Congo.
Final
boundaries were arrived at after the British had defeated, among others,
the Ashanti, the
Fanti Confederation, the Opobo kingdom, and the Fulani; and the French
won wars
against the Fon kingdom, the Tuareg, the Mandingo, and other resisting
tribes. The
boundaries determined by conquest and agreement between the conquerors
gave
France the lion's share: in addition to the extension of its former coastal
possessions,
France acquired French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa, while
Britain carved
out its Nigerian colony.
In southern Africa, the intercolonial rivalries chiefly involved the British,
the Portuguese,
the South African Republic of the Transvaal, the British-backed Cape Colony,
and the
Germans. The acquisitive drive was enormously stimulated by dreams of wealth
generated by the discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West and gold in Matabeleland.
Encouraged by these discoveries, Cecil Rhodes (heading the British South
Africa
Company) and other entrepreneurs expected to find gold, copper, and diamonds
in the
regions surrounding the Transvaal, among them Bechuanaland, Matabeleland,
Mashonaland, and Trans-Zambezia. In the ensuing struggle, which involved
the
conquest of the Nbele and Shona peoples, Britain obtained control over
Bechuanaland
and, through the British South Africa Company, over the areas later designated
as the
Rhodesias and Nyasaland. At the same time, Portugal moved inland to seize
control
over the colony of Mozambique. It was clearly the rivalries of stronger
powers,
especially the concern of Germany and France over the extension of British
rule in
southern Africa, that enabled a weak Portugal to have its way in Angola
and
Mozambique.
The boundary lines in East Africa were arrived at largely in settlements
between Britain
and Germany, the two chief rivals in that region. Zanzibar and the future
Tanganyika
were divided in the Anglo-German treaty of 1890: Britain obtained the future
Uganda
and recognition of its paramount interest in Zanzibar and Pemba in exchange
for ceding
the strategic North Sea island of Heligoland (Helgoland) and noninterference
in
Germany's acquisitions in Tanganyika, Rwanda, and Urundi. Britain began
to build an
East African railroad to the coast, establishing the East African Protectorate
(later
Kenya) over the area where the railroad was to be built. (see also Index:
eastern
Africa)
Rivalry in northeastern Africa between the French and British was based
on domination
of the upper end of the Nile. Italy had established itself at two ends
of Ethiopia, in an
area on the Red Sea that the Italians called Eritrea and in Italian Somaliland
along the
Indian Ocean. Italy's inland thrust led to war with Ethiopia and defeat
at the hands of the
Ethiopians at Adwa (Adowa) in 1896. Ethiopia, surrounded by Italian and
British
armies, had turned to French advisers. The unique victory by an African
state over a
European army strengthened French influence in Ethiopia and enabled France
to stage
military expeditions from Ethiopia as well as from the Congo in order to
establish
footholds on the Upper Nile. The resulting race between British and French
armies
ended in a confrontation at Fashoda in 1898, with the British army in the
stronger
position. War was narrowly avoided in a settlement that completed the partition
of the
region: eastern Sudan was to be ruled jointly by Britain and Egypt, while
France was to
have the remaining Sudan from the Congo and Lake Chad to Darfur. (see also
Index:
Adowa, Battle of, Fashoda Incident)
Germany's entrance into southern Africa through occupation and conquest
of South
West Africa touched off an upsurge of British colonial activity in that
area, notably the
separation of Basutoland (Lesotho) as a crown colony from the Cape Colony
and the
annexation of Zululand. As a consequence of the South African (Boer) War
(1899-1902) Britain obtained sovereignty over the Transvaal and the Afrikaner
Orange
Free State.
WORLD WAR I AND THE INTERWAR PERIOD (1914-39)
Postwar redistribution of colonies.
After World War I the Allied powers partitioned among themselves both the
German
overseas colonial holdings and the vast Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
They
carried out this operation through the League of Nations, which awarded
mandates
under varying conditions. Great Britain received as mandates Iraq and Palestine
(which
it promptly split into Transjordan and Palestine proper); the Palestine
mandate obligated
Britain to respect its contradictory wartime commitments to both Jews and
Arabs.
France assumed a mandate over both Syria and Lebanon. In Africa the two
powers
divided Togo and Cameroon between them, Britain acquired Tanganyika (with
a few
thousand German settlers), Belgium took Rwanda-Urundi, and South Africa
received
German South West Africa. Italy, as compensation for not sharing in the
award of
mandates, obtained from Britain the Juba (Giuba) Valley on the Kenya-Somali
frontier,
and France eventually ceded to Italy a desert area that rounded out Libya's
southern
frontiers.
The interwar years marked the apex of colonial empires throughout the world,
and
indirect forms of colonial penetration grew with the development of the
petroleum
industry. Nevertheless, most colonial systems began to show clear signs
of strain and
even revolt. The Russian Revolution, the Nationalist and Communist successes
in China
during the 1920s and '30s, the radical nationalism of Kemal Atatürk,
all contributed to
the rise of political movements opposed to colonialism. The very process
of economic
modernization, however--with the rise of factories, coordination with the
world market,
and mass urbanization--did more than any political or cultural factor,
taken in itself, to
undermine the paternal-militaristic forms of direct colonial domination.
The British Empire.
Britain tended toward a decentralized and empirical type of colonial administration,
in
which some degree of partial decolonization could prepare the way for eventual
self-rule.
Realizing that direct rule over ancient civilized lands could not last
indefinitely, Britain
worked for a continued British presence in areas where the empire conferred
self-government.
Middle East.
At the outset of World War I, Britain had proclaimed a protectorate over
Egypt, annulling
Ottoman sovereignty; afterward, Egyptian nationalist leaders finally brought
the British to
recognize Egypt as an independent kingdom in 1922. In 1936-37 Egypt received
control
over its own economic development, and British military forces were confined
to the Suez
Canal area. Britain granted Iraq independence in 1932 but retained a military
power base
in the new kingdom. Both the world strategic balance and the British petroleum
industry
ruled out any possibility of a real British withdrawal from either of these
Middle Eastern
states.
In Palestine the political claims of Arabs and Jews proved to be irreconcilable,
and
insurrection, terrorism, and occasional guerrilla warfare marked the whole
period of British
rule. Finally, in 1939, with war looming, the British decided to limit
and eventually
terminate the flow of Jewish refugees into Palestine, though not proposing
to force the
more than 500,000 Jewish inhabitants to live under an Arab national regime.
Transjordan,
detached from Palestine, became a British protectorate.
India.
In India Britain faced a powerful adversary, the Indian National Congress,
uniting
businessmen and working classes, Hindus of high and low caste, in a common
drive
toward independence. The Congress never, however, succeeded in bridging
the gap that
separated the country's Hindu and Sikh majority from its 90,000,000 Muslims.
The British
met the Indian anticolonial movement half way. In 1919-23 a series of measures
gave the
Indians a certain degree of self-rule in a "dyarchy" in which elected Indian
ministers
governed together with British administrators. These constitutional reforms,
however,
failed to bring the princely states into line with the new trend toward
self-rule. Though
Mahatma Gandhi denounced the new system as a "whited sepulchre," Congress
in fact
began to participate in the governmental process. Under the constitution
granted in
1935-37, the British maintained separate voting rolls for the Muslim minority,
in order to
ensure its proportional representation; in 1939 relations between Britain
and the Congress
Party were tense, but India was clearly headed for independence in some
form.
In 1937 the British gave a separate constitution to Burma. Ceylon (renamed
Sri Lanka in
1972) had been separate and self-governing from 1931.
Africa.
In British Africa decolonization progressed more slowly, but London began
to accept it as
an ultimate outcome. In Kenya, for example, the British government refused
to grant the
20,000 European settlers in the "white highlands" any kind of direct political
power over
the mass of tribal blacks who constituted the colony's overwhelming majority.
In British
West Africa the passage from direct colonial government to self-rule by
a black elite had
started by 1939, there being no white settlers or Indian merchants (as
there were in East
Africa) to complicate matters. Only in the mining areas of Northern Rhodesia
(the
Copperbelt) and in Southern Rhodesia, where white farmer settlers enjoyed
self-government and caste privileges over a disenfranchised black majority,
did
decolonization make no headway at all.
Overseas France.
France, in contrast to Britain, preferred centralized and assimilative
methods in an effort to
integrate its colonies into a greater Overseas France. It made no progress
in colonial
devolution and refused even to grant independence to Syria and Lebanon.
In North Africa
the French energetically implanted large agrarian capitalist enterprises
as well as some
industries connected with the area's mineral wealth. These modern production
centres and
infrastructures were directed and financed by metropolitan French business
and were
staffed and operated by a large, politically aggressive European settler
population. The
Muslim majority was subordinate both politically and economically; North
African
peasants struggled to subsist on the margins. Overt resistance was strongest
in Morocco,
where a rural Muslim rebellion endangered both the French and the Spanish
protectorates.
Abd el-Krim, a Berber Moroccan leader who combined tradition with modern
nationalism, waged a brilliant five-year campaign till a combined French
and Spanish force
finally defeated him in 1926. After 1934, resistance to France revived
in Morocco, this
time in the cities. In Tunisia resistance was centred in Habib Bourguiba's
constitutional
party; in Algeria the urban Muslim middle classes merely sked for true
civil rights and
integration. The French Communist Party did not move to mobilize the peasant
masses in
an anticolonial struggle, and, in consequence, future rebellion in the
Maghrib was to be
Arab nationalist and not Marxist in its leadership and doctrines.
Matters were different in French Indochina, where the growth of a modern,
French-directed agricultural economy had thrown masses of peasants into
debt slavery.
The circumstances favoured the formation of an independence movement much
influenced
by both the Chinese Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) and the Chinese Communist
Party;
the movement in the 1930s took the form of a Communist party under the
leadership of
Ho Chi Minh.
French sub-Saharan Africa attracted no European settler population. The
French colonial
authorities promoted a shift from subsistence to market economies, and
their methods,
including labour conscription for public works, led to protest and questions
in the French
parliament. The results, guaranteed by a protective tariff linking the
colonies to France,
were solid but unspectacular.
Axis Powers.
In the 1930s an aggressive new colonialism developed on the part of the
Axis Powers,
which developed a new colonial doctrine ("living space" in German geopolitics,
the
"empire" in Italian Fascist ideology, the "co-prosperity sphere" in Japan)
aiming at the
repartition of the world's colonial areas, justified by the supposed racial
superiority, higher
birth rates, and greater productivity that the Axis Powers enjoyed as against
the
"decadent" West. To this the Japanese added a slogan of their own, "Asia
for the Asians."
In fact, the three powers aimed at carving out for themselves vast, self-sufficient
empires.
Though intent on a new colonialism of their own, they had to use anticolonialism
as a
political instrument before and during World War II; in doing so, they
helped in the
process of world decolonization.
Fascist Italy's first colonial war was a long, bloody campaign in Cyrenaica
that lasted until
the early 1930s, when Italy began developing Libya as a place of settlement
for Italian
peasants. Then a dispute over the border between Italian Somaliland and
Ethiopia (1934)
gave the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, the opportunity to move against
the African
power that had routed Italian armies at Adwa. In October 1935 Italian troops
from Eritrea
moved into the Tigray province of northern Ethiopia, although war was never
declared.
Ethiopia, underequipped and feudal, could not long hold out in open combat,
especially
against Italian air attacks. In May 1936 Italian motorized columns reached
Addis Ababa,
and the Emperor went into exile. Mussolini proclaimed the Italian "empire"
in East Africa.
In reality, however, Ethiopian feudal chiefs continued violent resistance,
even in the
environs of the capital, while the Italians massacred hundreds of nobles,
clergy, and
commoners in an effort to repress Ethiopia by terror. In this their success
was limited. The
Italians built roads and kept control over all principal communication
lines, but they never
subdued the mountainous hinterland.
The Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, Japan's new order, amounted
to a
self-contained empire from Manchuria to the Dutch East Indies, including
China,
Indochina, Thailand, and Malaya as satellite states. Japan intended to
exclude both
European imperialism and Communist influence from the entire Far East,
while ensuring
Japanese political and industrial hegemony.
The United States and the Soviet Union.
During World War I the United States purchased the Virgin Islands from
Denmark
(1917), but it acquired no new colonies thereafter. In the 1920s the United
States agreed
to leave unfortified its possessions beyond Hawaii, in exchange for Japan's
accepting naval
limitations. The Philippines, by the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934, were
to become
independent on July 4, 1946. Until U.S.-Japanese relations began to worsen,
in 1939,
U.S. possessions in the Pacific counted for little in world affairs. On
the other hand, the
United States established or continued virtual protectorates in Cuba, Haiti,
the Dominican
Republic, Nicaragua, and Panama during the Harding and Coolidge administrations
(1921-29), a trend reversed under Hoover and Roosevelt, particularly under
the latter's
Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America.
The new Soviet Russian regime succeeded, after years of civil and foreign
war, in regaining
the Asian possessions of its tsarist predecessor. The Caucasus was repossessed
step by
step between 1919 and 1921; after the mountain areas and Azerbaijan were
brought back
under Soviet control, Armenia was partitioned between Russia and Turkey.
Then Georgia,
an independent parliamentary republic, was overrun by the Red Army. Russian
Turkistan
was subdued by 1922, and the khanates of Khiva and Bukhara were suppressed.
By
1922, Outer Mongolia was also solidly linked to the Soviet state. Nevertheless,
the
Russian revolutionary government was ideologically opposed to colonialism,
especially
where it had no colonial interests that it cared to defend. In general,
the Soviet authorities
hesitated during the interwar period between the alternatives of backing
liberation
movements of "national bourgeoisies" and supporting peasant revolutionary
parties.
In Central Asia the Soviet authorities followed a moderate line up to 1928,
but with the
advent of Stalin a new policy, consisting in purges of national leaders,
increasing
industrialization, and forced settlement of nomad populations, led to a
great increase in the
proportion of European settlers, mostly Russians and Ukrainians, to native
Muslims.
During the 1930s the Kazaks declined sharply in absolute numbers as well
as in ratio to
the Europeans in their areas. Other Muslim nationalities, especially the
Uzbeks, stemmed
the Slavic tide of settlement only by virtue of their birth rates, which
greatly exceeded
those of the Russians and Ukrainians
WORLD WAR II (1939-45)
Although the Axis Powers failed in their global strategy, they crippled
European colonial
rule in Asia.
Asia.
Japan conquered its Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere and arrived
at the gates of
India, displacing British, Dutch, and French colonial rulers as well as
the Americans in
Guam and the Philippines. The Japanese had to allow some margin of freedom
to their
satellite regimes in Burma and Indonesia in both of which preexisting local
parties proved
capable of creating sovereign states after the war. On August 17, 1945,
Sukarno declared
Indonesia independent. Indonesia had had a long history of Muslim, nationalist,
and
Communist agitation against the Dutch; with captured Japanese arms, Indonesia
could
resist reimposition of Dutch authority.
In India the Congress Party, though totally unsympathetic to the Axis,
tried to take
advantage of Britain's wartime extremity in order to secure immediate independence.
The
Muslim League supported the British administration during the war but demanded
a
sovereign Muslim homeland (Pakistan) as a postwar objective. By 1945 direct
British rule
in India was coming to an end, but the contest between Britain, the Congress
Party, and
the Muslim League clouded any final settlement.
In the Middle East, Britain returned to forms of direct colonial control
as Axis forces drew
near, and in June-July 1941 it occupied Syria and Lebanon, under the guise
of Free
French administration. With Beirut and Damascus secured, the British supported
Syrian
and Lebanese independence from France; the two states were incorporated
into the
sterling area. Only U.S. and Soviet support guaranteed the independence
of the two
republics (1944) and their subsequent admission to the United Nations.
In Egypt, when Axis forces in 1941 and 1942 came within striking distance
of Alexandria,
both the king, Farouk, and groups of dissident army officers were ready
to welcome them
and turn against the British. In February 1942 the British minister forced
the King to
appoint a government willing to cooperate with the Anglo-Americans; the
defeat of the
Germans in the Egyptian desert later that year put Egypt firmly in the
Allied camp.
Nevertheless much anti-British and anticolonial bitterness remained in
Egypt, with postwar
consequences.
At the outset of World War II Iran was pro-German, and in August 1941 the
Soviet
Union and Britain jointly occupied the country, which then became the main
supply line
connecting the Soviet Union with the Western Allies. In 1942, in a three-power
treaty,
both Britain and the Soviet Union promised to leave Iran six months after
the end of the
war. Notwithstanding such commitments, the Soviet Union began to build
spheres of
influence in northern Iran; in 1944 the Soviet Union brought pressure to
bear on Iran for
an oil concession.
During the final years of World War II the United States became vitally
interested in the
Middle East because of United States petroleum ventures in Saudi Arabia
and because of
strategic considerations. By the end of the war it was clear to both the
Soviet Union and
Britain that the United States, as a world power, would support no imposition
of direct
colonial controls in the postwar Middle East.
Africa.
During World War II Italy lost its entire colonial domain. Ethiopia was
restored as an
independent empire, and the other colonies eventually came under UN jurisdiction,
in the
first step toward decolonization in the African continent.
DECOLONIZATION FROM 1945
In the first postwar years there were some prospects that (except in the
case of the Indian
subcontinent) decolonization might come gradually and on terms favourable
to the
continued world power positions of the western European colonial nations.
After the
French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam) in 1954 and the abortive Anglo-French
Suez
expedition of 1956, however, decolonization took on an irresistible momentum,
so that by
the mid-1970s only scattered vestiges of Europe's colonial territories
remained.
The reasons for this accelerated decolonization were threefold. First,
the two postwar
superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, preferred to exert
their might by
indirect means of penetration--ideological, economic, and military--often
supplanting
previous colonial rulers; both the United States and the Soviet Union took
up positions
opposed to colonialism. Second, the mass revolutionary movements of the
colonial world
fought colonial wars that were expensive and bloody. Third, the war-weary
public of
western Europe eventually refused any further sacrifices to maintain overseas
colonies.
In general, those colonies that offered neither concentrated resources
nor strategic
advantages and that harboured no European settlers won easy separation
from their
overlords. Armed struggle against colonialism centred in a few areas, which
mark the real
milestones in the history of postwar decolonization.
British decolonization, 1945-56.
General elections in India in 1946 strengthened the Muslim League. In subsequent
negotiations, punctuated by mass violence, the Congress Party leaders finally
accepted
partition as preferable to civil war, and in 1947 the British evacuated
the subcontinent,
leaving India and a territorially divided Pakistan to contend with problems
of communal
strife. (see also Index: British Empire)
Far more damaging to Britain's world position as a great power was the
end of the
Palestine mandate. The British would have favoured an Arab state in Palestine,
tied to the
British system in the Middle East, with Jews as a permanent minority. The
Jewish national
movement, however, succeeded in making this policy both costly and unpopular;
in
particular, the U.S. and Soviet governments began to see a Jewish state
in Palestine as a
necessary solution to the problem of Europe's surviving Jewry. All Arab
spokesmen
expressed intransigent opposition to any two-nation solution. Britain,
isolated
internationally, threw the problem into the lap of the United Nations;
in November 1947
the General Assembly voted for partition. Britain, exhausted both politically
and financially,
decided to leave by May 15, 1948. The Jewish national movement's military
branch
succeeded in defeating the Palestine Arab terrorist and guerrilla bands
step by step, and
after British evacuation, and the declaration of Israel's independence,
the Arab states in
turn suffered a series of military defeats. The new Jewish state, recognized
by the United
States, the Soviet Union, and France, reached an uneasy armistice with
the Arabs in 1949,
and Britain's position in the Middle East began to crumble.
The Arab chain reaction against Britain started in Egypt, where in July
1952 a group of
army officers seized power. By the end of 1954, Gamal Abdel Nasser had
induced Britain
to accept total withdrawal by June 1956 and set to work to undermine Britain's
position in
Iraq and Jordan. In June 1956 the British troops quit Suez on schedule.
At that point
Britain's Middle Eastern position, which depended on a chain of bases and
friendly
governments, was imperilled. Iran had moved close to the United States,
warding off
Soviet penetration and expropriating British oil holdings. Now Cyprus and
the Persian Gulf
oil ports remained the last outposts under British control in the Middle
East. Nasser's next
move was to cut the link between them. On July 26, 1956, he nationalized
the Suez Canal
Company, ending the last vestiges of European authority over that vital
waterway and
precipitating the most serious international crisis of the postwar era.
Wars in overseas France, 1945-56.
The constitution of the French Fourth Republic provided for token decentralization
of
colonial rule, and cycles of revolt and repression marked French history
for 15 years after
the end of World War II. The first colonial war was in Indochina, where
a power vacuum,
caused by Japan's removal after wartime occupation, gave a unique opportunity
to the
Communist Viet Minh. When in 1946 the French Army tried to regain the colony,
the
Communists, proclaiming a republic, resorted to the political and military
strategies of Mao
Tse-tung to wear down and eventually defeat France. All chances for maintaining
a
semicolonial administration in Indochina ended when the Communists won
the civil war in
China (1949). Eventually, in 1954, when the French engaged the Communist
armies in a
pitched battle at Dien Bien Phu, the Communists won with the help of new
heavy guns
supplied by the Chinese. The Fourth Republic left Indochina under the terms
of the
Geneva Accords (1954), which set up two independent regimes.
By 1954 French North Africa was beginning to stir; guerrilla warfare occurred
in both
Morocco (where the French had deposed and exiled Sultan Muhammad V) and
Tunisia.
On November 1, 1954, Algerian rebels began a revolt against France in which
for the first
time urban Muslims and Muslim peasants joined forces. In March 1956 France
accorded
complete independence to Morocco and Tunisia, while the army concentrated
on a
"revolutionary" counterinsurgent war in order to hold Algeria, where French
rule had solid
local support from about a million European settlers. The Muslim rebels
depended on
help from the Arab world, especially Egypt. Hence the French took the initiative,
in
October 1956, in forming an alliance with Nasser's principal adversaries,
Britain and
Israel, to reclaim the Suez Canal for the West and overthrow the pan-Arab
regime in
Cairo.
The Sinai-Suez campaign (October-November 1956).
On October 29, 1956, Israel's army attacked Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula,
and within 48
hours the British and French were fighting Egypt for control of the Suez
area. But the
Western allies found Egyptian resistance more determined than they had
anticipated.
Before they could turn their invasion into a real occupation, U.S. and
Soviet pressure
forced them to desist (November 7). The Suez campaign was thus a political
disaster for
the two colonial powers. The events of November 1956 showed the decline
of European
colonialism to be irreversible.
Algeria and French decolonization, from 1956.
Between 1956 and 1958 French army commanders in Algeria, politically radicalized,
tried
to promote a new Franco-Muslim society in preparation for Algeria's total
integration into
France. Hundreds of thousands of rural Muslims were resettled under French
military
control, Algiers was successfully cleared of all guerrilla cells, French
investments in
Saharan petroleum grew, and, in a dramatic climax, a coalition of European
settlers,
colonial troops, and armed forces commanders in May 1958 refused further
obedience to
the Fourth Republic.
Charles de Gaulle, first president of the Fifth Republic, thought that
the effort of fighting
colonial wars had prevented France from developing nuclear weapons and
also came to
realize that Algerian Muslims could not be converted to a French identity.
He began to
negotiate with the rebels; the negotiations culminated in a plebiscite,
French evacuation,
and proclamation of the independence of Muslim Algeria (July 1962). De
Gaulle then
proceeded to develop a nuclear striking force as the new foundation of
France's status as
a great power. The Fifth Republic moved rapidly toward freeing the colonies
of
sub-Saharan Africa, and France's colonial realm became vestigial and insular.
British decolonization after 1956.
During the 15 years after the Suez disaster, Britain divested itself of
most colonial holdings
and abandoned most power positions in Africa and Asia. In 1958 the pro-British
monarchy in Iraq fell; during the 1960s Cyprus and Malta became independent;
and in
1971 Britain left the Persian Gulf. Of the imperial lifelines, only Gibraltar
remains. After
1956 Britain moved rapidly to grant independence to its black African colonies.
One
British colony, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), broke away unilaterally
in 1965.
In Malaya the British fought a successful counterinsurgent war against
a predominantly
Chinese guerrilla movement and then turned over sovereignty to a federal
Malaysian
government (1957). In 1971 the Royal Navy left Singapore (an independent
state since
1965), thus ending British presence in the Far East except (until 1997)
at Hong Kong and
(until 1983) at Brunei.
Britain's world position shrank, in effect, to membership in the North
Atlantic Treaty
Organization and the European Economic Community, with the postcolonial
Commonwealth decreasing in importance.
Dutch, Belgian, and Portuguese decolonization.
After World War II the Dutch tried to regain some of their lost control
in Indonesia. The
Sukarno regime held fast through three years of intermittent war, however,
and the Dutch
found no allies and no international support. In 1950 Indonesia became
a centralized,
independent republic.
The Belgian administration in the Congo had never trained even a small
number of Africans
much beyond the grade-school level. When Britain and France began to divest
themselves
of their colonies, Belgium was in no position to impose on the Congo a
schedule of its own
for gradual withdrawal. The abrupt granting of independence to the Belgian
Congo in the
summer of 1960 led to a series of civil wars, with intervention by the
UN, European
business interests employing white mercenaries, and other outside forces.
In 1965 Joseph
Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) gained control over the central government
and
created an independent African state, renamed Zaire in 1971.
Portugal, in the 20th century the poorest and least developed of the western
European
powers, was the first nation (with Spain) to establish itself as a colonial
power and the last
to give up its colonial possessions. In Portuguese Africa during the authoritarian
regime of
António de Oliveira Salazar, the settler population had grown to
about 400,000. After
1961 pan-African pressures grew, and Portugal found itself mired in a series
of colonial
wars, while the development of mining in Angola and Mozambique revealed
hitherto
unknown economic assets. In 1974 the armed forces overthrew the successors
to Salazar,
and in the unstable political situation it became clear that Portugal would
cut its colonial ties
to Africa. Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau) became independent in 1974.
In June 1975
Mozambique achieved independence as a people's republic; in July 1975 São
Tomé and
Príncipe became an independent republic; and in November of the
same year Angola,
involved in a civil war between three rival liberation movements, also
received sovereignty.
Conclusion.
Historians will long debate the heritage of economic development, mass
bitterness, and
cultural cleavage that colonialism has left to the world, but the political
problems of
decolonization are grave and immediate. The international community is
laden with minute
states unable to secure either sovereignty or solvency and with large states
erected without
a common ethnic base. The world's postcolonial areas often have been scenes
of
protracted and violent conflicts: ethnic, as in Nigeria's Biafran war (1967-70);
national-religious, as in the Arab-Israeli conflicts, the civil wars in
Cyprus, and the clashes
between India and Pakistan; or purely political, as in the confrontation
between
Communist and Nationalist regimes in the divided Korean Peninsula. The
end of
colonialism did not bring with it the spread of new, neatly divided nation-states
throughout
the world, nor did it abate or ease rivalry between the great powers.