Page 34 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

colonialism 383

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from
the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the sound of a nation,
long suppressed, finds utterance. • Jawaharial Nehru (1889–1964)

Henry Morgan, Karl Marx, and Herbert Spencer were tle economic opportunity for the colonized peoples.
used or misused by colonists to portray colonized peo- Some might find employment as low-level civil servants
ples as inferior and in need of Western civilization, edu- or as domestics in European households, but most
cation, democracy, and Christianity. Thus, colonialism remained farmers or were forced to work in mines or fac-
was typically rationalized as being beneficial to those tories.The crucial role of middleman was often taken by
being colonized. It was, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, so-called “middleman minorities”—people from distant
“The White Man’s Burden.” ethnic groups encouraged to settle in the colony to fill
this role. Asian Indians, for example, filled this role in
Exploitative Colonialism British colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.
Exploitative colonialism is an economic system in which
the colonizers seek to exploit the economic resources of Settlers and
the colony while incurring the lowest possible cost them- Settler Colonies
selves. Agricultural plantations, mining operations, and In many colonies, there were some people from the
manufacturing plants are typical of exploitative colonial- home nation who chose to live in the colony and make
ism. Government and other institutions exist to support it their home. Many in the first generation of settlers saw
the economic endeavor. the new land as their home, and this feeling intensified
Most nineteenth-century Asian and African colonies with successive generations when the latter were permit-
were run on the exploitative pattern.The colonial power ted to grow up in the new land. In some colonies, such
established a new political, economic, and social structure as the United States and New Zealand, the settlers be-
in the colony in the service of economic exploitation. came the largest and dominant group, displacing the
Colonial policy was set in the home nation for the home indigenous peoples and taking their land. In many other
nation’s benefit and with little concern for the colony.The colonies, such as the British colonies in Africa, settlers
colony was ruled by a small elite ofWestern officials, busi- formed small enclaves, established large farming opera-
nessmen, farmers, and missionaries who lived apart from tions, and lived in relative peace with the indigenous pop-
the indigenous population in urban enclaves designed ulation. Settlers often supported independence move-
and built in European style. In British Nigeria in the ments as they, too, saw themselves as suffering from the
1920s, for example, there was one British official for home country’s economic exploitation. Once independ-
every 100,000 people. The colonizers often ruled indi- ence was achieved, however, settlers and indigenous
rectly through favored local leaders who were expected to populations often found themselves on opposite sides of
maintain order, recruit laborers, and collect taxes and issues such as land reform.
food for the colonists.The local leaders and their families,
in turn, received preferential treatment. The colonizing Resistance
power typically made use of a divide-and-rule strategy in Colonized peoples rarely accepted colonization without
which local ethnic groups were pitted against one another a fight. Revolts, massacres, destruction of property, and
so as to forestall organized resistance to colonization. the like were common in the first stages of colonization.
Colonialism drew the colonies into the expanding Revolts were meet with force—the military and police
world economic system.The colonizers sought land, the were key enforcers of colonial rule—and were rarely suc-
products of the land, mineral wealth, and cheap labor. cessful. Later, more serious resistance took various forms,
They also sought to use the colonies as a market for such as the civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi
goods produced in the home nation.This activity stimu- that helped India achieve independence, the Ghost
lated economic expansion in the colonies, but nearly all Dance movement in North America, the Boxer Rebellion
wealth flowed to the home nation.There was relatively lit- in China, the Zulu Wars in South Africa, the Mau Mau