How did the colonization of America , Africa and Asia come about ? explain the difference steps which made it possible ?
Answers
Explanation:
practice of extending the power, control or rule by a country over the political and economic life of areas outside its own borders. This may be done through military or other means, and particularly through ‘colonialism’ or the practice of acquiring colonies by conquest or other means and making them dependent It may be remembered that occupation of or direct rule over a country or people by another country is not always an essential feature of imperialism The essential feature of the relations between an imperialist country and the country over which it has established its control or the colony which it has acquired, is exploitation, with or without direct political control. This means that the imperialist country, or metropolis (literal meaning ‘mother country’), as it is sometimes called, subordinates the colony or the country which the metropolis indirectly controls to serve its own economic and political interests.
Most countries of Asia, including India, and Africa, and many other parts of the world were until recent years under the control of one imperialist country or another. These included countries which were not directly/ruled by the imperialist countries but were exploited by them more or less in the same way as countries over which direct imperialist rule had been es tablished In the present-day World, when almost all countries of the world are politically independent, imperialist control over other countries has not come to an end The practice of exploitation, particularly economic exploitation and domination of independent but economically less developed countries, is often called ‘neocolonialism’ .
The first phase of the imperialist control and colonization of Asia, Africa and the Americas began in the sixteenth century. During the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, as you have read in Chapter 6 (Vol. 1), the voyages of discovery were followed by the founding of vast colonial empires by Portugal, Spain, Holland, England and France In the Americas, Spain occupied most of South America (excluding Brazil which was occupied by Portugal), Central America, Mexico, West Indies and parts of what is now the United States of America. England and France occupied parts of North America Many people from these countries of Europe went to settle in these colonies permanently During this period, the European control in Africa extended only to about one fifth of the continent, mainly in the coastal areas. This was the period of slave trade The European slave traders enslaved and transported about 5000 Africans to the Americas every month during the seventeenth century In Asia, the Europeans came mainly with the purpose of trade The traders from Portugal, Holland, England, France and other countries, with the backing of their respective governments, set up their trading posts and tried to establish their monopoly of trade with the countries of Asia, and each tried to exclude the others through war and by extending their political influence and control. The Portuguese who controlled the trade with Asia were ousted from that position by the Dutch and the English who extended their control over Indonesia and India, respectively. Generally speaking, the first phase of imperialism and colonization came to an end by the close of the eighteenth century. The British conquest of India which had started in the middle of the eighteenth century, was completed by about the middle of the nineteenth century. In the meantime, the imperialist penetration of China had begun.