Introduction
European colonialism can be dated way back to the 15th century with the emergence of what was known as the age of discovery spearheaded by the Spanish and the Portuguese in the American exploration, Africa exploration, the Middle East, and East Asia. During this era, the European attention of Africa was particularly concentrated on establishing the trading post and in particular the Atlantic Slave Trade. During the next century, there was more fierce competition between European powers of France, England, and the Netherlands in establishing their empires outside their native homeland. The end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century saw the birth of decolonization when most European colonies attained their independence from their relevant metropolis. Portugal and Spain, in particular, were completely weakened after their loss of the non-Afro-Eurasian world i.e. the New World colonies.
However, Great Britain (a combination of England, Wales, and Scotland), the Netherlands, and France twisted their interest to the Old World where they had already established coastal enclaves particularly in the regions of South East Asia, South Africa and in India. During the 19th century, there was the growth of industrialization which also gave in to the imperialism age. During this period the pace of colonization had dramatically accelerated to the point where there was a scramble for Africa in which the major participant was Belgium and on contrary Germany took less effort in the rush for Africa. In the 20th century which was a period of World War I, the losers of the overseas colonies were scattered among conquerors as mandates but it was during the 2nd World War that it saw the re-emergence of decolonization that seriously took effect. It was not until 1999 that Portugal ended their 500 years of colony and returned Europe’s colonies to China in Asia and Macau (Cole, 160 1971)
Iberian exploration and colonization
The European colonization of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres has its foundation in the Portuguese exploration in which the reasons behind the colonization were to establish the existence of the legendary Christian monarchy of Prester John and the other reason was to establish the source of the productive spice trade. The first establishment outside Europe was in 1415 where Ceuta was conquered. In the 15th century the Portuguese mainly the sailors first made their debut when they discovered the Atlantic islands of Cape Verde, Madeira, and the Azores which they discovered were less populated. They sailed further until Bartolomeu Dias which was along the West African coast and in 1488 they established that it was possible to sail around Africa by rounding the Cape of Good Hope. This smoothed the way for Vasco da Gama in 1498 to arrive in India. (Tudela, 2000:1582)
The Portuguese triumph spread all over and this led to one thing to another. In 1492, Spain financed a mission that was to be spearheaded by Christopher Columbus in exploring an alternative route to Asia. When Columbus finally made it to what is now the Bahamas, he believed he had reached Japan but in fact, he had no idea that he had discovered the marginal islands of the latest continent, the Americas. After Christopher Columbus returned to Europe, opposing claims of the Portuguese and the Spanish that they had discovered new lands were settled by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. The agreement concluded that the world outside Europe was divided in a duopoly between the kingdoms of Iberia along a meridian of what was established to be 370 leagues northwest of Cape Verde. In principle, this meant that the Spanish could colonize all of the Americas but the navigation accident of Pedro Alvares Cabral which blew him to the Brazilian coast concluded that Brazil ended up in the Portuguese half because there were inadequacies in measuring longitudes (Woods 2005:135)
The Portuguese never looked reluctant, so in the 16th century, they pressed further eastwards into Asia making their first appearance with the European and the inhabitants of the present-day countries of Madagascar, Malaysia, Mozambique, East Timor, Indonesia, Japan, and finally China. On the other hand, the Spanish conquistadores moved further into the American surroundings setting up the immeasurable Viceroyalties of New Granada, New Spain, and Peru. When the Portuguese encountered well-populated societies they established an empire that was seaborne and constituted armed trading posts primarily situated along the trade routes for example the Goa, Macau, and Malacca. The Spanish, on the other hand, established their colonies through the emigration of the hefty number of settlers, administrators, and soldiers with the intention of owning land and by extension exploiting the indigenous population. The impact of Portuguese settlement was more positive and in some cases where the Portuguese made a little cultural impact, they encouraged trading but the Spanish settlement was disastrous because the native people could not easily adapt to the Spanish technology. (Tudela, 2000:696)
It is without a doubt that the Portuguese and the Spanish benefited immensely from their newfound colonies. The Portuguese for instance benefited from trade intermediaries mainly during the Namban trade period while the Spanish befitted from gold and silver which were mined particularly from the regions of Potosi and Zacatecas. As a result, the Spanish were able to finance religious wars in Europe due to the unlimited supply of precious metals to the Spanish monarchy. During this period, the metals supplies were infinite and this led to inflation (Tudela 2000: 690)
The Treaty of Tordesillas concerning the boundaries was again put into question a second time when a Portuguese sailor, Ferdinand Magellan sailing in a Spanish flag arrived in the Philippines. The Spanish and the Portuguese which were now global empires had set out in opposite directions but they eventually met on the other side of the world (Appiah 1991: 336)
The role of the church during European colonialism
Religious enthusiasm played a major role in the overseas activities of Spain and the Portuguese. The pope himself was more of a political might to be respected as proven by his influence to offer judgment on continental issues, the church also sent missionaries to other continents to convert the locals into the catholic faith. As a result, the 1455 papal Bull Romanus Pontifex approved the Portuguese to get all the lands behind the Cape Bojador and it also allowed the reduction of pagans and other Christ enemies to perpetual slavery. In 1481, another Papal Bull Aeterni Regis granted Portugal all the lands south of Canary Islands at the same time as in 1493, pope Alexander VI, a Spanish made a verdict in the Bull inter caetera that all the lands southwest of Cape Verde belonged to Spain while some other new lands yet to be discovered east of that longitude would belong to the Portuguese. This was later to be rectified and affirmed by the 1494 treaty of Tordesillas (Hanke 1946:142)
The Spanish conduct of the local population aggravated a fierce debate named the Valladolid Controversy in 1550-1551 which was a debate on whether the Indians had souls and if they did they would be entitled to basic human rights. There were many claims brought forward by Bartolome de Las Casas who opposed Sepulveda’s claims that they were natural slaves. Many for instance the Francisco Saurez and Francisco de Vitoria argued about the existence of the natural law. In the 1970s the Jesuits became the main opponent of liberation theology and explicitly supported anti-imperialist movements. It was fated in 1984 by cardinal Ratzinger while Leonardo Boff was subsequently suspended (Thomas 1999: 65)
European challenges to Iberian hegemony
It did not take long before the Iberian exclusivity to the Americas was a subject upcoming European power, such as France, the Netherlands, and England. The rulers of these nations demanded to be shown the exclusion of their authority over the new world. The claim initially attributes to piracy but later northern European countries established their settlements mostly areas outside the control of the Spanish, for example, the areas what is now the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada or areas of the Caribbean for example Martinique, Aruba, and Barbados which had been rejected by the Spanish in favor of getting into the mainland (Rabasa 1990: 753).
The Spanish colonization was dictated by the religious conversion and the adaptation of their lifestyle. The northern European freely accepted people who were fleeing the ruthless lifestyle for instance the Mayflower journey. The reason for emigration was not to spread the faith of an individual but start a new life within the society where life may be deemed hard but within ones’ religious boundaries. The most notable emigration was the 17th century emigration of the English who after major wars with the French and the Dutch they came to rule the east coast of northern America and the area now named British North America.
Despite the fact that the English, the Dutch and the French had no intentions of making profits out of their immigrants but the Spanish and the Portuguese made a fortune out of trading in other commodities that provided the reason for crossing the Atlantic in particular commodities such as furs from Canada, sugar in Brazil and the Caribbean Islands, the tobacco and cotton cultivated in Virginia. Due to the inadequate access of labor from the indigenous people, the plantation owners who had labor-intensive crops had to look for manpower elsewhere. They turned to the slave trade where human slaves were trafficked from across Africa especially the regions of West Africa on what has come to be known as the Atlantic slave trade. This trade brought close to 12 million Africans who were to be ruthlessly subjected to the cultivation of these labor-intensive crops (Rabasa1993:80)
The rule of European colonies
In 1512, Leyes de Burgos rectified the government laws of the local people because the Spanish common was never applied to the newfound lands or territories. Initially, the scope of the laws was bounded only to the lands of Hispaniola but this was later rectified and the scope extended to the areas of Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The rule of law legalized the creation of encomiendas which basically grouped Indians together under a single colonial master hence limiting the establishment of people to a maximum of 150 and a minimum of 40. Finally, the document prohibited the use of punishment and only allowing officials of each town for establishing the laws. The document also pointed that the Indians be catheterized and the huts plus the cabins be built together with the Spanish ones. This was seen as a respect to the traditional authorities and a move that granted jobs as public servants to the ordinary people and exempting chiefs from ordinary jobs. However, there were misunderstandings and the document was judged differently according to other people and it led to some protests. This gave rise to reforms which took place in 1542 through leyes Nuevas (Appiah 1991: 336)
The role of companies in early colonialism
Western colonialism was more a joint venture between the public and the private sector. Christopher Columbus’ journey to the Americas was partially financed by the Italians but the Spanish maintains that it was their intention. The English, Dutch, and the French designated trade to joint-stock companies for example the Hudson’s Bay Company (Denoon 1984:100)
The European colonialism in India
The Portuguese made their first debut in 1498 in a region called Goa. The existing competition saw the emergence of new European powers consisting of British, France, Dutch, and Danish among many others. The divided kingdom of India was soon to be taken over and controlled by the European powers. This is evident when Queen Elizabeth I accorded a charter to create the East India Company that would trade with India as a whole and by large parts of eastern Asia. The British made their appearance in 1624 when they settled in Surat. By the 19th century, they had apparently taken control of most of India through many trade agreements and establishments (Cole 1971: 102)
The Amerindian Destruction
The coming up of conquistadores caused some panic among the Amerindians. Despite the history, some historians reject the black legend upon which the Europeans were the primary causal of major deaths. Generally, it is to the firm belief to many that diseases especially smallpox was the major cause of deaths during the Colombian Exchange but there is no mention of the brutality carried out by the Europeans. By the late 19th century, Juan Manuel de Rosas pursued the extermination of the indigenous people an event Darwin (1839) has reflected on the voyage of the Beagle. This process, however, is still going on; for instance, there are only two natives who are speaking the Yaghan language in Tierra del Fuego. The other Yaghan was eradicated in the wave of European adoption in clothes wearing which turned to be catastrophic. The massive sugar and tobacco plantation in the Caribbean led to the Atlantic slave trade which constituted mainly of the black ethnic groups mainly of African descent. Contemporary historians debate the truth of these events and they claim it was acts of genocide (Wesseling 1997: 80)
Independence in the Americas
The British emerged to be the dominant power after the conclusion of years of war but it found itself in a fix in an attempt to finance its navy in order to keep a global presence. The parliament attempted to raise taxes in order to keep up with the other European competition. This attempt by the government led to resistance and protest. The Haitian revolution led to the abolishment of the slave trade and the consequent establishment of the first black republic. Major European countries for example France announced a repeal of slavery. Many other European powers such as the Portuguese and the Spanish followed suit in what was seen as many captives to the way of European life as independence (Tudela 2000:1580)
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