European Imperialism

The driving force behind European colonies was profit, but the way that profit was extracted varied enormously from place to place. The Spanish and Portuguese empires in the Americas stopped expanding after the seventeenth century, and from that point it was France, Holland and England that took the lead, extending their trading activities and establishing colonies across America, Africa and Asia. Even Ireland functioned as a virtual colony of England, since most of its landowners were English settlers.

From the eighteenth century, the nature of control exercised by Europeans differed significantly depending on the region. In South Asia, trading companies such as the East India Company transformed themselves into political powers. They defeated local rulers, annexed their territories, and then retained the older, well-developed administrative systems that already existed. They collected taxes from landowners, and later built railways to make trade easier, excavated mines, and established large plantations. The existing structure of governance was thus kept intact and used for their own benefit.

Africa followed a very different pattern. For a long time, Europeans traded only on the coast, with the exception of South Africa, and it was only in the late nineteenth century that they ventured into the interior. After that, several European countries reached an agreement among themselves to divide up Africa as their own colonies. The continent was carved up without much regard for the people already living there.

The word settler is used specifically for certain groups of Europeans: the Dutch in South Africa, the British in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, and the Europeans in America. In these settler colonies, the official language was English, except in Canada, where French is also an official language.

The names Europeans gave to the lands of the 'New World' reveal how these places were perceived and labelled from the outside: