Colonialism refers to the political and economic dominance exercised by capitalist European states and other powers like the United States and Japan over Africa, Oceania, Asia, and North America between the mid-19th century and mid-20th century. The major European colonial powers were Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Spain, and Portugal. Colonialism was driven by factors like industrialization and overproduction in Europe, high population growth, strategic and ideological motivations to expand national power, and notions of racial and cultural superiority. Colonies were established through conquest and fell into categories like settler colonies, trading companies that exploited resources, and protectorates with nominal native rule.

1. THE COLONIAL EXPANSION
1850-1914
What is it? The political exercised
dominance
and economical
Who? the Capitalistic states:
by
Europe: Great Britain, France, Germany,
Italy, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Portugal
and Russia.
BUT also USA and Japan
Where? Mainly over all Africa, Oceania
a large part of Asia and North
America.
When? From the first half of the XIX
Century to the first half of the
XX century.
But… Why?

2. REASONS or FACTORS
Industrialization Increase in production
A) ECONOMICAL and and in productivity
Mechanization
Overproduction Crisis
Companies needed
new markets
- Where to sell their products
- and where to find raw
Materials for the factories
X 10
For this
reason
They “encouraged” states and governments
to conquer new colonies
to impose a commercial monopoly

3. REASONS OR FACTORS
High increase of
B) DEMOGRAPHIC population in Europe
encourage
Millions of European citizens
A period of overproduction, to leave to the colonies.
unemployment, and misery 1850-1914: + than 50 millions)
British 17
Population Italians 10
Any 1800 180 millions Germans 5
Any 1900 430 “ Balkans 4’5
Spanish 4’4
Others 13
Emigration to other countries
(USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, North Africa, South America, etc.)
was an opportunity for Europe‘s poorest.

4. REASONS OR FACTORS
AND STRATEGIC
C) POLITICAL, IDEOLOGICAL…
To protect the country’s trading routes
and
Governments and military men their companies’ policies
from foreign competitors.
Encourage colonization
because
It strengthened the nationalist They got medals
spirit of the country and promotions
and its prestige.

5. D) OTHER REASONS
FOR COLONIALISM THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE...
1841-1871- Expeditions across
Africa by Livingstone,
Stanley,...
1871- Darwin publishes “On the
Origin of Species”
1878- Discovery of a passage
between Asia and America
1895-1908- Expeditions across
Central Asia
1909- Expeditions to the North Pole
1910- Expeditions to the South Pole

6. E) Other reasons for
Colonialism…
or....
...maybe...
JUSTIFICATIONS?
E.1) THE CIVILIZING E.2) RACISM
MISSION
Europeans believed that their The belief that one’s own race
civilization was superior and that was superior to the other races.
they had the duty to impose it A belief that could only be proved
to the barbarians. exerting some kind of political
influence over other peoples

7. TYPES OF COLONIES
Settler Colonies Trading Companies Protectorates
The states granted private
companies large territories In theory this type of
to administer who were only colonies consisted on
Europeans settled interested in exploiting and
themselves in the country independent native
plundering the natural governments who
permanently. resources of the territories.
voluntarily demanded
They took control of military protection to a
The natives worked merely as
the territory. slaves for this companies who
colonial power.
employed racist and
In time they became draconian policies. In fact, most of these
independence. protectorates became so
The army and a military subordinate to the
Canada governor used to rule the protecting powers that
Australia colony and kept the natives they lost their
New Zealand under control. independent statehood.
South Africa India
Algeria African Colonies Morocco
Indo-China Egypt

8. 1.- POLITICAL
Creation of artificial
boundaries
4.- CONSEQUENCES
3.- ECONOMICAL
2.- CULTURAL
Exploitation of men and women
Acculturation and of their territories for the
benefit of the metropolis.
Land expropriation and destruction of
traditional agriculture.
Colonies were forced to trade with
the metropolis with the consequent
destruction of craftsmanship.
The natives had to pay taxes and had
to work in the mines or in the
plantations

9. 5.- CONSEQUENCES
ACROSS THE WORLD
Increase in
International Conflicts
Cuba
Morocco
Crises in the Balkans…

10. What was colonialism?
Colonial Empires 1914

11. Colonies in 1914
America
What countries were
involved in
imperialism in
America?
Canal de Panamà

12. Colonies between
1914-19
Asia
What countries
were involved
in colonialism?

13. Colonies
in Africa
in 1830

14. Colonies in 1914
Africa
What countries
were involved?

15. Some interesting texts to read...

16. 1898- The March of the Flag Speech. By senator
CAUSES o FACTORS the USA).
Beveridge (future President of
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

17. 1849- Northampton Herald Advertisment
CAUSES o FACTORS
“Urgent. Whoever wishes to come to the wealthy and
prosperous lands of Australia, either as a peasant, servant
or as a miner, will be provided with a first class free
ticket (Immigrant Commission for the Colonies)”
Carta de Cecil Rhodes (empresari i aventurer anglès)
1895.
“Yesterday I went for a walk to the East End (a working
class neighborhood) and attended a meeting of
unemployeds.
What I saw there convinced me more than ever of the
importance of Imperialism (…) We must conquer new
colonies to allocate the excess of population that we suffer.
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

18. Speech to the Parliament by J.Ferry, French Prime Minister ,1884
CAUSES o FACTORS
“Gentlemen, in Europe such as it is today, in this competition of the many rivals we
see rising up around us, some by military or naval improvements, others by the
prodigious development of a constantly growing population; in a Europe, or rather in
a universe thus constituted, a policy of withdrawal or abstention is simply the high
road to decadence! In our time nations are great only through the activity they
deploy; it is not by spreading the peaceable light of their institutions ... that they are
great, in the present day.
Spreading light without acting (…) and seeing as a trap (…), all expansion into
Africa or the Orient-for a great nation to live this way, (…) is to abdicate and (…) to
sink from the first rank to the third and fourth.”
Speech by Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, 1895.
“I venture to claim two qualifications for the great office which I hold, which to my
mind, without making invidious distinctions, is one of the most important that can be
held by any Englishman; and those qualifications are that in the first place I believe
in the British Empire, and in the second place I believe in the British race. I believe
that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever
seen. ”
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

19. From: F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African
Empire, (Edinburgh, 1893
I am convinced that the indiscriminate application of such precepts
as those contained in the words to turn the other cheek also to the
smiter, and to be the servant of all men, is to wholly misunderstand
and misapply the teaching of Christ. The African holds the position
of a late-born child in the family of nations, and must as yet be
schooled in the discipline of the nursery. He is neither the
intelligent ideal crying out for instruction, and capable of
appreciating the subtle beauties of Christian forbearance and self-
sacrifice, which some well-meaning missionary literature would lead
us to suppose, nor yet, on the other hand, is he universally a
rampant cannibal, predestined by Providence to the yoke of the
slave, and fitted for nothing better, as I have elsewhere seen him
depicted. That is to say, that there is in him, like the rest of us,
both good and bad, and that the innate good is capable of being
developed by culture
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

20. From “The Conquest of Civilization” p.114
By James Henry Breasted
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1926
On the south of the Northwest Quadrant lay the teeming
black world of Africa, separated from the Great White Race
by an impassable desert barrier and unfitted by ages of
tropical life for any effective intrusion among the White
Race, the negro and negroid peoples remained without any
influence on the development of early civilization. We may
then exclude both of these external races from any share in
the origins or subsequent development of civilization.
.
What reasons are given in the text?
Political, cultural, economical, ideological, social, demographic…?

21. Finally remember that
Colonialism was:
The political and economical dominance
exercised by the capitalistic states
over all Africa, Oceania, a large part of
Asia and North America, from the first
half of the XIX century to the first half
of the XX century.

22. END