European Colonialism

European Colonialism

Introduction

This essay deals with European colonialism and its impact on the ethnic

population . It first briefly describes the history of colonies and then makes a brief

mention of the types of colonies . Finally , the impact on the ethnic population is

discussed

History

Portugal 's conquest of Ceuta marked the beginning of colonialism in the 15th

century . It was pioneered by Portugal and Spanish exploration of the sea routes to

Africa , Middle east , India and East Asia . America was an accidental discovery . It

p was only in the 17th century that England , France , and the Netherlands successfully

established their own empires also . The Spanish and the Portuguese colonies were

weakened in the later 18th century with America gaining freedom . Britain , France

and the Netherlands remained strong in Africa , India and South east Asia

Colonialism was at its peak in 19th century . As an aftermath of World war I

colonies of losers were distributed amongst the victors . True decolonization took

place only after the world war II ( colonialism

Types of colonies

Colonies can be categorized into many types . The Settler colonies were those

where large number of people moved from their mother country to the new land

The natives or aboriginals were thus displaced to remote lands or exterminated

USA , Canada , New Zealand , and Australia are examples of this type The other type

was dependencies , where the colonizers arrived as administrators over existing

sizeable native population . India , Egypt , East Indies are examples . Plantation

colonies like Jamaica and Barbados constitute of one more type where agriculture

was the main aim of the colonizers . Trading posts like Singapore , fall into one

more type where the primary purpose was trade (colonialism

Impact on ethnic population

Denial of freedom as human beings or as natives of a nation by the colonizers

to the colonized natives was the common impact on all the native population of

all the colonies , irrespective of its type . Slavery , by and large occurred due to

plantation colonies . Several million native Africans died due to this menace . The

settler colonies displaced many native aboriginals to poor quality of remote land

This often led to permanent detriment of local population

Since territories were forcibly taken away by the colonizers , without the consent

of colonized , the ethnic population always received a harsh and third grade

treatment from the colonizers . They were at times exterminated also , by the

colonizers . Racism , exploitation and extermination were the main negative attributes

of the colonialism

The positive impact of colonization was that it became instrumental in bringing

the western thoughts to these countries . Development of infra structure

telecommunications , spread of education , and removal of inhuman social rituals

within the ethnic society , are some of the examples of benefits to the ethnic

population . Mahatma Gandhi was a student of Law at University in London . The

British were pioneers of new infra structure development like railways in India

Today , the Indian railways has become the second largest railway network on this

globe ( Impact

Conclusion

The European colonialism started in the...