Colonial empire: creation and device

The earliest colonial empires arose in the 16th century, when Europe entered the Age of Great Geographical Discoveries. Before all the expansion in the hitherto unknown lands began the Spaniards and the Portuguese. Their states built classical colonial empires.

Spain

In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered several islands in the Caribbean Sea. Soon it became clear that in the west Europeans are waiting not a few patches of land, but a whole uncharted world. Thus began the creation of colonial empires.

Columbus tried to open, not America, but India, where he went to explore the route by which it would be possible to arrange trade in spices and other unique goods of the east. The navigator worked for the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile. The marriage union of these two monarchs allowed to unite the neighboring states in Spain. In the same year, when Columbus discovered America, the new kingdom reclaimed the southern province of Granada from the Muslims. Thus ended Reconquista - a centuries-old process of cleansing the Iberian peninsula from the power of Muslims.

These prerequisites were sufficient for the emergence of the Spanish colonial empire. First European settlements appeared on the islands of the Caribbean: Espanola (Haiti), Puerto Rico and Cuba. The Spanish colonial empire also founded the first colony on the American mainland. In 1510, she became a Panamanian fortress with the complex name of Santa Maria la Antigua del Darien. The fort was laid by researcher Vasco Nunez de Balboa. He was the first of Europeans crossed the isthmus of Panama and found himself on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Internal organization

The device of colonial empires is better to consider on an example of Spain as this country first has come to those orders which then in the mass have extended and in other empires. It all began with the decree of 1520, according to which all open lands without exception were recognized as crown property.

The social and legal structure was built according to the habitual Europeans of the feudal hierarchy. The center of the colonial empire gave Spanish settlers land plots that became family property. Indigenous indigenous population was dependent on new neighbors. At the same time, it should be noted that formally the natives were not recognized as slaves. This is an important point that helps to understand what distinguished the Spanish colonial empire from the Portuguese.

In American settlements belonging to Lisbon, slavery was official. It was the Portuguese who created the system for transporting cheap labor from Africa to South America. In the case of Spain, the dependence of Indians was based on the neonation - debt relations.

Features of the Viceroyalty

The possessions of the empire in America were divided into vice-kingdoms. The first in their turn in 1534 was New Spain. It included the West Indies, Mexico and Central America. In 1544 Peru was founded, which included not only Peru proper, but also modern Chile. In the XVIII century there were New Granada (Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia), as well as La Plata (Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay). While the Portuguese colonial empire controlled only Brazil in America, the Spanish possessions in the New World were much larger.

The sovereignty over the colonies was possessed by the monarch. In 1503, the Chamber of Commerce was established, which directed judicial, governmental and coordinating bodies in the field. Soon she changed her name and became the Supreme Royal Council for the affairs of both Indies. This body existed until 1834. The Council directed the church, controlled important colonial appointments of officials and managers, issued laws.

Vice-kings were vice-governors of the monarch. To this post was appointed for a term of 4 to 6 years. Also there was a post of captain-general. They led separate lands and territories with a special status. Each Viceroyalty was divided into provinces headed by governors. All the colonial empires of the world were created for the sake of income. That is why the main concern of the governors was timely and complete financial contributions to the treasury.

A separate niche was occupied by the church. She performed not only religious but also judicial functions. In the XVI century appeared the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition. Sometimes her actions led to real terror in relation to the Indian population. Great colonial empires had another important pillar - the city. In these settlements, in the Spanish case, there was a peculiar system of self-government. Local residents formed cabildo - councils. They also had the right to elect some officials. In America there were about 250 such councils.

The most active layer of the colonial society was the landlords and industrialists. For a long time they were in a degraded state in comparison with the aristocratic Spanish aristocracy. And yet, thanks to these classes, the colonies grew, and their economy made a profit. It is important to note another phenomenon. Although the Spanish language was ubiquitous, in the 18th century the process of disintegration of the population into individual nations began, which in the next century built their own states of South and Central America.

Portugal

Portugal emerged as a small kingdom, surrounded on all sides by Spanish possessions. Such a geographical location deprived the small country of the opportunity to expand in Europe. Instead of the Old World, this state has turned its eyes to the New.

At the end of the Middle Ages, Portuguese navigators were among the best in Europe. Like the Spaniards, they sought to reach India. But if the same Columbus went to search for such a welcome country in a risky western direction, the Portuguese all their forces threw themselves on that to round Africa. Bartolomeu Dias discovered Cape of Good Hope - the southern point of the Black Continent. And the Vasco da Gamma expedition of 1497-1499. Finally got to India.

In 1500, the Portuguese navigator Pedro Cabral deviated from the course to the east and accidentally discovered Brazil. In Lisbon, immediately announced their claims to strangers before the land. Soon the first Portuguese settlements began to appear in South America, and Brazil eventually became the only Portuguese-speaking country in America.

East discoveries

Despite the successes in the west, the main goal of the seafarers remained east. The Portuguese colonial empire has made significant progress in this area. Her researchers discovered Madagascar and landed in the Arabian Sea. In 1506, the island of Socotra was captured . At the same time, the Portuguese first visited Ceylon. There was a vice-kingdom of India. Under his control were all the eastern colonies of the country. The first to become the vice-king was the naval commander Francisco de Almeida.

The structure of the Portuguese and Spanish colonial empire had some administrative similarities. In both were vice-kingdoms and both appeared at a time when the vast world was still divided between Europeans. Resistance of local residents in both the east and the west was easily suppressed. Europeans benefited from their technical superiority over other civilizations.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Portuguese captured important eastern ports and regions: Calicutu, Goa, Malacca. In 1517, trade relations with distant China began. Every colonial empire dreamed of the markets of the Celestial Empire. The history (Grade 7) in the school details the theme of the Great Discoveries and European expansion around the world. And this is not surprising, because without understanding these processes it is difficult to understand how the modern world has developed. For example, today's Brazil would never be the same as we know it if it were not for Portuguese culture and language. Also, the Lisbon seafarers were the first among the Europeans to open the way to Japan. In the 1570s, they began the colonization of Angola. During its heyday, Portugal had many fortresses in South America, Africa, India and Southeast Asia.

Trading Empire

Why was any colonial empire created? Europeans established control over the lands in other parts of the world for the exploitation of their human and natural resources. They were especially interested in their unique or rare products: spices, precious metals, rare tree species and other luxuries. For example, from America, coffee, sugar, tobacco, cocoa and indigo were massively exported.

Trade in the Asian direction had its own features. Here the leading force eventually became the United Kingdom. The British established the following sales system: they sold cloth in India, they also bought opium, which they exported to China. All these trading operations yielded colossal incomes for their time. At the same time, tea was exported from Asian countries to Europe. Each center of the colonial empire sought to establish a monopoly on the world market. Because of this, regular wars arose. The more lands were exploited and the more ships the oceans plied, the more often such conflicts erupted.

The colonies were "factories" for the production of cheap labor. As it used the local residents (most often natives of Africa). Slavery was a lucrative business, and the translantic slave trade was the basis of the economy of the colonial empires. Thousands of Congolese and West African people were forcibly transported to Brazil, to the South of the modern US and the Caribbean.

Expansion of European civilization

Any colonial empire was built on the basis of the geostrategic interests of European countries. The foundations of such formations were strong points in different parts of the world. The more coastal posts appeared in the empire, the more mobile it became its armed forces. The engine of European expansion around the world was mutual rivalry. Countries fought each other for control over the trade routes, human migration, movements of fleets and troops.

Every colonial empire operated according to prestige considerations. Any concession to the enemy in another part of the world was seen as a sign of a decline in geopolitical significance. In modern times, monarchical power was still connected with the religious notions of the population. Because of this, all the same Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires saw their expansion as a godly business and equated it with Christian Messianism.

Linguistic and civilizational offensive was widespread. Spreading their culture, any empire strengthened its legitimacy and authority on the international arena. An important feature of this was active missionary work. Spaniards and Portuguese spread Catholicism throughout America. Religion remained an important political tool. By making their culture universal, the colonists infringed the rights of local natives, deprived them of their own faith and language. From this practice, later such phenomena as segregation, apartheid and genocide were born.

United Kingdom

Historically, Spain and Portugal, the first colonial empires (the 7th grade in the school acquainted them in detail), could not hold the palm tree in the struggle against other European powers. England used to say about its sea claims earlier. If the Spaniards actively colonized South and Central America, the British took up the North. The conflict between the two states broke out for another reason. Spain was traditionally considered the main defender of Catholicism, while in the 16th century, the Reformation took place in England and its own independent church from Rome appeared.

Approximately at the same time, sea wars began between the two countries. Powers acted not with their own hands, but with the help of pirates and privateers. English naval robbers of modern times became a symbol of their era. They robbed Spanish galleons loaded with American gold, and sometimes even captured colonies. The open war shook the Old World in 1588, when the English fleet destroyed the Invincible Armada. Spain since that time entered a period of prolonged crisis. Gradually, she finally lost to the British, and later the British Empire leadership in the colonial race.

Netherlands

In the first half of the XVII century, there was another great colonial empire built by the Netherlands. It included the territories of Indonesia, Guyana, India. The Dutch had outposts on Formosa (Taiwan) and Ceylon. The main opponent of the Netherlands was Great Britain. In the 1770's. The Dutch lost to the British their colonies in North America. One of them was the future metropolis of New York. In 1802, Ceylon and the Cape Colony in South Africa were also transferred.

Gradually, the main possession of the Netherlands in other parts of the world was Indonesia. The Dutch East India Company operated on its territory. She traded important oriental goods: silver, tea, copper, cotton, textiles, ceramics, silk, opium and spices. In the heyday of the colonial empire of the Netherlands, the monopoly on the markets of the Pacific and Indian Ocean belonged. For a similar trade with America, the Dutch West India Company was established. Both corporations were abolished at the end of the 18th century. As for the entire colonial empire of the Netherlands, it vanished into the past in the twentieth century, together with the empires of European competitors.

France

The beginning of the French colonial empire was laid in 1535, when Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence River in modern Canada. In the 16th century, the Bourbon monarchy possessed the most modern and efficient economy at that time in Europe. On development, it was ahead of both Portugal and Spain. The French began to colonize new lands 70 years before the British. Paris could count on the status of the main metropolis around the world.

However, France was not able to fully use its potential. She was prevented by internal instability, weak trade infrastructure, and flaws in immigration policy. As a result, in the XVIII century came first place Britain, and France was on the secondary roles in the colonial race. Nevertheless, it continued to own significant territories around the world.

After the Seven Years' War in 1763, France lost Canada. In North America, the country has left Louisiana. It was sold in 1803 to the USA. In the XIX century, France reoriented to the Black Continent. It captured the vast expanses of West Africa, as well as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Later France established itself in South-East Asia. All these lands were granted independence in the 20th century.