Part Two: Understanding Colonialism
- September 2020
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October 2020
- Oct 2, 2020 #9 Understanding Colonialism: The New Globalisation: The Age of Monopoly Global Companies
- Oct 9, 2020 #10 Understanding Colonialism: The Early Monopoly Companies and Colonisation
- Oct 16, 2020 #11 Understanding Colonialism: Competitive Colonialism & Defending Colonies
- Oct 23, 2020 #12 Understanding Colonialism: Invasion, Settlement, Slaves and Colonisation
- Oct 30, 2020 #13 Understanding Colonialism: Slaves and Settler Societies
- November 2020
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December 2020
- Dec 4, 2020 #18 Understanding Colonialism: Death and Impoverishment Part III
- Dec 11, 2020 #19 Understanding Colonialism: Indian Colonialism: A Special Case from 1600 to 1914
- Dec 18, 2020 #20 Understanding Colonialism: Russian Colonisation: Another Special Case
- Dec 23, 2020 #21 Understanding Colonialism: The Invasion of China
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January 2021
- Jan 1, 2021 #22 Understanding Colonialism: Africa (Part I)
- Jan 8, 2021 #22 Understanding Colonialism: Africa (Part II)
- Jan 15, 2021 #23 Understanding Colonialism: Settler and non-Settler Colonies
#11 Understanding Colonialism: Competitive Colonialism & Defending Colonies
Over 450 years from 1500 to 1945, the major European powers competed with one another over colonies. There were no established global rules until the 20th century. One of the purposes of the monopoly companies was to take colonies from other European powers, it is in this sense that European colonisation was a competitive process. The religious wars and conflicts between states within Europe were replicated across the globe. The Spanish and Portuguese were first off the block in the 15th century, invading and colonising the Americas.
#10 Understanding Colonialism: The Early Monopoly Companies and Colonisation
After having outlined in the previous blog the origins of the early monopoly companies, it is now worth pausing to understand how these monopoly companies operated. Divest yourself of any conception you might possess of a trading company today. From their origins, these companies operated like ships of war. They were designed to combat all aggression from any direction: aggression from the people they might meet on landing, from other ships that might wish to steal their cargoes, and from other European monopoly companies that wished to steal their trade.
#9 Understanding Colonialism: The New Globalisation: The Age of Monopoly Global Companies
The so-called National Charter companies were innovative at the time. They were financed from private sources, allowed to arm themselves for protection, and they set out to control the trade they could muster. The East India companies avoided the Ottomans, sailed around the Cape to India, and began to set up local agreements and build forts. Each of the new European companies rapidly discovered that the Indian and Chinese governments did not want to obtain what Europe had to offer, rather they felt themselves to be self-sufficient.
#8 Understanding Colonialism: The Key Role of Slavery from 1492 to 1875
Racial chattel slavery, as practised in the North and South Americas over four centuries, represented bondage not seen before at new levels of human inferiority and violence. European chattel slavery required two elements which on the whole was not present in earlier forms of slavery; private ownership and racism. Only under the ideology of European racism could chattel slavery exist in the extreme from that it took. Chattel slavery was the ownership of one person by another as a form of property; it became prerequisite for plantation settlement for sugar and coffee - the beginnings of industrial capitalism.