Colonies are states or territories captured by more powerful foreign powers, which were metropolises relative to the colonies. As a rule, colonial policy included wars of conquest with the further establishment of a regime of government in the colony.
Instructions
Step 1
The first colonies were formed with the aim of capturing the indigenous population into slavery to replenish the human resources of the metropolises. With the development of trading campaigns that traveled by water after the discovery of America, colonial heyday began. Some of the first significant colonies were South America, India and East Africa, conquered by Spain and Portugal during the era of the great geographical discoveries in the 15th century. Two centuries later, Holland also became a major metropolis, which also enjoyed privileges on water trade routes.
Step 2
The largest colonies in the entire history of the colonial movement can be considered India and Africa. Great Britain, one of the most powerful metropolises of that time, became the metropolis of India and South Africa in the 19th century. African Algeria and Tunisia were subordinate to France. The conquering countries, on the one hand, actively developed the economy and agriculture of their colonies, on the other, they actually plundered the wealth of the subordinate countries, exporting objects of art and jewelry. Cultural expansion in the colonies also had its advantages and disadvantages. The colonialists often planted their religion and language on the local residents, sought to eradicate the identity of the people, subjecting it to global standards. At the same time, it was precisely to the metropolises that many colonies owed the appearance of schools, hospitals, orphanages and other social and cultural facilities.
Step 3
The redistribution of colonies was one of the reasons for the outbreak of the First World War. England, France and Germany fought for Africa, British troops occupied Baghdad, the Germans recaptured islands in Oceania with a total area of one third of their own country. In the Far East, as a result of bloody actions, a number of colonies passed from the influence of Germany to Japan. After the end of the war, a colonial crisis began, generated by a wave of liberation wars in such colonies as India, Egypt, Afghanistan, Turkey and many others.
Step 4
The final milestone in colonial world history was the Second World War. After the defeat of Nazism and fascism, many of the inhabitants of the colonies drafted into the army did not lay down their arms, starting their own war for the country's autonomy. National armed forces against the invaders appeared in the Philippines, Syria, Lebanon, North Vietnam, China, Jordan. Soon all these states were proclaimed sovereign. In 1947, one of the largest colonies, India, also achieved independence. And in the early fifties of the twentieth century, Africa began to fight for its liberation from the mother countries. In the sixties, decolonization was completed practically all over the world, where voluntarily, where with the help of hostilities. However, there is no need to talk about the complete disappearance of such a concept as colonies: colonization was replaced by neo-colonization, since some former metropolises continue unofficial control over the territories that were once subject to them.