Colony
In
politics and in
history, a
colony is a
territory under the immediate political control of a geographically-distant
state. For
colonies in antiquity,
city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically separate countries, while others were territories without definite
statehood at the moment of
colonization. The
metropolitan state is the state that owns the colony. In
Ancient Greece, the city that owned a colony was called the
metropolis within its political organization.
Mother country is the term used to refer to the metropolitan state by its citizens that live in a colony. Today, the terms
overseas territory or
dependent territory are preferred. There is a
United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
People who migrated to settle permanently in colonies controlled by their country of origin were called
colonists or
settlers.
A colony differs from a
puppet state or
satellite state in that a colony has no independent international representation and the top-level administration of a colony is under direct control of the metropolitan state.
The term "informal colony" is used by some historians to describe a country which is under the
de facto control of another state, although this description is often contentious.
In the modern usage,
colony is generally distinguished from
overseas possession. In the former case, the local population, or at least the part of it not coming from the "metropolitan" (controlling) country, does not enjoy full citizenship rights. The political process is generally restricted, especially excluding questions of independence. In this case, there are
settlers from a dominating foreign country, or countries, and often the property of
indigenous peoples is seized, to provide the settlers with land. Foreign mores, religions and/or legal systems are imposed. In some cases, the local population is held for
unfree labour, is submitted to brutal force, or even to policies of
genocide.
By contrast, in the case of overseas possessions, citizens are
formally equal, regardless of origin and it is possible for legal independence movements to form; should they gain a majority in the oversea possession, the question of independence may be brought, for instance, to referendum. However, in some cases, settlers have come to outnumber indigenous people in overseas possessions, and it is possible for colonies to become overseas possessions, against the wishes of indigenous peoples. This often results in ongoing and long-lasting independence struggles by the descendants of the original inhabitants.
Colony may also be used for countries that, while independent or considering themselves independent of a former colonizing power, still have a political and social structure where the rulers are a minority originating from the colonizing power. Such was the case with
Rhodesia after the
Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
The term
informal colony has also been used in relation to countries which, while they have never been conquered by force or
officially ruled by a foreign power, have a clearly subordinate social or economic relationship to that power.
Originally, as with the
ancient (Hellenic) Greek apoikia (αποικια), the term
colonization referred to the foundation of a new city or settlement, more often than not with nonviolent means (but see for instance the Athenian re-colonisation of
Melos after wiping out the earlier settlement). The term
colony is derived from the
Latin colonia, which indicated a place meant for
agricultural activities; these Roman colonies and others like them were in fact usually either conquered so as to be inhabited by these workers, or else established as a cheap way of securing conquests made for other reasons. The name of the
German city
Cologne also derives from
colonia. In the modern era, communities founded by colonists or
settlers became known as
settler colonies.
The "age of
imperialism" began in the
15th century with the initiation of the vast
Portuguese Empire and also the
Spanish Empire in the Americas and lasted until the mid-
20th century with the dismantling of the
British Empire. During these centuries
European states, the
United States and others took political control of much of the world's population and landmass. The term "colony" came to mean an overseas district with a majority
indigenous population, administered by a distant colonial government. (Exceptions occurred:
Russian colonies in
Central Asia and
Siberia, American settlements in the
American West, and German colonies in
Eastern Europe were not "overseas"; British colonies (or "overseas territories") like the
Falkland Islands and
Tristan da Cunha lacked a native population.) Most non-European countries were colonies of Europe at one time or another, or were handled in a quasi-colonial manner. The European colonies and former colonies in America made extensive use of
slave labor, initially using the native population, then through the importation of slaves from black Africa.
The
Spanish colonial empire once encompassed all of South and Central America except for Brazil, with few exceptions; it crumbled starting in the early 19th century. After the Spanish and the Portuguese, the
Dutch East India Company (VOC-1602) and later the
Dutch West India Company (WIC) took over a lot of Portuguese possessions and expanded their large trade empire (See;
Dutch colonial empire). In the
19th century, the largest European colonial empire was the British Empire under
Queen Victoria, including
India.Until World War I, the German Empire had the third-largest colonial-empire with colonies in Africa (Togo, Kamerun, Deutsch-Suedwestafrika and Deutsch- Ostafrika and in the Far-East in China and Papua New-Guinea and other islands like Samoa and Palau). France once held much of Western and Central Africa, along with Indochina.
There existed various statuses and modes of operation for foreign countries, direct control by the colonizing country being the most obvious. Some colonies were operated through corporations (the
British East India Company for
India; the
Congo Free State under the very brutal rule of
Léopold II of Belgium); some were run as
protectorates. Quasi-colonies were run through proxy or puppet governments, generally kingdoms or dictatorships. For instance, it may be argued that
Cuba before the Revolution was a quasi-colony of the United States, with an enormous influence of US economic and political interests; see
banana republic.
The United Kingdom used Australia as a
penal colony: British convicts would be sent to forced labor there, with the added benefit that the freed convicts would settle in the colony and thus augment the European population there. Similarly, France once deported prostitutes and various "undesirables" to populate its colonies in North America, and until the 20th century operated a penitentiary on
Devil's Island in
French Guiana.
The
independence of these colonies began with that of
13 colonies of Britain that formed the
United States, finalised in 1783 with the conclusion of a war begun in 1776, and has continued until about the present time, with for example
Algeria and
East Timor being relinquished by European powers only in 1962 and 1975 respectively (although the latter was forcibly made an
Indonesian possession instead of becoming fully independent). This process is called
decolonization, though the use of a single term obscures an important distinction between the process of the
settler population breaking its links with the mother country while maintaining local political supremacy and that of the
indigenous population reasserting themselves (possibly through the expulsion of the settler population).
The movement towards decolonization was not uniform, with more newer powers, sometimes themselves ex-colonies or once threatened by colonial power, trying to carve a colonial empire. The United States, itself a former colony, expanded westwards by waging brutal wars against the
Native American population, including whole massacres of civilians, so as to make it possible for settlers to colonize the
American West. It also colonized
Hawaii, and waged various wars and conduct armed expeditions so as to assert power over local governments (in
Japan, with
Commodore Perry and in
Cuba, for example). European countries and the United States, exploiting the weakness of China's waning imperial regime, also maintained so-called
international concessions in that country, a sort of colonial
enclave; the coastal towns of
Macau and
Hong Kong were held on long-term leases by
Portugal and the
United Kingdom. During the first half of the 20th century, until its defeat the
Second World War, Japan, once afraid of becoming a European or American colony, built itself a colonial empire in China, Korea and the Western Pacific, using military force.
Under the
Geneva Conventions of 1949, it is a war crime to transfer, directly or indirectly, the civilian population of a country power onto land under that country's military occupation. The reasoning for this crime is apparently to emphasise that it is now a violation of international law to annex territory through military force. This phrase describes many of acts of
colonisation in the past, and arguably outlaws colonisation.
See also:
British Empire,
Portuguese Empire,
Spanish Empire,
French colonial empire,
Dutch colonial empire,
Colonialism,
Colonial mentality,
Colonization,
British Nationality Law,
Slavery,
Imperialism,
New Imperialism,
settler.
Compare
protectorate,
Crown colony,
dominion,
Proprietary colony.
The Latin name
colonia also became the name of several towns, the most famous of which is
Cologne.
*
Carthage was a
Phoenician colony
*
Cyrene was a colony of the Greeks of
Thera*
Naples formed as a Greek colony
*
Durrës formed as a Greek colony dome
*
India was under the direct control of the government of the
United Kingdom between
1858 and
1947.
See also Crown colony.*
Korea was a colony of
Japan between
1895 and
1945.
*The
Philippines, previously a colony of
Spain, was a colony of the
United States from
1898 to
1946.
Today, none of the colonizing European and North American powers hold colonies in the traditional sense of the term. Some of their former colonies have been integrated as
dependent areas or have closer integration with the country.
*
Gibraltar has been a colonial possession of the
British since 1713.
*
Puerto Rico's relationship to the
United States is considered by some to be colonial, since citizens are subject to laws passed by
congress without their consent. This view is shared by many supporters of
independence and
statehood for the island, as well as by some supporters of current
Commonwealth status. However, other
Puerto Ricans do not agree with this perception.
*
List of Colonial Territories by country*
Space colonisation*
Crown colony*
Proprietary colony*
Commonwealth*
Colony (song)
