People usually colonize to support their home country. Many countries in the mid 18th century would send groups of people to travel to less advanced countries and countries that have not been colonized. The colonizing countries would send their colonizers to gain control of countries and collect resources to support their countries. "I believe that the moment is come for us to extend our territories. I think that we must lose no time, under penalty of seeing the few remaining good positions seized upon by more enterprising nations than our own.” Many countries colonized less powerful countries to improve their country’s power, land and resources. There were a lot of powerful countries in Europe like Holland and England that were small but very powerful because they had colonized countries from around the world, so they had a lot of slave labor and resources coming from their colonies.
But other people like king Leopold from Belgium only exploit countries for exclusive benefit. He took over Congo to rule it with total control, only for his personal gain. “He was crowned the king of Belgium in 1865 and spent years buying large areas of land in Africa in what we know today as the Congo. During his reign, Leopold II abused his power and amassed a huge fortune exploiting the Congo.” When he was crowned king he spent a massive fortune to exploit and gain control over Congo. Many people trusted Leopold but once he got so much power he started to abuse his power and forced the native people of Congo to collect rubber and ivory for trade and if they didn’t collect enough Leopold had that slave’s family and village burned while the slave’s hands where cut off, making them useless. He colonized Congo but it also ended in the deaths of millions.
Another incident of colonization leading to exploitation is when the British colonized Australia. At first the Aboriginals got along with the British colonizers but then the British wanted to “help” the Aboriginals. The British truly thought they were helping the aboriginals by taking half-cast aboriginals and “educating” them to be more like the British. Educating the children wasn’t a bad idea, but taking children from their homes and putting them in camps, forcing them to leave their mothers, changing their culture is not helping them, it’s destroying them. These are both instances were colonization was at first a good idea but turned into corruption and exploitation.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Spencer, I loved and how you added your own thoughts (which I strongly agree with) on the way the Aboriginals were exploited by the English, that you thought that helping the Aboriginals to take in new cultures through education does not seem so bad, however if that becomes a matter of losing their own, it is not something beneficial.
ReplyDeleteI liked the excerpts and quotes that were included in your post, however I think you should cite them so it becomes clear where, and from which perspective the saying came from.
Overall, I really liked your post - you gave lots of explanation that proved your reasonings. I enjoyed reading it :)
I was quite intrigued by your proposition that colonization started off as a good enterprise, but then turned bad. Are there any examples where colonization was done "well?" Did the British and the Dutch do a better job than the Belgians and the Portugese? If so why? If not, is it possible to colonize without exploitation.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, I would have liked to see examples of how colonization helped the "host" countries (in Africa, Asia or Australia.) If that is not true, what larger benefits did the European countries have as a result of all the resources and slave labor coming from their colonies? Is the world at all better off due to what came from that age of exploration and colonization?
Answering some of those questions could have very much bolstered your argument. I appreciate your provocative stance. From an aesthetic viewpoint, including a graphic or a visual element to your post would help.
On a final note, I wonder if your title quote matches the photo at the top of your blog? Is it a tacit endorsement of colonization? Or am I reading the eagle to be too imperialistic?