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The colonial world, history course in English
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cours de DNL The Age of colonial empires since the end of the 19th century : The British Empire
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The Age of colonial empires since the end of the 19th century : The British EmpireIntroduction
A colonial empire is a collective of territories (often called colonies), mostly overseas,
settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state.
Colonial empires first emerged with a race of exploration between the then most
advanced European maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, during the 15th century. The
initial impulse behind these dispersed maritime empires and those that followed was
trade, driven by the new ideas and the capitalism that grew out of the European
Renaissance. Agreements were also made to divide the world up between them in 1479
(Treaty of Alcáçovas: the Pacific was divided in 2) and 1494 (Treaty of Tordesillas)
=new discovered lands.
European imperialism was born out of competition between European Christians and
Ottoman Muslims, the latter of which rose up quickly in the 14th century and forced the
Spanish and Portuguese to seek new trade routes to India, and to a lesser extent, China.
Although colonies existed in classical antiquity, especially amongst the Phoenicians and the
Ancient Greeks who settled many islands and coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, these
colonies were politically independent from the city-states they originated from, and thus
did not constitute a colonial empire
New movement of colonization at the end of the 19th century.
WHY?
The main empires: the British and the French ones. The British one is the biggest.
It started around 1815 in Africa
I)The British expansion
Why did Britain expand and how did it control its empire ?
A) Reasons for the British expansion
-ECONOMIC PURPOSE : The growth of the British Empire was due in large part to the
ongoing competition for resources and markets which existed over a period of centuries
between England and her Continental rivals, Spain, France, and the Netherlands.
- DEMOGRAPHIC PURPOSE : Out of pressure from the rapidly growing population :new
areas for the settlement of Europe’s poor migrants
-POLITICAL PURPOSE : It was a symbol of power.
-SOCIAL PURPOSE : « to civilize the barbarian nations » / out of racism :Rudyard Kipling
(1865- 1936). Born in Bombay, he studied in GB. His father was a museum director and
authority on Indian arts and crafts. Thus Kipling was thoroughly immersed in Indian
culture : by 1890 he had published in English about 80 stories and ballads previously
unknown outside India. He nourished the British colonial dream. He published The
White Man’s Burden in 1899, an appeal to the United States to assume the task of
developing the Philippines, recently won in the Spanish-American War.
B) The territorial evolution of the British empire
How large was the empire?
, This race for an empire created
competition among various imperial
states. By 1900, Africa was 90%
under European control with Britain
and France owning most of the
continent.
In 1920, the British Empire was the largest
in the world. The British Empire held sway
over a population of about 550 million
people, roughly between a quarter and a
third of the world’s population ( 30 % of the
world population and 23% of the Earth total
land area with 33 million km2).
The oldest colonies America (lost in 1776)
Canada (discovered in 1534 by John Cabot
and Jacques Cartier, it
became British in 1763)
Australia and New Zealand (James Cook
landed in 1770)
● The Union of South Africa (since 1806)
India oldest and most prestigious British colony
since 1612, The Raj was
created in 1858. It comprised present-day
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka and Burma (Myanmar). In 1877,
Queen Victoria was crowned
Empress of India.
South East Asia Singapore (1819)
● Malaysia (1824)
● Hong Kong (1842)
Central and South America the West Indies and the British Guiana.
Mediterranean area Gibraltar (1705)
● Malta (1814)
● Egypt (1805)
● Cyprus (1878)
● Palestine (1920)
Eastern part of Africa (from North to South) Egypt and Sudan (1805, then 1882)
● The Union of South Africa (since 1806)
● Bechuanaland (Botswana) (1885)
● Kenya (1895)
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