Colonialism

But first... a super fast history of humans, and economics

Dawn of Man A really long time ago, humans lived a lot like

animals do. We had small family groups and wandered around a lot. As hunter gatherers, our main concern was finding the next meal.

Beginnings of Agriculture

Groups of hunter-gatherers began to settle down to plant crops and raise animals. Even though this was a lot more work, it was also more reliable. In agrarian societies, our main concern was protecting our land and crops.

Specialization

When several farm families began to cooperate and divide tasks, civilization became possible. People became skilled in just one task, and this allowed us to live in large groups, develop government, and form cities. Our main concern became trade.

Conquest

As cities grew, they began to fight their neighbors and steal their stuff. Resources like water, farm land, and precious materials were too scarce for everyone to share. Our main concern became defending our own things and attacking others to get more.

Imperialism Some places became

powerful, and grew to control more land. The main reasons for this were resources and geography. People in good locations with nice stuff did better. As distances grew, things like money and trade became increasingly important to people.

Nationalism

Groups of cities began to form unique identities. Unique language, culture, and religions developed. Our main concern became differentiating 'us' from 'them' and finding a way to get their stuff into our pockets.

Mercantilism

Nations fought each other, but eventually they became stable.

With no other way to get more land or things, these countries started to look beyond their borders.

Nations began to explore, making new trade relationships. Merchants became rich and powerful, and the economic system that developed, mercantilism, encouraged exploration for new markets.

Where is all this happening? The pattern of human development

from individual family groups to huge empires happened all over the world.

For reasons having to do with luck, geography, and resources, Europe developed particularly argumentative cultures, and a really big population.

For reasons that will be clear in a minute, it is also worth mentioning that Europe's climate made it the only place in the world (at the time) where people had pale skin.

Crowding

Europe's large population and very divided geography meant that there were many different groups fighting over the same resources.

Being crowded also caused Europeans to advance quickly,

...and to evolve some of the nastiest diseases. The many nations of Europe fought between

themselves for hundreds of years until...

Technology- Travel

...transportation technology got advanced enough for Europeans to travel really, really far.

Technology- Weapons

Europeans also had more advanced weapons...

Disease

...and some really nasty germs. (that is smallpox)

Conquer the world!

Armed with fast boats, guns and swords, and killer germs, Europeans invaded most of the other parts of the world.

The main motivation was to get access to resources like metals, spices, and exotic food crops.

Europeans were so motivated, and so much more advanced, that they found it easier and cheaper to conquer new land than to trade.

Goldilocks Colonies

Some areas were pretty empty. There were so few people (or they died so fast) in North America and Australia that those places were just settled, not colonized.

Some areas were too full. Northern Asia had large advanced civilizations that were challenging to European invaders.

But some were just right.

Opportunistic Europeans

European Imperial powers soon learned that their new colonies gave them some extra things...

Cheap Labor and Racism

Richer and more advanced countries in Europe needed a less expensive way to grow food and make things.

Because Europe was both the whitest and the most advanced part of the world, many people assumed these things were connected.

Europeans decided that the people in their colonies weren't really human, and they enslaved, abused, and exploited them.

New Markets

With slave labor and lots of land, Europeans could grow tons of food and make a lot of cheap goods such as clothing. We'll talk about this when we study industrialization.

To make more money, European nations often sold these goods back to their colonies.

This began a network of global trade that we will talk about a lot more when we study globalization.

What next? For the rest of this unit, we will look at how

colonialism has changed the cultures of the world.

We will start with a case study of Indonesia. Next, we'll talk about what 'culture' is, exactly. Finally, we will research just one modern country's

colonial history, in pairs. Each pair must choose a country from South America, Africa or Asia that was colonized by a European power before 1900.

Our assessment is linked with English and includes note taking, a short report, a storyboard, and finally a multimedia presentation to the class.