Jokes about gaining some decent food aside, it seems to me reading about it that the era of colonialism was a net loss for almost all countries that engaged in it. Think France nearly bankrupting itself.
While at the time grabbing some colonies was seen as essential, holding and keeping them often seems more trouble than it was worth.
Spain got shit tons of gold.
Made Britain the world’s superpower for about 100 years.
The major colonizing countries did very nicely, thank you, and not only in terms of power. They became the wealthiest countries in the world, with the highest standards of living, at least until it all fell apart with the two world wars. Most of them are still pretty well of compared to most countries,and most of their former colonies.
Which was not necessarily a good thing for Spain.
I’d give more credit to the Industrial Revolution than to the colonies. But how much each contributed is probably something that can’t be easily determined.
There would have been no industrial revolution without the colonies.
Britain could have favorable worldwide trade with itself.
It can never be too much repeated, that the prime point of grabbing countries and imperialism etc., is not for any value, but to deny that value to rivals.
Stuff is nice, but blocking power to an enemy is priceless. The only thing superior is blocking power to a friend.
A lot of this. Having colonies that the parent country could control meant having captive trading partners, for raw materials and finished goods; as well as denying as much of that commerce as possible to rivals. This was called mercantilism and was all the rage among European colonial powers for quite some time.
The American colonies weren’t founded by Pilgrims seeking religious freedom; that came much later.
Of course, this was always to the benefit of the parent country at the expense of the colonies. Or at least it was always meant to be so and typically was. Until, y’know, colonies and colonists got fed up and started throwing Tea Parties. Here we see a cartoon of the guest of honor being entertained. (Although this site says that tarring and feathering of tax collectors in the Colonies, thought popular in lip service, didn’t actually happen.)
That’s a point, though. Colonizers could offload some of their annoying Puritans who wanted to be free to impose their wills on others.
Not to mention - a few convicts and the excess offspring of the wealthy.
It was worth it for the colonizers for centuries…much longer than ithe post-colonial period has been. .
Yes, but the problem is figuring out if colonialism helped these countries become richer or kept them from being as rich as they could have been.
Look at the decolonization that occurred after WWII when European countries were poorer. That might be evidence that colonies were essentially an expensive luxury for the European powers. Owning colonies was a status symbol that European powers could afford when they were rich but they had to let go of when their fortunes declined.
Or compare the economic status of Germany, with its minimal colonialism, to that of major colonial powers like France or Britain. Maybe Germany prospered in comparison to those countries because it wasn’t spending its resources on a colonial empire like they were.
The merchants and economic architects handing out monopoly powers did rather well. Whether it was in the interest of the great majority of the country was kinda beside the point. Adam Smith argued along these lines, saying the colonies were a drain on Britain just to enrich an elite few and they should be cut loose and made free trade partners.
My understanding is that the IR was driven mainly by technological developments: steam engine, power loom, cotton gin, etc. So you’re going to have to expound on how a colonial system made the IR go.
Yes, but Britain was closed out of Dutch, French, Spanish, etc. colonies. So it’s not necessarily a net gain.
Maybe it’s true for the Johnny come lately like Germany, Italy and Belgium that colonies were an expensive status symbol. Not for the UK or France who became great powers on the backs of their colonies.
Some colonies acquired by the UK were for strategic rather than economic reasons it is true, for example to secure routes to India and the Far East or as coaling stations for a globe spanning Navy. And when those strategic reason evaporated, the needs to hold on to those colonies ended. But, that is far from seeing colonies as expensive luxuries.
Guaranteed markets. You could close out other parties in your colonies, when you are the only game in town that helps a lot. To take an example, a one time, Indian Railways was the largest in the world by length and rolling stock, almost all of what was manufactured in Swindon.
Source of raw materials. You take raw materials out of a colony, then send manufactured goods back. For example, India and Egypt grew raw cotton, which was shipped to Manchester and textiles were shipped back, which coincidentally caused economic collapse in parts of the colonies, Bengal was traditionally the richest area of the sub continent until the British showed up.
Money earned from the colonies can be employed in investments back home. Steam engines, Cotten gins, manufactured goods were often supported by people with interests in the colonies.
From what I read, it seems that French sub-saharian colonies at least have been a net financial loss. During the late 19th century, it seems the main argument used in parliament in favour of African colonization was the civilizing mission (by the left) and the main argument against that it costed a lot of money (by the right). I guess that India, for instance (or maybe even Algeria for France) was another matter.
Leopold of Belgium made a lot of money from his “private colony” in Congo, but he had to kill 1/4 of the population to get this result.
I would think the Dutch are doing quite well with Nigerian oil.
Well, ten years. Not really sure that’s “much” later.
But the American colonies seem to have cost more then they made the British, hence all the unpopular taxes.
And once the British lost the colonies, the people that lived there…kept selling raw materials to British merchants in return for manufactured goods. So the Brits got the same benfits as they had before, except they didn’t have to pay to send armies across an ocean to chase off the French/fight the Continentals.
Colonialism seemed to be based on the weird premise that in order to buy and sell stuff somewhere, you had to conquer that place first. But as the US learned, and Europe eventually realized, conquering is expensive and poeple generally want to buy/sell stuff without it. If worse comes to worse, you can ally with a local faction to help them take over the gov’t. Backing a local strongman is still cheaper then conquering/defending some malarial hellhole on the other side of the globe.