# Let's imagine for a moment that there was no colonization **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 17, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955 "2022-01-17T22:50:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/61 "2022-01-19T18:27:44Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > _The Washing of the Spears_ is long outdated. It was published in 1965, and written by someone who had never even visited South Africa. There was a 1998 revision, but given the research methodology of the first, I’m not convinced it would be any better. Of course, I’m not reading anything written by a CIA apparatchik in any case. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/62 "2022-01-19T19:42:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That is not necessary for it to be considered colonialism. [Settler colonialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settler_colonialism) is not the only sort of colonialism. And I don’t know what the [concessions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concessions_in_China) were, if not colonies. I sit corrected. Certainly I remember Hong Kong the Boxer rebellion and other western adventures in China. But in my mind colonization is limited to moving a significant population to another area where it grows and becomes part of the new area. Hong Kong comes closest but compared to all of Asia that is pretty small. Now I understand that colonization can mean more that people moving in. Which is related to the point I was trying to make. Massive impacts to a culture can come from simply importing new ideas or goods. Examples of the latter are potatoes to Europe and Sweet Potatoes to China. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/63 "2022-01-19T20:46:19Z")
To all, just a reminder to not make this personal and don’t derail the thread. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/64 "2022-01-19T21:11:50Z")
Trading posts or factories, as they were known, were not colonies. They often existed under the protection of the local powers who benefited from a place to trade. All the maritime powers had such trading posts, some became fortified and they often came under attack by rivals. > **[Factory (trading post)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_(trading_post))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Factory was the common name during the medieval and early modern eras for an entrepôt – which was essentially an early form of free-trade zone or transshipment point. At a factory, local inhabitants could interact with foreign merchants, often known as factors. First established in Europe, factories eventually spread to many other parts of the world. The origin of the word factory is from Latin factorium 'place of doers, makers' (Portuguese: fei... Hong Kong was such a place. A worthless fishing village in the eyes of the Chinese Empire for these Britishers in their sailing ships who so desperately wanted to buy Chinese Tea and were running out of Silver with which to pay for it. Wooden sailing ships at the mercy of the wind and the tides were not a threat on the great rivers that led to the centres of Chinese imperial power, until…1839 and the steam ship Nemesis arrived. > **[Nemesis (1839)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(1839))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Nemesis was the first British ocean-going iron warship. She was the largest of a class of six similar vessels ordered by the 'Secret Committee' of the East India Company. Nemesis, together with her sister ships Phlegethon, Pluto, Proserpine, Ariadne, and Medusa, was built by John Laird’s yard at Birkenhead and William Fairbairn & Sons at Millwall. > Launched in 1839, the Nemesis was deployed to China – arriving late 1840 – and used to great effec... Steam powered gun boats armed with cannon and guns gave the maritime powers an enormous military advantage which they exploited ruthlessly to persuade the Chinese and for the US to persuade the Japanese to sign very one sided treaties by the US Commodore Perry and his black ships. > **[Perry Expedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > The Perry Expedition (Japanese: 黒船来航, kurofune raikō, "Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition during 1853–1854 to the Tokugawa Shogunate involving two separate voyages by warships of the United States Navy. The goals of this expedition included exploration, surveying, and the establishment of diplomatic relations and negotiation of trade agreements with various nations of the region; opening contact with the governm... Was that colonisation? More like extortion. Or ‘gun boat’ diplomacy as Palmerston put it. This military advantage supercharged the expansion of influence around the world by the British, French and the US into previously unassailable territories up the great rivers. They did not want to settle in these places, they just wanted to extract the wealth. That is quite different from the settler colonisation to the more temperate areas suitable for farming and ranching that provided a convenient safety valve for Europes poor, disaffected and religious minorities in settlement in a new land. That is also different from the plantations in the tropics that were suitable for growing cash crops but were full of tropical diseases and life expectancy would be cut short. Colonisation seems to be quite an overloaded term. It would mean different things in different locations at different times. So working backwards does it mean. If there was no sail technology to enable oceanic trade in cash crops? If there was no industrial revolution that led to the building of armed iron gunboats? If there was no political conflict in Europe that urged people to emigrate to find new lands to settle? That is a lot of ifs… > **[Colonization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When colonization takes place under the protection of colonial structures, it may be termed settler colonialism. This often involves the settlers dispossessing indigenous inhabitants, or instituting legal and other ... ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/65 "2022-01-19T21:36:02Z")
Trading can have huge impacts, but even with big impacts trading isn’t necessarily colonialism. Colonialism (in my understanding) without settlers involves using force or threat of force to extract resources and wealth without equal recompense to the people that live there, which does fit much of what the British Empire did in China and Hong Kong, and went well beyond establishing trade. ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/66 "2022-01-19T21:44:05Z")
There’s debate here on what counts as “colonization”, but my thoughts are more general: Humans world-wide tend to have the same tendencies to move around, be somewhat social with other humans, and especially observe/experiment/pick up new ideas and use them. So, some form of colonization and changing of technology and culture over time seems inevitable. If you erase a certain group of people from influencing a certain place when they did, eventually another group/s will. The timelines, dominant language, culture, etc might be different, but the same patterns would likely have happened give or take a few centuries. Something that seems unusual, and which takes great long-term effort to achieve, is stagnation of culture and learning, or reversion to a more primitive way of life. Native people in N. America didn’t just keep doing things for thousands of years unchanged until Europeans arrived… their arrow tips and other technology evolved over time, different groups migrated and took over or merged, and when big opportunities for change (like the arrival of horses) became available, the changes happened even faster. All people tend to pick up on new opportunities and incorporate them into their lives. So, The North Sentinelese example seems to be an outlier example rather than one of what will usually occur without normal human movement and trade. That very small group of people seem to have an unusual cultural feature (which I presume must be consistently indoctrinated pretty hard on it’s own people) of extreme hostility & violence to outsiders and excluding communication. It’s probably only possible with a small number of people to keep them all inside traditional territory and from mingling with the outside world; North Korea tries something vaguely similar but fails; too many people behaving like humans do. Plus, the North Sentinels probably only still exist as they do due to the protection from the Indian government (which they are completely unaware of) preventing the rest of the world from just going into the island. IIRC there has already been contact and violence from local fishermen. Preserving an isolated human population with a set level of technology like this takes a lot of work, and it doesn’t seem sustainable long-term. Expecting thousands of such populations across the world to stop being “human” and start self-stagnating and continue to use the same pointed sticks and weave grass baskets for thousands of years doesn’t seem realistic had we only prevented a few European excursions centuries ago. Even though it’s feasible in certain areas, you just don’t really see any significant portion of a population reverting to less advanced lifestyles. Rich Europeans don’t go back to building and living in sod houses with no plumbing, and well-funded American Indians don’t live in teepees and hunt buffalo by hand on their reserves, even though they could in some areas. That’s just not the way humans in general think and act. I cut and split my own firewood by hand, and enjoy watching the flames with my kids the same as proto-humans did. But my house has a gas line and furnace for 99% of our heating needs. Most people pick and choose the best parts of older ways to keep using, but keep up to date with the Joneses for day-to-day living. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/67 "2022-01-20T06:09:19Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > Trading posts or factories, as they were known, were not colonies. Concessions grew out of, but were not, factories. > [@filmstar-en](#): > > Was that colonisation? I’m happy to admit Japan wasn’t colonized by Europeans like China was. > [@filmstar-en](#): > > Colonisation seems to be quite an overloaded term. It would mean different things in different locations at different times. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for people working in the field, who can always get more specific if needed. > [@mmmiiikkkeee](#): > > The North Sentinelese example seems to be an outlier example rather than one of what will usually occur without normal human movement and trade. Note that it’s generally considered they developed their attitude _in response to_ “human movement” in the form of slave raids. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955.md?page=3)