# Why did the British Empire used ethnic cleansing that much in its Empire building? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 16, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376 "2010-10-16T21:46:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376/21 "2010-10-17T15:58:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Britain = heavily populated (if not overpopulated) island. > France = not so heavily populated part of continent. > > I think a lot of it stems from this. > > But note where Britain wasn’t as interested in exporting population, they got on a lot better with the natives (see South Africa: frontier wars, yes, but those were wars of subjugation not extermination & replacement). Which is why the Xhosa and Zulus are still around in their millions and run the country. I think you’ll find that the case in most of ex-British Africa. I don’t know what’s different about America and Australasia, but there clearly was a difference. It seems to me the difference between Africa on one side and America and the Oceania on the other side is that Africa had no vulnerabilities to Eurasian diseases. If you look at America and Australia, the native pop first took a huge toll in diseases, and THEN suffered ethnic cleansing. My whole question always hovers around this, did they use ethnic cleansing because they could and it would actually achieve something? That is clearing sizable pieces of lands for them to settle. While other colonial powers, even if they had gone for ethnic cleansing, would have achieved little to nothing, not having the local pop already considerably weakened by sickness? And the linked question that everyone here didnt answer (which is impressive, considering a lot of you brushed it but did not seize it) , why the hell did G-B go for the massive pop drain that was settling in the colonies. Especially if the first settlements were farm settlements. I dont recall GB suffering from famines at the times, and needing food even more desperately that they would need materials that you could only find in the colonies (that’s how you made colonies profitable). As been said the pop of France was far far greater than that of GB, yet they didnt support any massive form of emigration to the New World. Mr Dibble said it was because GB was overpopulated. Hm, I’d appreciate some cites for this , especialy since I am not at all certain overpopulation was a concept that existed at this time in Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376/22 "2010-10-22T14:57:43Z")
A quick note, Europeans in the Caribbean for one, suffered a high death rate from disease in the 17th/18th centuries(probably earlier aswell but I have no knowledge of that). So its not a case that those nasty "Whities ", as matter of policy, set out to ethnicly cleanse the angelic, peaceloving, at one with nature, locals, by disease. Also, while history may be written by the victors, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the losers were innocents. It only means that they weren’t as good at winning as the victors. And if their situations had been reversed… ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376/23 "2010-10-22T22:48:48Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > That’s a good point. But the settling of New France wasnt supposed to be a hit and run thing. At least to the settlers, it was a permanent move to go to America. Though they were no farming settlements (mostly fur trade), they were not supposed to be temporary trade posts . The following questions thus come: > -why didnt the French emigrate in the same numbers as the Brits? > > - why did the Brits go for farming settlements when every other colonial power was apparently going for other sources of revenue? Are you sure you have your history correct? Yes, the fur trade was important to New France, but so was populating the area with French immigrants who could farm. I’ll certainly defer to our Quebec Dopers, who seem to know their history better than I do, but for now, I’ll offer this, from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitants): > [@](#): > > _Habitants_ is the name used to refer to both the French settlers and the inhabitants of French origin who farmed the land along the two shores of the St. Lawrence Gulf and River in what is the present-day Province of Quebec in Canada… > > The feudal system of landholding, which had long been established in France, was adopted in the colony. The nobles, in this case the seigneurs, were granted lands and titles by the king in return for their oath of loyalty and promise to support him in time of war. The seigneur in turn granted rights to work **farm plots** on his land to his vassals, or _habitants_. In addition the _habitants_ were given the right to use the local mill, the right to use **common pasture land** for grazing, the right to bequeath land to their families, and were given protection by the seigneur. In exchange, the _habitants_ were required to pay certain feudal dues each year, to clear trees from their lots in order to **grow crops** on it, to work for the seigneur for a given number of days annually, to maintain their access roads in good condition, and to have their grain ground in the seigneurial mill. Italics as in the original, boldface emphasis added. But it sounds like there was a lot of farming going on. [Here’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Quebec) a little more information. Looks like the population of New France was up to 60,000 by 1760, though it could have been higher: > [@](#): > > After 1627, King Louis XIII of France introduced the seigneurial system and forbade settlement in New France by anyone other than Roman Catholics… The seigneurial system of governing New France also encouraged immigration from the motherland. > > New France became a Royal Province in 1663 under King Louis XIV of France… This ushered in a golden era of settlement and colonization in New France, including the arrival of les “Filles du Roi”. The population grew from about 3,000 to 60,000 people between 1666 and 1760. Colonists built farms on the banks of St. Lawrence River and called themselves “Canadiens” or “Habitants”. The colony’s total population was limited, however, by a winter climate much harsher than that of France, by the spread of diseases, and by the refusal of the French crown to allow Huguenots, or French Protestants, to settle there. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376/24 "2010-10-22T23:13:54Z")
Thanks for conributing Spoons. Since my original posting, I’ve been reading a lot (in fact the OP was more a way of organizing my thoughts to know where to start looking). Yeah, I replied hastily when I said it was only fur trading posts, obviously they setlled for farming too (actually that reinforces my point about French colonization of America not being a hit and run thing). There seems to be quite some differences in the way Quebec and the more southern territories operated. I’ll post some more, I just had thought the thread was dead. As it was my very first, I had entered a mourning period. ---
**Author:** ![falcotron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@falcotron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/falcotron)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2010, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376/25 "2010-10-23T11:02:06Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > And the linked question that everyone here didnt answer (which is impressive, considering a lot of you brushed it but did not seize it) , why the hell did G-B go for the massive pop drain that was settling in the colonies. I think people _did_ answer this. GB was chock full of people who either were considered “undesirables” or who believed they were so considered, for all of the reasons people have stated above (religious strife, rapidly-changing wealth distribution, etc.). GB wanted to get rid of those people, so they had no problems letting as many of them go as possible. This isn’t the whole answer to your original question, but I think it’s most of the answer to this sub-question. As for the overpopulation question: GB underwent more dramatic urbanization than France, so it’s possible that their cities were more overpopulated, even if their country as a whole wasn’t. But I don’t think this was the major factor. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376/26 "2010-10-24T17:49:14Z")
I think the big difference in the status of the North American colonies was that the French colonization of North America was a centrally directed process, where the government tried, and mostly succeeded, to control who was allowed to settle, where they settled, etc., where (at least after the initial land grants) the British essentially yelled "Free land! and stood back out of the way. The French version would possibly have worked out better (especially for the original inhabitants) in the long run, but couldn’t compete in the short run with the flood of troublemakers, outcasts, foreigners, et al pouring into the British colonies. ---
**Author:** ![Walther\_Ego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Walther\_Ego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walther_Ego)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376/27 "2010-11-01T11:07:26Z")
I think the French crown did it’s best to encourage emigration to its colonies, so the convicts were sent mostly in the absence of better subtitutes. This is really not that different to England. Earlier posters have commented the advantage of pilgrims for England, but it is intersting to compare where the Huguenots went. Well, they went overseas as well. Some actually went to Quebec. But more of them went to Geneve, Amsterdam, some completely revised the Swedish mining industry so intrumental to its great power status. In fact, in early 17th century, France sent much of its middle class away and created an economical boom everyhere north of its borders. I wonder if this not only meant a lost oppoturnity to send religious dissidents to your own colonies, but also that there was room for urbanisation as a prefered choise over leaving the country? I remember having read that the disaster of colonising Cayenne was a major blow to luring people overseas. Disasters were commonplace in the early colonies and hiding them from the general public must have been seen as instrumental to success. Small incidents can lead whole generations of people to decide to stay where they are. In the 19th century, there was a major land reform in France. This is often cited as a hindrance to urbanisation and industrialisation. It would be logical to add colonisation to the list. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376/28 "2010-11-01T16:01:59Z")
In comparing the treatment of the native populations by England, France and Spain I think the lack of influence of the Roman Catholic Church and its orders on the Anglo population goes a long way to explain the difference. Intermarriage was quite common in the French and Spanish colonies. New France as well untill the English took over. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-british-empire-used-ethnic-cleansing-that-much-in-its-empire-building/557376.md?page=1)