the best and worst colony
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Modern History
Forum Discription: World History from 1918 to the 21st century.
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6036
Printed Date: 07-Jun-2024 at 14:03
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Topic: the best and worst colony
Posted By: babyblue
Subject: the best and worst colony
Date Posted: 08-Oct-2005 at 16:33
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got the idea for this thread from a conversation i had with some customers that frequents my restaurant...we were saying how glad we were that Cuba is Cuba, with all it's cigars, booze and chics. what about you guys? what do you think was the best colony...and the worst? |
Replies:
Posted By: Maju
Date Posted: 08-Oct-2005 at 22:59
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Maybe the "best" colony can be looked for in India: the British rule
did allow India to reach modern times united and in rather good shape,
without being particularly destrutive for the natives. The worse
colonies are surely also British ones: Australia and North America,
where the natives were exterminated mercilessly to make room for
European colonization. The most extreme case is surely Tasmania.
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NO GOD, NO MASTER! |
Posted By: Komnenos
Date Posted: 10-Oct-2005 at 09:00
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The dubious honour of the worst colony must surely go to the Belgians and their King Leopold, a highly underrated mass murderer.
He run the entire Congo as a private rubber plantation from 1885-1903 and during this period, and I quote Wikipedia here: …” between five and fifteen (the commonly accepted figure is about ten) million Congolese died as a consequence of exploitation and diseases. To enforce the rubber quotas, the Force Publique (FP) was called in. The FP was an army, but its aim was not to defend the country, but to terrorise the local population The Force Publique made the practice of cutting off the limbs of the natives as a means of enforcing rubber quotas a matter of policy; this practice was disturbingly widespread.” ------------- [IMG]http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i137/komnenos/crosses1.jpg"> |
Posted By: Byzantine Emperor
Date Posted: 10-Oct-2005 at 12:18
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One of the most disastrous colonies, although it wasn't as large of a scale as the British in India, was the Greek colony of Smyrna in Florida. I think it was established in the late 18th century under the leadership of a British Graecophile. The population consisted mostly of Ionian Greeks, as well as some southern Italian Greeks picked up en route, who fled from the Ottoman invasion of the Anatolian city of Smyrna and the surrounding countryside. When they arrived in the prospective site in northeastern Florida, they had to first clear the extensive swampland that dominated the landscape. The colony made its living on picking and selling cotton and sugarcane. Eventually infighting and disease from the swamp's mosquitoes brought an end to the colony. I think many of the colonists died; I am not sure how many survived or to where the survivors escaped. ------------- http://www.allempires.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=12713 - Late Byzantine Military http://www.allempires.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=17337 - Ottoman perceptions of the Americas |
Posted By: Jalisco Lancer
Date Posted: 10-Oct-2005 at 12:44
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New Spain / Mexico was the pearl of the crown for Spain during 300 years. The population was decimated by the deseases brought by the spaniards. The gold and silver from Mexico and Peru kept floating to a non industrial empire as Spain during 3 centuries. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 10-Oct-2005 at 12:46
yes, the Congo 'Free State' was without a doubt the most terrible colony. Leopold was so greedy that his soldiers weren't allowed to waste a single bullet. For every bullet they fired they had to give a hand to the colonial administration to make sure they killed a Congolese with that bullet. Of course soldiers often missed when fired, or killed animals instead of Congolese. Therefore they cut of hands of living Congolese to make sure they weren't punished for wasting bullets. ------------- |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 10-Oct-2005 at 16:24
Of course this never stopped realtors from selling Florida swampland to Yankees and foreigners. |
Posted By: Temujin
Date Posted: 10-Oct-2005 at 17:18
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most important German colony was Namibia, because of its Diamonds. ------------- |
Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 11-Oct-2005 at 08:54
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Tasmania still has people with aborigini ancestors. For total wipe out
you need to look to the caribbean, where the Spanish ever managed to
kill off (mostly though desease), or reduce the populations
sufficiently through slavery, they were no longer viable and died off.
The few that survived that got shafted when the other European colonial
powers started garbbign the islands, bringing African slaves with them. Worst colonies to become countries i'd say are probably Angola and Zimbabwe, or the Congo. Angola started off better off then many other colonies in Africa, but turned foul in the twentieth century, a long anti-colonial war, followed by the Portugese pulling out, wrecking alot of the infrustructure on the way, and left the country to simmer in a 30 year civil war. FUBAR. Congo as mentioned had the whole Leopard madness, but add to that the time that is was actualy a Belgian colony (and not the coonoy of an individiual) wasn't to bright either, now attempt was made to educate the locals, so when the Belgians left (but not without leaving mercenaries to mess the place up more), there were literaly no natives with anything resembling meaningfull knowhow as regards to running a very large, ethnicly and linguistily diverse country that didn't even have an integrated infrustructure, save routs to take goods to the coast for export. Zimbabwe was unique amountst British colonies in Africa (save for perhaps parts of Kenya), where, instead of raising the flag and bribing loyal locals to keep things in order, but otherwise not messing things up too much; found the climate and land very favourable, and so kicked the natives off their land, built their own farms, and then imposed a tax on the natives that effectivly forced them into becoming landless labourers, dependant on working for their colonial overlords so that they could pay tax to those same overlords. Charming. That simmers for a while untill after WWII, Rhodesia becomes indipendant, but ruled by whites, virtualy apartheid style, some natives decide they are sick of it and get to fighting about it, but as always when violence becomes the solution, the thugs take control. Britian by now entering its bizarre post-colonial guilt phase decided it was a bit embarresing and leaned towards Mugabe, horay, the crisis is solved, mugabe is in charge, and everything is the same, untill a drought hits, when the ingenious of destroying the countries farming ecomony emerges as a solution. SNAFU. -------------  Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: Maju
Date Posted: 11-Oct-2005 at 10:17
I agree that the Spanish rule was very harsh, specially in the early period, when it can compare to the Belgian Congo. Yet it's also true that more than what the Black Legend would admit survived and that modern Dominicans and specially Puerto Ricans are strongly Carib of blood. The only areas of the Spanish empire where genocide was throughout were possibly Cuba and Argentina-Uruguay. In the last case, disease seems more guilty than intentional killing, as far as I know. What the Spanish rule was very harsh in was in culturicide and racist explotation. But even though, most Hispano-Americans have a clear mixed ancestry, though a big deal was caused by means of rape and prostitution. This actually created a new breed of mestizos of Spanish culture but largely Native American blood. In contrast, look at the English colonies: where are the Natives or the mixed breed? Even Christianized and westernized indians were expelled and massacred, like happened with the Cherokees, thout it's true that this can't be blamed on Britain directly but in the already independent USA. -------------
NO GOD, NO MASTER! |
Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 11-Oct-2005 at 11:14
I had never heard of this incident. Do you have any sources for information on it? |
Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 11-Oct-2005 at 11:17
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Peurto Rico is exceptional amoungst Carribbean islands, its the only
one with significant native heritage, and little in the way of black
heritage compared to other islands, Dominico is more the sheer
isolation of some tribes in the mountanious interrior that allowed for
their surivival . USA post indipendance is a whole different matter from before, but bare in mind there are mixed populations (especialy in the south east and south west), just that the US institutionaly does not recognise mixedness, so those mixed people were either just white, or just native. Furthermore the native tribs have their own blood rules, so you are either in or out, not half half. The the reason why many people claim (granted some wrongfully) Cherokee heritage, is because when they were kicked off their land they were essentialy given two options, live in white settlments, or be deported west, the ones that chose to stay ended up intermarrying with the european migrants. Incidently the Spanish weren't much better in Florida. In contrast, look at Canada, you have provinces like Manitoba and Saskatchewan where natives make up significant poportion of the population (i think in one of those two they are literaly a hair's length away from being the majority). The only significant pattern is that where natives were more organised and agrarian, they had greater staying power, where as those that were nomadic or semi nomadic, were much more vunerable, the only exceptions being in areas that were either settled relativly late, or areas largely undesirable to European settlers. ------------- Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 11-Oct-2005 at 11:24
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Best colony: the Proprietary colony of Pennsylvania in the years 1682 to 1754: Religious freedom under the ownership of the Quaker Penns. Good relations with the native population (until the F & I War) No army or militia Fertile land and plenty of it. (east of the mountains) and Plentiful game and fishing. University of Pennsylvania football (OOPS, that came later)  Worst: Belgian Congo as detailed above. |
Posted By: Maju
Date Posted: 11-Oct-2005 at 12:28
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears - Wikipedia : President Van Buren assigned General http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfield_Scott" title="Winfield Scott" style="font-style: italic; - Winfield Scott to head the forcible removal operation. He arrived at New Echota in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_17" title="May 17" style="font-style: italic; - May 17 , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838" title="1838" style="font-style: italic; - 1838 , in command of about 7,000 soldiers. Soldiers began rounding up Cherokees in Georgia on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_26" title="May 26" style="font-style: italic; - 26 May http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838" title="1838" style="font-style: italic; - 1838 ; ten days later operations began in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama. About 17,000 Cherokees — along with approximately 2,000 black slaves owned by wealthy Cherokees — were removed at gunpoint from their homes over three weeks and gathered together in camps, often with only the clothes on their backs. There's no mention of Cherokees being given any option individually, nor I have heard of that before. Most likely those mixtures you mention belong to an earlier period of colonization, when their descendants lived among whites and weren't therefore considered Cherokees anymore. It's often mentioned that interracial marriages happened more frequently among the earliest colonists.
Can't say but I thought the USA purchased it because the Spanish were unable (or unwilling) to control the Seminoles, so they could do the genocide on themselves.
While Canada may have had a better native policy than the USA or Australia, there has never been a comprehensive integration, at least since it was transfered to Britain (the French were more integrative, I believe). I think this is a characteristic of Anglo-Saxon colonization, that has always seen peoples from a black&white point of view: European and non-European, while, at least on paper other powers have been more integrative, considering all as subjects of their respective empire, without consideration of their ethnicity (though in practice Europeans and Creoles dominated too). So you have two kind of British colonies: population colonies and mere resources with non-white populations. In the Spanish colonies, whatever the defects and abuses, that are many, you can't easily say where one ends and the other begins: assimilation was the objective. This can also be said to a great degree of French and Portuguese colonies. Btw, you may find interesting this map of Canadian declared ethnicities, to add to the one you posted on USA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Canadianethnicities2.png - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Canadianethnicities2.png Only 400,000 Canadians declare themselves to be Native American (plus other 100,000 declaring being Métis or Inuit). This out of 32 million is not any huge presence, and, acording to the map, they are dominant only in the peripheric undesirable areas of the north.
That's largely true but Cherokee were agrarian and made a huge effort in adapting to the new situation and to western uses, yet it was of no use to them. The same can be said of other "civilized" native nations, not just in the USA but also in New Zealand and Hawaii. -------------
NO GOD, NO MASTER! |
Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 11-Oct-2005 at 12:46
Got that off some history program, i'll look into it more. Either way, the ones that didn't go westwards, ended up intermarrying.
Closer to 650,000 AFAIK, but thats entirely my point, there are entire areas of Canada (and some of the sothern provinces aren't exactly undesirable) where they are numericly dominant, in a manner that contrasts with the US.
The Cherokee that adapted the most intermarried, the ones that didn't remained a seperate nation within the US and ended up being kicked westwards. The Mauri and Hawaiians are significantly more numerous than natives in either the US or Canada. Theire existence merely proves my point somewhat. Agrarian societies have more staying power. ------------- Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: Tobodai
Date Posted: 11-Oct-2005 at 21:23
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From a strategic standpoint of the colonizers wasnt the eastern seaboard of the US the worst colony? You spent lots of many to expand its borders and then it rebels and becomes a competitor nation. ------------- "the people are nothing but a great beast... I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value." -Alexander Hamilton |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 12-Oct-2005 at 05:33
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Yet the more civilised populations caved in more quickly, no?
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Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 12-Oct-2005 at 06:36
Who do you mean? The Inca, Aztecs etc? The were the rich targets first conquered, but they populations are the once who stuck around the most. ------------- Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 12-Oct-2005 at 16:05
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I meant the 'uncivilized' peoples stayed independent longer. I accept that one could argue that they lived in the less desirable target areas, but to some extent that was also a function of their lack of civilisation - if you don't mine gold nobody wants to steal it. A civilised society is (a) a more rewarding target and (b) easier to defeat militarily. It cold also be argued that a society of people used to obeying a hierarchy (of sorts) is more likely to convert easily to obeying another one. Ages and ages ago for my scholarship essay at Cambridge we were presented with the simple title '1492' to write about. I remember developing these arguments on the fly then. |
Posted By: Ahmed The Fighter
Date Posted: 12-Oct-2005 at 17:20
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best colony India for english. worst Afghanistant for Soviet. ------------- "May the eyes of cowards never sleep" Khalid Bin Walid 
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Posted By: Cywr
Date Posted: 12-Oct-2005 at 17:23
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With a complex empire structure like the Aztecs or Inca, all you have
to do is defeat the centralsied state, and you inherit the means and
infrustructure to continue in their place. In the case of Mexico, it
was simply a matter of replacing Tenochtitlan with Madrid (or was it Toledo), no need to build a new society as it were, just rearrange the existing one. ------------- Arrrgh!!"
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Posted By: Constantine XI
Date Posted: 12-Oct-2005 at 22:01
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Some Tasmanian aborigines still do exist, though the numbers are pitifully small. Tasmania is an exception in that its colonization was almost entirely convict for the first few generations. Combining this with governors (or perhaps warders would be a better term) who could only be described as tyrranical left both convicts and aborigines in dire straits. Once the disease had done its work, destroying the local population was more than easy for the deranged ex-convicts who had been pardoned and wanted no one to interfere with their prospects of freedom and prosperity. ------------- |
Posted By: Maju
Date Posted: 13-Oct-2005 at 04:15
It was nothing. Castile didn't have a central Capital until Philip II, who declared Madrid, a small town before his reign, to become his capital. Valladolid probably centralized the functions of government somehow but the King and the Court was still semi-nomadic at the time. Seville would later acquire the centrality for colonial matters but for some time it was Cádiz and before there was no specific seat. Toledo held some Court (Parlament) meetings but just like any other Castilian city, it never recovered the capitality that held with the Visigoths. Main tribunals were in Valladolid and Seville. -------------
NO GOD, NO MASTER! |