III.

Early Modern Europe

Modern European colonialism dates from the 15th century and can be divided into two overlapping phases: the first from 1415 to about 1800; the second from about 1800 to World War II. In the first phase, western Europe, led by Spain and Portugal, expanded in the East Indies and the Americas; in the second, Great Britain spearheaded European expansion into Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.

The Portuguese, enjoying the advantages of political stability, maritime experience, and a favourable geographic position, were the first Europeans to make their way around the southern tip of Africa to South and East Asia in the 15th century. Interested primarily in dominating the spice trade, the Portuguese set up coastal trading posts and fortresses rather than settlement colonies. By the late 16th century the English and the Dutch were seriously challenging Portugal's eastern trade monopoly. The Dutch established themselves at the Cape of Good Hope, eventually drove out the Portuguese, and by 1800 controlled Java and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Meanwhile, the English East India Company established itself in India and formally began the conquest of the mainland in 1757.

European colonization of the Americas was motivated by many objectives. These included the quest for precious metals, the need for new land for agriculture, the search for freedom from religious persecution, and the desire to convert the indigenous peoples to Christianity. Settlement colonies were generally established rather than trading posts, although once established, these colonies traded extensively and exclusively with their respective parent nations in Europe. Spain's empire was the most prominent in the New World, spreading across much of Central and South America. The Portuguese settled mainly in Brazil. Whereas the Spanish and Portuguese tended to form mixed settlements that absorbed the indigenous populations of their territories, the British and French settlers in North America tended to form pure colonies, eliminating or displacing the previous inhabitants.

By the beginning of the 1800s the earlier European colonial empires had largely declined. Most of the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies in the Americas gained independence during and in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The Dutch, too, lost a large part of their modest empire in the New World and were content to trade illicitly with the colonies of other foreign powers. The British lost a large part of their original North American colonies, which became independent in 1776 in the American War of Independence, but Britain remained an important colonial power. In addition to controlling India, it retained for strategic purposes some of the foreign colonies it had occupied during the European wars, such as Canada, the Cape of Good Hope, and Ceylon. Britain's colonial empire of the late 18th century provides a historical bridge between the first and second waves of European expansion.