“Imperialism”
“Colonialism”
I have a vague sense that these two terms are not interchangeable, but I can’t for the life of me explain what the difference is. But there seems to be one, at least based on listening to colleagues from the other side of campus talk about their research.
So, what’s the difference?
(Some context can be found on Kate’s LiveJournal.)
Colonialism involves sending meaningful numbers of your home population there to permanently settle. Imperialism is the semi-incorporation of a state that is subservient to the home nation and usually pays tribute.
The British American colonies were an instance of colonialism but not imperialism because there wasn’t an existing state, nor, after disease, warfare, etc. much of an existing population to rule over. Places like Rhodesia and maybe South Africa (Afrikaans colonies, British imperialism) involved both. India was pretty purely imperialist, I think, with no meaningful numbers of permanent British settlers forming their own communities.
Not exactly my area of English expertise, but this site confirmed my hunch:
â¢Pre-19th century colonialism: settlement or trade relationships with indigenous governments
â¢19th-century imperialism: occupation and direct rule by Europeans
I’m not sure where the confusion is.
Imperialism is the establishment of empire, where foreign nations, states, etc, report to another directly and do what they say, as well as taking no significant action without permission.
Rome was an empire because they did just that– the alliance system, as such, was a network of tribes, nations, and principalities that exercised nominal self-rule without ever crossing a line that the Romans didn’t like (lest they get killed.) The Soviet Union was an empire because, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and various changes of governments in the satellite states, the new governments found out that the old ones were often literal puppets. The United States gets tarred with that (rightly or wrongly) because of its pre-eminence in structures like NATO.
Colonialism is the establishment of colonies, i.e., large groups of theoretically self-sufficient civilian settlements on foreign ground, for whatever reason (often economic.) I don’t remember my Roman history well enough to know if they were colonial as well– if they were, it was never emphasized in anything I read. The ancient Greeks definitely were, and Pelopennesian War had large (and bloodily pointless) episodes revolving around the colonies of western Mediterranean islands. The post-Alexandrine Greek world also threw colonial settlements east into India. 19th century America gets the nod here (definitely rightly, in my opinion) for treatment of places like, say, Hawaii, the Philippines, and others.
There’s no reason colonialism cannot be an imperial strategy, though– see Spail, Portugul, and Britain, and ancient Greece.
Imperialism steals the cow, colonialism milks it. As Bush the Lesser has so expensively demonstrated with his Mess-O’-Potamia, being Officially in charge doesn’t mean squat if employees are insubordinate.
“Imperialism” is the word used to bash American activities abroad on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and alternate Sundays.
“Colonialism” is the term used the rest of the time. Sometimes for variety the prefix “Neo” is attached.
Both mean the same thing: anything the speaker disapproves of.
Cambias
Colonialism is the establishment of colonies, i.e., large groups of theoretically self-sufficient civilian settlements on foreign ground, for whatever reason (often economic.) I don’t remember my Roman history well enough to know if they were colonial as well– if they were, it was never emphasized in anything I read.
Except that in present-day academic parlance, “colonies” also refers to former European possessions in Africa and Asia. Google for the term “postcolonial” and you’ll see. Places like India and Burma were referred to as British “colonies,” even though they weren’t major sites of self-sufficient British civilian settlement the way places like the North American colonies and Australia were.
I think that if you want to make a distinction, “imperialism” covers all sorts of conquering/domination of other peoples, including those right next door as well as those across the sea. It also implies a rather wide spectrum of indirect domination and influence (as in “cultural imperialism”), including over places which are nominally independent of you. “Colonialism” has I think a sense of establishing more distant, discrete outposts, settlements, and/or conquered areas. It also seems to imply direct, organized rule of said areas. So once those places are formally independent, they’re no longer colonies, even though they might still be influenced by your “imperialism.”
(It’s also possible that, in English-speaking terms, what we think of as traditional “colonies” like Virginia, New York, etc. came first, and later additions to the British Empire like India were seem as vaguely similar from an administrative point of view, and hence acquired the name “colonies,” setting things up for the present confusion.)
As for the Romans — yes, they planted colonies (as in deliberate settlements of Romans and Roman culture in initially non-Roman areas). The Latin term colonia is, after all, where our word “colony” comes from. One of the most famous is the German city of Köln/Cologne.
The British American colonies were an instance of colonialism but not imperialism because there wasn’t an existing state, nor, after disease, warfare, etc. much of an existing population to rule over. Places like Rhodesia and maybe South Africa (Afrikaans colonies, British imperialism) involved both. India was pretty purely imperialist, I think, with no meaningful numbers of permanent British settlers forming their own communities.
See, I could believe that, except Indian literature is often referred to as “post-colonial,” which suggests that it was the victim of colonialism rather than imperialism…
This is my understanding:
The British Empire was a complicated object. There were all sorts of ways of being part of it. What we think of as colonies — Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa — with significant white populations and essentially, by the 20th Century, self governing, were known as Dominions. Entities under direct rule by Britain, with British governors and British administrators governing an essentially native population — Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Bechuanaland, for example — were known as colonies, since the section of the British government that dealt with them was the Colonial Office (Britain itself was administered by the Home Office; relations with independent foreign countries were handled by the Foreign Office). India was large enough that it had its own section of the british government, the India Office. Some countries — Egypt and the Trucial States are examples — were officially independent, but the King or Emir had a British Advisor sitting close at hand to tell him what to do; this was known as indirect rule. And then, of course, there was Ireland. The whole mess was an empire and when we talk of the whole mess we use the adjective “imperial.” “Colonial” usually refers to those countries where a small British administrative class reporting to the Colonial Office governed a large, heterogenous mass of natives. Since much of South Asia fell into this pattern (the Princely States were indirectly ruled, but there were fewer and fewer as time went on), “colonial” also refers to India. “Post-colonial” then refers to the situation where the native, previously subaltern class takes control, or attempts to take control, of its own culture. Recently, we’ve seen some expansion of the term to cover the former Dominions, where attempts by Australians, say, to create an authentic Australian culture as opposed to what they see as an imitation of British culture has been assimilated to post-colonialism.
As for the Romans — yes, they planted colonies (as in deliberate settlements of Romans and Roman culture in initially non-Roman areas). The Latin term colonia is, after all, where our word “colony” comes from. One of the most famous is the German city of Köln/Cologne.
Aha, fair enough. I was fairly certain that they did, even if some of them might have been accidental, springing up around the military bases. I just didn’t ever remember seeing it termed as such, so even if it did happen, I didn’t know how important a part of the Empire it might have been.
I wonder if there’s a book about that….
The Romans were definitely colonizers. They often wanted a loyal Roman citizenry in areas under imperial control. One practice was centuriating in which they subdivided land into hundredths and distributed it to retiring soldiers who would work the land as farmers. They were the perfect colonists. They were loyal to Rome, and they had military experience which could be useful in a pinch.
Not all of the colonists were necessarily Roman, though they were usually Roman citizens of freedmen. It was often strategically useful to provide land in one area of the empire to serve as a safety valve and, often, a payment to secure loyalty in a newly conquered region. This fit in with the military strategy, since a garrison of imported soldiers could become the nucleus of a colony of loyal Romans.
I gathered the the word colonist comes from the Latin word colunus, meaning farmer, and that our word “clown” comes from the old Roman jokes about country bumpkins coming to town. Much has changed and little has changed.
One practice was centuriating in which they subdivided land into hundredths and distributed it to retiring soldiers who would work the land as farmers.
I must now say, “Duh.” I either knew that and forgot, or should have figured that out immediately. I think it’s because I read more about Republican and very early Imperial Rome than about full-fledged Imperial Rome. I now remember seeing lots of references to soldiers being retired off to farms in Italy, but that didn’t flag in my brain as colonizing. And I even have a vague notion of reading about a mounting problem of not having enough land to go around, about the time of Caesar. The bleeding obvious solution to this problem is to farm them out to transalpine Gaul and other similar places.
And I never connected the dots.
It makes much more sense, now. Thanks.
To me, imperialism has the implication of conquest, and colonialism has the implication of trying to replace the culture of the conquered with that of the conqueror.
Imperialism is the Romans invading Britain, building forts,
and taxing the hell out of the wool trade.
Colonialism is Romans moving there, farming and getting taxed by
Roman relatives who never bothered to visit, then getting left behind
in the sixth century to fend for yourself against non-Imperial Saxons.
Who were overrun by the barbarian Norse, who became the Imperial Danes,
who taxed the shit out of everything, eventually.
Eventually the taxation became extortion, and the Saxons ante’d up
just to keep away more Danes.
Other Danes slowly colonized Britain, only to be overrun with the remaining
Saxons by the non-Imperial Normans. Who were brutal, but not barbarians.
Who taxed the shit out of everything, and colonized the place.
When prosperity set in, try and take back France in the 14th century,
and start your own empire. This didn’t turn out well.
So the cycle is:
empire, taxes, colony, taxes, barbarians, extortive taxes, empire, taxes, ad nauseum.
Note that taxes are the iterative step…..