A Concise Guide to 8 Colonial Empires

One of the most important things to understand if you care to understand the world around you is colonialism. From the mid-1400s to now, certain nations, almost all European, have sought to spread their influence via turning other nations and regions into colonies. These colonies saw vast improvements to infrastructure, education and health, but at the price of independence, freedom of expression, freedom of movement and, in many cases, outright violence bordering on genocide. I have no illusions about giving you a complete overview of the various colonial empires that have spread across the globe since the middle of the fifteenth century, nor is my aim to take a moral stance on the practice (obviously it was terrible, I’m not going to beat you over the head with that fact like you don’t understand it). My goal instead is to give you a basic outline of when these empire’s started, their basic expansion and their eventual downfall. So, without further rambling, here is a concise guide to 8 colonial empires.

1. Dutch Empire

I’m going to go in a rough chronological order (rough mind you) and in my mind this means starting with the Dutch. The Dutch Republic was a small but powerful European power that used its maritime skills and resources to spread their influence out from just their small and exposed European kingdom. The original Dutch colonies came about as trade efforts. Dutch traders set-off to the east where they got an early if short-lived monopoly of the spice trade started. These early Dutch traders set up coastal forts, trading posts and ‘factories’ in an effort to create an expansive commercial empire, i.e. their goal was to control resources and trade, not land or people.