Colony

This article is about the political term. For other uses, see Colony (disambiguation).

For the process of establishing colonies, see Colonization.

Not to be confused with Colony (biology).

Chart of current non-self-governing territories (as of June 2012)

A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, the rule remains separate to the original country of the colonizers, the metropolitan state (or "mother country"), which together have often been organized as colonial empires, particularly with the development of modern imperialism. This colonial administrative separation, though often blurred, makes colonies neither annexed or incorporated territories nor client states. Colonies contemporarily are identified and organized as not sufficiently self-governed dependent territories. Other past colonies have become either sufficiently incorporated and self-governed, or independent, with some to a varying degree dominated by remaining colonial settler societies or neocolonialism.

The term colony originates from the ancient Roman colonia, a type of Roman settlement. Derived from colon-us (farmer, cultivator, planter, or settler), it carries with it the sense of 'farm' and 'landed estate'. Furthermore the term was used to refer to the older Greek apoikia (Template:Lang-grc), which were overseas settlements by ancient Greek city-states. The city that founded such a settlement became known as its metropolis ("mother-city"). Since early-modern times, historians, administrators, and political scientists have generally used the term "colony" to refer mainly to the many different overseas territories of particularly European states between the 15th and 20th centuries CE, with colonialism and decolonization as corresponding phenomena.

While colonies often developed from trading outposts or territorial claims, such areas do not need to be a product of colonization, nor become colonially organized territories. Territories furthermore do not need to have been militarily conquered and occupied to come under colonial rule and to be considered de-facto colonies, instead neocolonial exploitation of dependency or imperialist use of power to intervene to force policy, might make a territory be considered a colony, which broadens the concept, including indirect rule or puppet states (contrasted by more independent types of client states such as vassal states). Subsequently some historians have used the term informal colony to refer to a country under a de facto control of another state. Though the broadening of the concept is often contentious.

Etymology

The word "colony" comes from the Latin word colōnia, used as concept for ancient Roman outposts and eventually cities. This in turn derives from the word colōnus, which was a Roman tenant farmer.

The terminology is taken from architectural analogy, where a column pillar is beneath the (often stylized) head capital, which is also a biological analog of the body as subservient beneath the controlling head (with 'capital' coming from the Latin word caput, meaning 'head'). So colonies are not independently self-controlled, but rather are controlled by a separate entity that serves the capital function.

Roman colonies first appeared when the Romans conquered neighbouring Italic peoples. These were small farming settlements that appeared when the Romans had subdued an enemy in war. Though a colony could take many forms, such as a trade outpost or a military base in enemy territory, such has not been inherently colonies. Its original definition as a settlement created by people migrating from a central region to an outlying one became the modern definition.

Settlements that began as Roman colonia include cities from Cologne (which retains this history in its name), Belgrade to York. A tell-tale sign of a settlement within the Roman sphere of influence once being a Roman colony is a city centre with a grid pattern.

Ancient examples

Further information: Colonies in antiquity

• Carthage formed as a Phoenician colony
• Cadiz formed as a Phoenician colony
• Cyrene was a colony of the Greeks of Thera
• Sicily was a part Greek, part Phoenician colony
• Sardinia was a Phoenician colony
• Marseille formed as a Greek colony
• Malta was a Phoenician colony
• Cologne formed as a Roman colony and its modern name refer to the Latin term "Colonia".
• Kandahar formed as a Greek colony during the Hellenistic era by Alexander the Great in 330 BC.

Modern historical examples

Main article: List of colonies

See also: Timeline of national independence

• Angola: a colony of Portugal from the 16th century to its independence in 1975.
• Australia was formed as a British Dominion in 1901 from a federation of six distinct British colonies which were founded between 1788 and 1829.
• Barbados: was a colony of Great Britain important in the Atlantic slave trade. It gained its independence in 1966.
• Brazil: a colony of Portugal since the 16th century. Independent since 1822.
• Canada: was colonized first by France as New France (1534–1763) and England (in Newfoundland, 1582) then under British rule (1763–1867), before achieving Dominion status and losing "colony" designation.
• Democratic Republic of the Congo: a colony of Belgium from 1908 to 1960; previously under private ownership of King Leopold II.
• French Indochina was formed in October 1887 from Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchina (which together form modern Vietnam) and the Kingdom of Cambodia; Laos was added after the Franco-Siamese War in 1893. The federation lasted until 1954. In the four protectorates, the French formally left the local rulers in power, who were the Emperors of Vietnam, Kings of Cambodia, and Kings of Luang Prabang, but gathered all powers in their hands, the local rulers acting only as figureheads.
• Ghana: Contact between Europe and Ghana (known as the Gold Coast) began in the 15th century with the arrival of the Portuguese. This soon led to the establishment of several colonies by European powers: Portuguese Gold Coast (1482–1642), Dutch Gold Coast (1598–1872), Swedish Gold Coast (1650–1663), Danish Gold Coast (1658–1850), Brandenburger and Prussian Gold Coast (1685–1721) and British Gold Coast (1821–1957). In 1957, Ghana was the first African colony south of the Sahara to become independent.
• Greenland was a colony of Denmark-Norway from 1721 and was a colony of Denmark from 1814 to 1953. In 1953 Greenland was made an equal part of the Danish Kingdom. Home rule was granted in 1979 and extended to self-rule in 2009. See also Danish colonization of the Americas.
• Guinea-Bissau: a colony of Portugal since the 15th century. Independent since 1974.
• Hong Kong was a British colony (from 1983 British Dependent Territory) from 1841 to 1997. Is now a Special Administrative Region of China.
• India was an imperial political entity comprising present-day India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan with regions under the direct control of the British Government of the United Kingdom from 1858 to 1947. From the 15th century until 1961, Portuguese India (Goa) was a colony of Portugal. Pondicherry and Chandernagore were part of French India from 1759 to 1954. Small Danish colonies of Tharangambadi, Serampore and the Nicobar Islands) from 1620 to 1869 were known as Danish India.
• Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands gained full independence in 1949.
• Jamaica was part of the Spanish West Indies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It became an English colony in 1655 and; independence in 1962.
• Liberia a colony set up in 1821 by American private citizens for the migration of African American freedmen. Liberian Declaration of Independence from the American Colonization Society on 26 July 1847. It is the second oldest black republic in the world after Haiti.
• Macau was a Portuguese colony (from 1976 a "Chinese territory under Portuguese administration") from 1557 to 1999. In 1999, two years after Hong Kong, it became a Special Administrative Region of China.
• Malaysia was colonized initially by the Portuguese Empire and captures Malacca. After 1511, where the Portuguese Empire had colonized Malaysia, Britain establishes colonies and trading ports on Malay peninsula; Penang is leased to the British East India Company. The Dutch Empire encountered Malaysia when it was looking for spices to trade with.
• Malta was a British protectorate and later a colony from the French Revolutionary Wars in 1800 to independence in 1964.
• Mozambique: a colony of Portugal since the 15th century. Independent since 1975.
• Philippines, previously a colony of Spain from c. 1565 to 1898 as part of the Spanish East Indies, was a colony of the United States from 1898 to 1946. Achieved self-governing Commonwealth status in 1935; independent in 1946.
• Puerto Rico was a colony of Spain from 1493 to 1898, when it passed to be a colonial possession of the United States, classified by the United States as "an unincorporated territory". In 1914, the Puerto Rican House of Delegates voted unanimously in favor of independence from the United States, but this was rejected by the U.S. Congress as "unconstitutional" and in violation of the U.S. 1900 Foraker Act. In 1952, after the US Congress approved Puerto Rico's constitution, its formal name became "Commonwealth of Puerto Rico", but its new name "did not change Puerto Rico's political, social, and economic relationship to the United States." That year, the United States advised the United Nations (UN) that the island was a self-governing territory. The United States has been "unwilling to play in public the imperial role... it has no appetite for acknowledging in a public way the contradictions implicit in frankly colonial rule." The island has been called a colony by many, including US Federal judges, US Congresspeople, the Chief Justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, and numerous scholars.
• South Africa consisted of territories and colonies by various African and European powers, including the Dutch and the British, and the Nguni. The territory consisting of the modern nation was ruled directly by the British from 1806 to 1910; became a self-governing dominion of Union of South Africa in 1910.
• Sri Lanka: a British colony from 1815 to 1948. Known as Ceylon. Was a British Dominion until 1972. Also a Portuguese colony in the 16th–17th centuries, and a Dutch colony in the 17th–18th centuries.
• Korea was a colony of Japan from 1910 to 1945. North and South Korea were established in 1948.
• Taiwan has a complex history of colonial rule under various powers, including the Dutch (1624–1662), Spanish (1626–1642), Chinese (1683–1895) and Japanese (1895–1945). The precolonial (pre-1624) inhabitants of Taiwan are the ethno-linguistically Austronesian Taiwanese indigenous peoples, rather than the vast majority of present-day Taiwanese people, who are mostly ethno-linguistically Han Chinese. Twice throughout history, Taiwan has served as a quasi rump state for Chinese governments, the first instance being the Ming-loyalist Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683) and the second instance being the present-day Republic of China (ROC), which officially claims continuity or succession from the Republic of China (1912–1949), having retreated from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949 during the final years of the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949). The ROC, whose de facto territory consists almost entirely of the island of Taiwan and its minor satellite islands, continues to rule Taiwan as if it were a separate country from the People's Republic of China (consisting of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau).
• The United States was formed from a union of thirteen British colonies. The Colony of Virginia was the first of the thirteen colonies. All thirteen declared independence in July 1776 and expelled the British governors.

Current colonies

Dependent territories and their sovereign states. All territories are labeled according to ISO 3166-1 or with numbers. Colored areas without labels are integral parts of their respective countries. Antarctica is shown as a condominium instead of individual claims.

The Special Committee on Decolonization maintains the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories, which identifies areas the United Nations (though not without controversy) believes are colonies. Given that dependent territories have varying degrees of autonomy and political power in the affairs of the controlling state, there is disagreement over the classification of "colony".

See also

• Colonialism
• Colonization
• Decolonization
• Democracy Peace Theory
• Exploitation colonialism
• Scramble for Africa
• Settler colonialism
• United Nations list of non-self-governing territories
• Development town
• Spice Trade
• Border outpost – outpost maintained by a sovereign state on its border, usually one of a series placed at regular intervals, to watch over and safeguard its border with a neighboring statePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Outpost (military) – Military post
• Military base – Facility directly owned and operated by or for the military
• Waypoint – Point on a route of travel
• Mountain pass – Route through a mountain range or over a ridge
• Caravanserei – Type of roadside innPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Stage station – Place of rest provided for stagecoach travelers
• Mission (station) – Organized effort to spread ChristianityPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Diplomatic mission – Representatives of one state in another
• Trading post – Area where economic activity between peoples is less regulated
• Bridgehead – Strategically important position on a river crossing which enemy forces seek to control
• Crossroads village – term for a settlement situated at a crossroadsPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Railway town – Settlement that was greatly developed because of a railway station or junction at its site
• Special economic zone – Geographical region in which business and trade laws are different from the rest of the country
• Entrepôt – Hub for commercial activity
• Factory (trading post) – Transshipment zone (5th- to 19th-century name)
• Free economic zone – Area with limited taxes
• Exclusive economic zone – Adjacent sea zone in which a state has special rights
• Free-trade area – Regional trade agreementPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Mill town – Settlement that developed around one or more mills or factories
• Industrial park – Area for development of industry
• Frontier – Area near or beyond a boundary
• Frontier thesis – Argument by historian Frederick Jackson TurnerPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Border – Geographic boundaries of political entity
• No-go area – Area where authorities are unable to enforce law or sovereignty
• Terra nullius – International law term for unclaimed land
• No-mans land – Strip of land between wartime trenchesPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Human outpost – Human habitats located in environments inhospitable for humans

Further reading

• Aldrich, Robert. Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion (1996)
• Ansprenger, Franz ed. The Dissolution of the Colonial Empires (1989)
• Benjamin, Thomas, ed. Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450 (2006).
• Ermatinger, James. ed. The Roman Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia (2 vol 2018)
• Higham, C. S. S. History Of The British Empire (1921) online free
• James, Lawrence. The Illustrated Rise and Fall of the British Empire (2000)
• Kia, Mehrdad, ed. The Ottoman Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia (2017)
• Page, Melvin E. ed. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (3 vol. 2003)
• Priestley, Herbert Ingram. (France overseas;: A study of modern imperialism 1938) 463pp; encyclopedic coverage as of late 1930s
• Tarver, H. Micheal and Emily Slape. The Spanish Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia (2 vol. 2016)
• Wesseling, H.L. The European Colonial Empires: 1815–1919 (2015).

External links

Quotations related to colony at Wikiquote

• Non-Self-Governing Territories Listed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2002
• Non-Self-Governing Territories Listed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012
• Siberia : History (covers Siberia as Russian colony)