# Colonialism: the conquest of the world The age of European colonial empires: the conquests and plantations, the administration and extraction, the resistance, and the long process of decolonization, across the Americas, Africa, and Asia. *This story part of: Production and labor* *Cecil Rhodes and the dream of empire part of this story* *The race for Antarctica parallel this story* *Genetics and colonialism: ancestry, race-making, and the myth of pure tribes part of this story* ## 12 October 1492 — Columbus reaches the Americas Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain, lands in the Bahamas while seeking a westward route to Asia. Sustained contact between the hemispheres begins, bringing European empires, the Columbian exchange, and demographic catastrophe for indigenous peoples. ## c. 1492 — The Columbian Exchange The contact between the Old and New Worlds set off a vast transfer of crops, animals, people and diseases across the Atlantic. Old World epidemics killed a large share of indigenous Americans, while new crops reshaped diets worldwide. ## 7 June 1494 — Treaty of Tordesillas divides the world Spain and Portugal agreed to split newly encountered lands along a meridian in the Atlantic, giving most of the Americas to Spain and Brazil and Africa's route to Portugal. It set an early precedent for European powers partitioning distant territories by treaty. ## 20 May 1498 — Vasco da Gama reaches India by sea The Portuguese navigator arrived at Calicut after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, opening a direct maritime trade route from Europe to Asia. Portugal used it to seize control of the Indian Ocean spice trade. ## 22 April 1500 — Cabral reaches Brazil Pedro Alvares Cabral landed on the coast of present-day Brazil and claimed it for Portugal. The territory became the largest and most enduring Portuguese colony in the Americas. ## c. 1500 to c. 1866 — The transatlantic slave trade Over roughly three and a half centuries, European traders shipped some twelve million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to work in mines and plantations. Around one in seven died on the Middle Passage, and the trade underpinned the colonial economies of the Americas. ## 1503 — The encomienda system The Spanish Crown granted colonists the right to demand labour and tribute from indigenous communities in return for supposed protection and Christian instruction. In practice it became a system of forced labour that devastated native populations. ## 25 November 1510 — Portuguese capture Goa Afonso de Albuquerque seized Goa on the west coast of India, making it the capital of Portugal's eastern empire. It anchored a chain of fortified trading posts across the Indian Ocean. ## 24 August 1511 — Portuguese capture Malacca Albuquerque took the wealthy port of Malacca, a chokepoint of the spice trade between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Portugal gained a base to reach the Moluccas and China. ## 1519 to August 1521 — Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire Hernan Cortes, with native allies and the help of epidemic disease, destroys the Aztec Empire and takes Tenochtitlan. The conquest opens the Americas to Spanish colonization and causes catastrophic indigenous population collapse. ## 20 September 1519 to 1522 — Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation An expedition begun under Ferdinand Magellan completed the first voyage around the world under Juan Sebastian Elcano. It proved the globe could be circled by sea and confirmed the vast scale of the Pacific. ## November 1532 to 1572 — Spanish Conquest of the Inca Empire Francisco Pizarro captures the Inca emperor Atahualpa and Spain gradually subdues the Andes over four decades. The conquest, aided by civil war and disease, brings South America's greatest empire under Spanish rule. > "In 1532, however, the Inca Empire was brought low by a man who, like Christopher Columbus, had come to the New World expressly to search for and monetize precious metal." > — The Ascent of Money ## 1542 — New Laws attempt to reform the encomienda Royal attempts in 1542 to make the encomienda non-hereditary could not be turned into reality. By granting a combination of rights and duties to Spanish settlers in Mexico and othe... > "Royal attempts in 1542 to make the encomienda non-hereditary could not be turned into reality. By granting a combination of rights and duties to Spanish settlers in Mexico and other parts of conquered regions, the monarchy was getting from its own emigrants some of the intermediaries empires need to do their work and at the same time incorporating the people of the Americas into a political hierarchy." > — Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference, p. 183-186 ## 1542 — The New Laws attempt to reform the encomienda Prompted by reports of abuse, Spain issued laws to limit the encomienda and protect indigenous people. Colonist resistance was fierce and enforcement weak, so exploitation continued in new forms. ## 1545 — Silver mining begins at Potosi The discovery of a mountain of silver at Potosi in the Andes created one of the richest mines in the world. Its bullion financed the Spanish empire and flowed to Europe and Asia, driving a global trade in precious metals. ## 1550 to 1551 — The Valladolid debate Spanish scholars argued whether indigenous Americans had souls and rights or could be enslaved and conquered by force. The debate exposed the moral questions colonizers raised about their own conduct, but changed little on the ground. ## 1565 — The Manila galleon trade begins Spain opened a regular galleon route linking Manila to Acapulco, exchanging American silver for Chinese silk and porcelain. It created the first sustained trade link across the Pacific and tied Asia into the colonial economy. ## 1573 — The mita forced labour system Viceroy Francisco de Toledo systematized the mita, drafting indigenous Andean men to work in the silver mines of Potosi in rotation. Conditions were lethal, and the system drew on a pre-colonial labour obligation twisted to serve the mines. ## 31 December 1600 — English East India Company chartered England chartered its own company for Asian trade two years before the VOC. English merchants closely watched Dutch methods, and the VOC's permanent joint stock capital later shaped how the English company financed itself. ## 20 March 1602 — Dutch East India Company founded The VOC was chartered with powers to wage war, sign treaties and govern territory in Asia. It became the dominant colonial power in the Indonesian archipelago and one of the first great corporations. ## 30 May 1619 — Dutch found Batavia The VOC destroyed the town of Jayakarta and built Batavia as the capital of its Asian empire. The city became the hub of Dutch control over the spice islands and the wider East Indies. ## c. 1640 — Caribbean sugar plantations take hold Planters in Barbados and other islands turned to sugar grown by enslaved Africans, creating hugely profitable plantation colonies. The model spread across the Caribbean and made sugar the engine of the Atlantic slave economy. ## 6 April 1652 — Dutch establish the Cape Colony Jan van Riebeeck founded a VOC supply station at the Cape of Good Hope for ships bound for Asia. It grew into a settler colony that dispossessed the Khoikhoi and San and later became British. ## 1713 — The Asiento slave contract passes to Britain The Treaty of Utrecht granted Britain the asiento, the monopoly contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America. It made the slave trade a central prize of European diplomacy and enriched British merchants. ## 23 June 1757 — The Battle of Plassey Robert Clive's East India Company force defeated the Nawab of Bengal with the help of local defectors. The victory gave the company control of Bengal's revenues and began British territorial rule in India. ## 1769 to 1770 — The Bengal famine of 1770 Drought combined with the East India Company's rigid revenue demands to produce a famine that killed roughly a third of Bengal's population. The Company kept collecting taxes as millions starved. ## 22 August 1770 — Cook claims eastern Australia James Cook charted the east coast of Australia and claimed it for Britain as New South Wales. The claim ignored the Aboriginal peoples who had lived on the continent for tens of thousands of years. ## 4 November 1780 to 1781 — Tupac Amaru II rebellion A descendant of the Inca led a massive indigenous and mestizo uprising against Spanish taxes and the mita in the Andes. Spain crushed it and executed him brutally, but it inspired later Andean resistance. ## 26 January 1788 — First Fleet founds a penal colony in Australia The First Fleet landed convicts and marines at Sydney Cove to establish a British penal settlement. It began the colonization of Australia and the dispossession and decline of its Aboriginal population. ## c. 1788 to c. 1934 — Australian frontier wars Aboriginal peoples resisted the taking of their land in a long series of frontier conflicts, raids and massacres. Colonists, disease and violence caused a catastrophic collapse of the Aboriginal population. ## 14 August 1791 to 1 January 1804 — Haitian Revolution 1791 slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue ## 1808 to 1833 — Spanish American Wars of Independence Napoleon's occupation of Spain triggers independence movements across Spanish America, led by Bolivar, San Martin, and others. By 1826 nearly all of mainland Spanish America is independent. ## 5 July 1830 — French conquest of Algeria begins France captured Algiers and began a long, violent conquest of Algeria. It became a settler colony ruled as part of France, with land taken from Algerians for European colonists. ## 28 August 1833 — Slavery abolished in the British Empire Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, freeing most enslaved people in the empire from 1834 after a period of unpaid apprenticeship. The government paid huge compensation to slave owners, not to the formerly enslaved. ## c. 1834 — Indentured labour replaces slavery After abolition, colonial planters recruited millions of indentured labourers, mainly from India and China, on long contracts to work plantations. Many were carried to Mauritius, the Caribbean, Fiji and South Africa, reshaping the populations of those colonies. ## 1839 to 1842 — First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking Britain went to war after China tried to stop the illegal opium trade, and forced open Chinese ports. The Treaty of Nanking ceded Hong Kong and began a century of unequal treaties and foreign concessions. ## 6 February 1840 — Treaty of Waitangi Agreement between the British Crown and Maori chiefs that made New Zealand a British colony while promising Maori possession of their lands. Differences between the English and Maori texts remain central to New Zealand law and politics. ## c. 1850 — Mission schools and colonial education Christian missions ran much of the schooling in the colonies, teaching literacy and European values alongside religion. Their graduates often became clerks and teachers, and some later led the movements that demanded independence. ## 1856 to 1860 — Second Opium War and the Convention of Peking Britain and France attacked China again, sacked the Summer Palace and imposed further concessions. The war deepened the semi-colonial carve-up of China and legalized the opium trade. ## 10 May 1857 to 1 November 1858 — Indian Rebellion of 1857 Sepoys of the East India Company army revolt and are joined by princes and peasants across northern India. Britain crushes the rising with great brutality and replaces Company rule with direct Crown rule. ## 2 August 1858 — Crown rule replaces the East India Company After the 1857 rebellion, the Government of India Act transferred power from the East India Company to the British Crown. India became the centrepiece of the empire, governed by a viceroy and a professional bureaucracy. ## 22 January 1879 — Anglo-Zulu War and Isandlwana A Zulu army destroyed a British column at Isandlwana, one of the worst defeats of a modern army by an indigenous force. Britain regrouped, conquered the Zulu kingdom and broke it apart. ## c. 1880 — Cash-crop and extraction economies Colonies were reshaped to export raw materials and cash crops such as cotton, cocoa, rubber and palm oil to Europe. Taxes and forced cultivation pushed people into growing for export rather than food, leaving economies dependent and unbalanced. ## c. 1881 to c. 1914 — The Scramble for Africa In a few decades European powers seized almost the entire African continent, competing for land, minerals and prestige. By 1914 only Ethiopia and Liberia remained outside colonial rule. ## 1884 — Berlin Conference partitions Africa Following on a series of congresses that since 1 8 1 5 had tried to regulate the political order of Europe (chapters 8 and n), the Berlin Confer ence... > "Following on a series of congresses that since 1 8 1 5 had tried to regulate the political order of Europe (chapters 8 and n), the Berlin Confer ence of 1884-85 set out the key principle: a power had to demonstrate effec tive occupation of a territory it claimed." > — Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference, p. 331-334 ## 15 November 1884 to 1885 — Berlin Conference partitions Africa European powers met to set rules for claiming African territory and drew borders without African representation. The conference formalized the Scramble for Africa and Leopold's private control of the Congo. ## 1885 to 1908 — Congo Free State atrocities King Leopold II of Belgium ran the Congo as his private property, forcing villages to collect rubber under a brutal quota system. Killings, mutilation, famine and disease caused millions of deaths before international outcry forced Belgium to annex it. *Source: Congo Free State* ## c. 1885 — Arbitrary colonial borders Colonial powers drew straight-line borders that cut through peoples and lumped rivals together with little regard for local realities. These frontiers became the borders of new nations and a source of later conflict. ## c. 1890 — The colour bar and racial hierarchy Colonial societies were ordered by a rigid racial hierarchy that reserved power, land and good jobs for Europeans. Segregation, pass laws and the colour bar denied colonized people equal rights and dignity. *Source: Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism* ## 1896 to 1901 — The Uganda Railway and railways of extraction Britain built the Uganda Railway from the coast to Lake Victoria using imported Indian labour at great human cost. Like colonial railways elsewhere, it was laid to move troops and export crops and minerals, not to serve local needs. ## 1 March 1896 — Battle of Adwa Ethiopian forces under Emperor Menelik II crushed an invading Italian army, securing Ethiopia's independence. Adwa was the first decisive defeat of a European colonial power by an African state and became a symbol for anti-colonial movements worldwide. ## November 1899 to 7 September 1901 — Boxer Rebellion An anti-foreign, anti-Christian movement besieges the foreign legations in Beijing with Qing backing. An eight-nation alliance crushes the rising and imposes a crushing indemnity on China. ## 28 March 1900 — War of the Golden Stool The Ashanti rose against British rule after a governor demanded the sacred Golden Stool, led in part by the queen mother Yaa Asantewaa. Britain won and annexed Ashanti, ending a long series of Anglo-Ashanti wars. ## c. 1900 — Indirect rule in colonial Africa Frederick Lugard developed indirect rule, governing colonies cheaply through existing or invented chiefs under British oversight. The system entrenched ethnic authorities and shaped African politics long after independence. *Source: Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism* ## 12 January 1904 to 1908 — Herero and Nama genocide After the Herero and Nama rose against German colonists, German forces drove survivors into the desert and confined others in death camps. Tens of thousands died in what is widely regarded as the first genocide of the twentieth century. *Source: German Colonialism in Namibia* ## July 1905 to 1907 — Maji Maji Rebellion Peoples of German East Africa unite in revolt against colonial forced labor. German suppression and induced famine kill up to 300,000 people. ## 16 May 1916 — Sykes-Picot Agreement Britain and France secretly divide the Ottoman Middle East into spheres of influence, with Russian assent, contradicting promises made to Arab allies. Its publication by the Bolsheviks in 1917 caused lasting distrust in the region. ## 1919 — Amritsar Massacre Quigley cites the 1919 Amritsar Massacre as the chief bit of bad luck that wrecked Indian cooperation with the reforms of that year, turning Gandhi against the British. > "The chief case of this in India was the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, which was probably the chief reason for Gandhi's refusal to cooperate in carrying out the constitutional reforms of that same year." > — The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 222-225 ## 13 April 1919 — The Amritsar Massacre British troops opened fire on an unarmed crowd in an enclosed garden, killing hundreds. The massacre outraged Indian opinion and became a turning point for the independence movement. ## c. 1919 to c. 1945 — The Pan-African Congresses A series of congresses brought together activists and intellectuals from Africa and the diaspora to demand rights and self-rule. The 1945 Manchester congress, attended by future leaders like Nkrumah and Kenyatta, called openly for independence. ## 1943 to 1944 — The Bengal famine of 1943 Wartime policies, hoarding and the diversion of food and shipping caused a famine that killed around three million people in British-ruled Bengal. Relief was slow and inadequate as the empire prioritized the war effort. ## 8 May 1945 — Setif and Guelma massacre French forces and settlers killed thousands of Algerians after nationalist protests turned violent on the day Europe celebrated victory in the war. The killings hardened Algerian demands for independence. ## 19 December 1946 to 1954 — First Indochina War and Dien Bien Phu Vietnamese forces led by the Viet Minh fought to end French colonial rule, winning a decisive victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The war forced France out of Indochina and split Vietnam pending elections. ## 15 August 1947 — Indian Independence and Partition British India was split into the independent states of India and Pakistan. The hasty partition triggered mass migration and communal violence that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. ## 17 August 1947 — The Radcliffe Line partitions India A British lawyer drew the border between India and Pakistan in a few weeks with little local knowledge. The hurried partition split provinces and communities, triggering mass migration and communal killings. ## October 1952 to January 1960 — Mau Mau Uprising Kikuyu-led rebels fight British rule and settler land ownership in Kenya. Britain suppresses the revolt with mass detention but concedes independence within a decade. ## 1 November 1954 to 1962 — Algerian War of Independence The National Liberation Front launched a war against French rule that grew brutal on both sides, marked by torture and mass displacement. France granted independence in 1962 after the Evian Accords. ## 18 April 1955 — Bandung Conference Leaders of newly independent Asian and African states met to oppose colonialism and Cold War domination. The conference gave voice to a growing non-aligned movement of the decolonizing world. > "Never before had leaders of so many former colonies— their countries had 1.6 billion inhabitants, more than half of humanity— gathered to set a common course." > — The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, p. 226-229 ## 29 October 1956 to 7 November 1956 — Suez Crisis Israel, Britain, and France invade Egypt after Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal, but American and Soviet pressure forces withdrawal. The fiasco marks the end of Britain and France as independent great powers. ## 6 March 1957 — Ghana becomes independent Led by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African colony to win independence from Britain. Its example inspired independence movements across the continent. ## 1960 — The Year of Africa Seventeen African colonies gained independence in a single year, most of them French. It marked the high point of the post-war wave of decolonization on the continent. > "This speech was given by the author on 31 January 1990 in accepting an award from the New York State Senate naming him New York City Teacher of the Year." > — Dumbing Us Down, p. 55-61 > "Miss M. was selected as a Manhattan Teacher of the Year in 1985 and was nominated the following year for the Woman of Conscience Award given by the National Council of Women." > — Dumbing Us Down, p. 77-84 ## 3 February 1960 — Macmillan's Wind of Change speech British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan told South Africa's parliament that a wind of change was blowing through Africa as nationalism grew. The speech signalled that Britain accepted the coming end of its African empire. ## 21 March 1960 — Sharpeville massacre South African police shot dead sixty-nine unarmed protesters demonstrating against the pass laws. The massacre drew world condemnation and pushed the anti-apartheid movement toward armed struggle. ## 30 June 1960 to 1961 — Congo independence and the Lumumba crisis Belgium granted the Congo independence with little preparation, and the country fell into crisis within days. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was overthrown and murdered in early 1961 with Belgian and Western involvement. ## 1 October 1960 — Nigeria becomes independent Nigeria gained independence from Britain as Africa's most populous nation. Its federation joined together very different regions inside borders inherited from colonial rule. ## 5 July 1962 — Algeria wins independence After eight years of war, Algeria became independent following the Evian Accords. Nearly a million European settlers left, and France's largest settler colony passed into Algerian hands. ## 12 December 1963 — Kenya becomes independent Kenya gained independence from Britain with Jomo Kenyatta as leader, a decade after the Mau Mau emergency. The transfer of settler land remained a lasting source of tension. ## 11 November 1965 — Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence Rhodesia's white minority government declared independence to avoid handing power to the Black majority. The move led to sanctions and a long guerrilla war before majority rule arrived as Zimbabwe. ## 25 April 1974 — The Carnation Revolution and the end of Portugal's empire A near-bloodless military coup in Portugal, worn down by long colonial wars, overthrew the dictatorship. The new government moved quickly to grant independence to Portugal's African colonies. ## 30 April 1975 — Fall of Saigon ends the Vietnam War North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon, ending decades of war that began against French colonial rule and continued against the United States. Vietnam was reunified under a single government. ## 25 June 1975 to 1975 — Angola and Mozambique become independent After long liberation wars and the Portuguese revolution, Mozambique and Angola won independence in 1975. Both were soon plunged into civil wars fuelled by Cold War rivalries. ## 16 June 1976 — Soweto uprising Black schoolchildren protesting against forced instruction in Afrikaans were met with police gunfire, sparking nationwide unrest. The uprising revived resistance to apartheid and turned global opinion against the regime. ## 18 April 1980 — Zimbabwe becomes independent After a long liberation war, white minority rule in Rhodesia ended and the country became independent as Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. It was one of the last African colonies to gain majority rule. ## 27 April 1994 — The end of apartheid in South Africa South Africa held its first fully democratic election, and Nelson Mandela became president. The vote ended decades of apartheid and centuries of white minority rule rooted in colonial conquest. ## 1 July 1997 — Handover of Hong Kong Britain returns Hong Kong to China under the one country, two systems formula, which preserves the territory's separate currency, courts and financial rules. The arrangement keeps Hong Kong operating as China's international financial gateway. ## 20 December 1999 — Handover of Macau Portugal returned Macau to China, ending more than four centuries of Portuguese presence and the last European colony in Asia. Like Hong Kong, it became a special administrative region. ## c. 2013 — Debates over reparations for slavery and colonialism Caribbean states through CARICOM set out a plan demanding reparations from former colonial powers for slavery and its legacies. The claims fuelled a wider global debate about accountability for colonial harms. ## c. 2018 — Restitution of looted colonial artefacts A report commissioned in France urged the return of African objects taken during the colonial era, and museums began repatriating items such as the Benin Bronzes. The movement reopened questions about how colonial plunder should be redressed.