The Colonial System

Task 4. Read and translate the text. Write the translation of the text “The Political System”.

The Colonial System

The acquisition of colonies had many motives. A primary objective was to enhance the wealth of the colonizing state in a different way. The first European colonial period, from the late sixteenth century to the middle nineteenth century, accompanied and served the policy of mercantilism. Even before the state system formed, Europeans had discovered the Americas, circumnavigated the African coast, and encountered several Asian empires. Spain exercised mercantilism in the 1500s by mining gold and silver from the Americas, while in the 1600s and 1700s, other European countries placed settler colonies along the Atlantic seaboard of North America to generate a rich variety of resources. Europeans were able to dominate other lands and civilizations so far from their own continent in part because they had superior ships and cannons. The major European accomplishments in the first colonial period were the settler colonies in the Americas, the opening of important trade routes to Asia, and the sweeping conquest of Asia, beginning with the British opening of China to trade during the Opium War (1839-1842) and the French seizure of Indo-China starting in the 1860s.

The second colonial period, known as the age of imperialism, principally involved the "scramble for Africa" (1870-1900), although Europeans tightened their grip on Asian societies as well. Particularly important was the carving up of China into European "spheres of influence" that gave Europeans near-monopolies in trade in their respective spheres by 1900. Interestingly, in the second colonial period, Europeans wanted more than to achieve wealth and power. A spirit of "manifest destiny" animated Europeans and convinced them they had a mission to rule over non-white races. With cultural hubris, they felt a "white man's burden" to better the conditions of nonwhites by exposing them to European civilization.

During the second colonial period, Europeans were able to establish far-flung empires through two important technological developments. With the combination of the steamship and the steam locomotive, Europeans projected their power across oceans and penetrated deeply into continents, including the almost unexplored Africa. European states moved cargo, soldiers, and settlers with logistical ease. The opening of the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1869 by the French especially encouraged imperialism in eastern Africa and in Asia. With the additional inventions of the telegraph and, a few decades later, the wireless radio, writers of the period began to speak of the "shrinkage of the earth." By 1900, Britain and France had built world empires, and Germany was trying to do the same.

For the first time, the planet had become a single geopolitical unit involving European competition over trade and colonies and, perhaps equally important, producing global competition for the sake of pride and prestige. This competition did not veer into serious conflict and war, however, because of successful negotiations among states that were mostly in concert about the conditions of the system they shared. For example, negotiations in the Conference of Berlin (1884-1885), held over disputed colonial claims in Africa, set the boundaries of the various African empires and forestalled disputes among European states that might have led to war.