Colonialism and Postcolonialism: A Historical Analysis
From ‘Commonwealth’ to ‘Postcolonial’
In the latter part of the twentieth century, there was a shift from the study of ‘Commonwealth literature’ to ‘postcolonialism’.
Colonialism and Decolonization
Colonialism was first and foremost a lucrative commercial operation, bringing wealth and riches to Western nations through economic profit and reward. Hence, colonialism and capitalism share a mutually supportive relationship.
‘Colonialism’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘imperialism’, but in truth, the terms mean different things. Imperialism is an ideological project that upholds the legitimacy of the economic and military control of one nation by another. Imperialism is the extension and expansion of trade and commerce under the protection of political, legal, and military controls. Colonialism, however, is only one form of practice, one modality of control which results from the ideology of imperialism, and it specifically concerns the settlement of people in a new location. Imperialism is not strictly concerned with the issue of settlement, and it does not demand the settlement of different places in order to function. Colonialism is not the only way of pursuing imperialist ideals; this is why some critics argue that while colonialism is virtually over today as a practice, imperialism continues apace as Western nations are still engaged in imperial acts, securing wealth and power through the continuing economic exploitation of other nations.
Colonialism is the settlement of territory, the exploitation or development of resources, and the attempt to govern the indigenous inhabitants of occupied lands, often by force.
The British Empire and Decolonization
As regards the imperial venture of the British Empire, there are three distinct periods of decolonization when the colonized nations won the right to govern their own affairs:
- The loss of the American colonies and declaration of American independence in the late eighteenth century.
- From the end of the nineteenth century to the first decade of the twentieth century, concerning the creation of the ‘dominions’ (term used to describe the nations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa – today referred to as ‘settler’ nations). These nations consist of large European populations that had settled overseas, often violently displacing or, in some cases, destroying the indigenous peoples of these lands – ‘First Nations’ peoples in Canada, Aboriginal communities in Australia, or New Zealand’s Maoris. The ‘settler’ peoples of these nations campaigned for forms of self-government which they achieved as dominions of the British Empire. Yet, as a ‘dominion,’ each still recognized and pledged allegiance to the ultimate authority of Britain as the ‘mother country’. Canada was the first to achieve a form of political autonomy in 1867, Australia followed suit in 1901, New Zealand similarly in 1907, and South Africa in 1910. Slightly after this period, Ireland won self-rule in 1922, although the country was partitioned, and six counties in the northeast remained under British control as Northern Ireland.
- During the decades following the end of the Second World War. Most colonized lands in South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean did not become sites of mass European migration and tended to feature larger dispossessed indigenous populations settled and governed by small British colonial elites. The achievement of independence, particularly in South Asia and Africa, occurred often as a consequence of indigenous anti-colonial nationalism and military struggle. India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1948. In 1957, Ghana became the first ‘majority-rule’ independent African country, followed by Nigeria in 1960. In 1962, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean followed suit. The decades of the 1960s and 1970s saw busy decolonization throughout the declining Empire. So, with the passing of Hong Kong from Britain to China on 1 July 1997, the numbers of those living under British rule fell below one million for the first time in centuries.