Colonialism Wolfgang Reinhard Summary

Colonialism How did colonization evolve throughout the ages? Wolfgang Reinhard tries to untangle its history by analyzing the cause of its initial start, evolution, and ultimate decline. Colonialism is not a new phenomenon, but European colonialism is different in the sense that it extended to the furthest corner of the world. Colonialism according to Wolfgang Reinhard is defined as “one peoples control over another people through the economic, political, and ideological exploitation of a developmental gap between the two” (Reinhard, 2011, 1). Colonization was a cause of multiple factors. A few being maintenance, ideological and social pressure. Maintenance coming in the form of monarchies needing new sources of income to sustain their position; they were ultimately forced to look across the sea and use naval expansion overseas as a solution to their financial problems; this was first recognized by Prince Henry “The Navigator”. The ideological aspect was defined by Reinhard in which he states, “ Religious and cultural motives are also crucial. At stake was often a desire to bring true faith to the heathens, true …show more content…
Reinhard states “it was against this backdrop that the eastern Mediterranean region saw the emergence of what must be described not as mere trading posts but as colonies” (Reinhard, 8, 2011). More specifically when the Spanish crown allowed other groups besides Mariners and merchants to include “Battle-hardened members” (Reinhard, 17, 2011) conquest starts to crystalize. The perfect example of this would be the Spanish and their experience in Haiti. They wanted to copy the early methods of the Portuguese by building a system of bases for the extraction of gold, slaves, and trading goods. When they understood that they must mine the gold themselves they opened the New World for private