19th Century Colonialism

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A way in which the indigenous people in colonies were subjugated was through land divination. Colonists, realising that the more land they controlled the higher the profits would be, increasingly sought ways to achieve this. Naturally, the European colonists of India and Africa were of a higher economic standing than their native counterparts, and used various methods to lay claim to large areas of land and the most fertile ground. Subsequently, it meant that any individual native enterprise was confined to small areas which yielded little productivity which would only encourage the abandonment of individual enterprise when faced with competition from their more advanced, better equipped European neighbours. A consequence of this is that an …show more content…
That one can identify this in the majority of colonised lands is proof that it is both a consequence and a requirement of effective, profitable colony. In the period of European rule in the Americas, this was easily achieved and facilitated through violence and slavery in order to extract what it wanted. Later 19th century colonialism had to operate differently because of the abolishment of slavery but was no less successful in exploiting the people of the colonies using subliminal economic pressure. This enabled the colonists to operate under a cloak where from the mother states, it looked as though its endeavours were entirely noble. It is also clear that the lives of the lowest strata of these societies are more vulnerable to the destructive nature of colonialism as they are more easily exploited. The ever growing demands caused by the economic boom in the west, both caused and encouraged destruction of local livelihoods; there could be no room for those deemed to be contributing little or nothing to the capitalist ventures, thus the erosion of local livelihoods was imperative to facilitate growth in the mother nations, a consequence of this is that these colonized states were under developed, the effects of which are still being felt

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