European expansion

As European expansion designating History gradual political expansion of the domination of European countries to large parts of Africa , America , Asia , Australia and Oceania in the early modern period . The age of European expansion began in the 15th century with the expeditions of the Portuguese to Africa and the Spanish to America. It culminated in the colonialism and imperialism of the European powers in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the course of the expansion, there were massive population movements worldwide, to which the emigration of European colonists contributed as much as the slave trade . Other significant consequences were the spread of European culture, Christianity , Indo-European languages and European diseases. Plants and animals were also exchanged between the New and Old World (so-called Columbian Exchange ). Furthermore, the maritime trade of the European powers created the basis for the development of worldwide economic relations (see also globalization ).

The spread of the Europeans led to the indigenous cultures of the non-European countries mostly through a more or less aggressive assimilation policy to the loss of their ethnic identity ( traditional economic and social structure , mother tongue, ethnic religion , material culture )

Overview of the phases

Course of European expansion and imperialism, 1492–2008

In terms of time and space, there are four phases , each with different forms of expansion:

• In the early phase, the Spanish in particular practiced the establishment of domination colonies in America . These colonies emerged through military conquest and were exploited by officials and business people from the motherland; there was initially no large-scale settlement.
• The Portuguese, on the other hand, like the Dutch later, primarily built up so-called base colonies in South and East Asia . From there, the respective hinterland was developed economically in such a way that it could support its own shipping. Local rulers remained in power, at least formally.
• The third form of colonization , mainly used by the English since the 17th century, was the establishment of settlement colonies , especially in North America and Australia, in which the cheap use of land by settlers from the motherland was forced. The local population was seen as economically useless and either driven out, decimated or exterminated. Religious reasons also played a role (the settlers wanted to be free in their convictions, which the state only allowed them in the colonies). The expansion of the Russian Empire into Siberia also falls into this category.
• In the age of colonialism and imperialism , around 1850, the competing colonial powers began to penetrate as far as possible politically, economically and culturally the areas that were not populated by Europeans but controlled by them.

All those involved - such as soldiers , traders , settlers and missionaries - had in common the Eurocentric conviction that they belong to a higher-ranking civilization that has the right to deal with "underdeveloped savages " from foreign countries as they see fit and to impose European achievements on them.

The starting point

→ See also: Colonialism # Economic and social motives and characteristics

The European late Middle Ages , especially the 14th century, were marked by serious upheavals in social and economic structures. The fall of the last fortress of the Crusaders in the Middle East in 1291 had effectively ended the era of the Crusades , while a large part of the European population was carried away by the plague and the authority of the nobility weakened in favor of the bourgeoisie. It was this bourgeoisie that subsequently helped trade and industry to flourish again. The newly emerging maritime trade of the growing city-states of Italy gave rise to an early form of capitalism and helped many traders to become immensely rich due to the huge demand for oriental goods - especially spices. The descriptions of China by Marco Polo ( Il Milione ) and the descriptions of India in the Alexander Romance exerted a great influence in the Middle Ages and reinforced the impression that India was a kind of wonderland, provided with all the riches of the earth. In addition, there was the legend of the priest-king John , a powerful Christian king, whom one sought to find in Asia and Africa and to win over as an ally against Islam.

The siege of Constantinople as depicted in the 15th century

The conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 meant a severe setback for European traders. When the conquerors blocked the land trade route over the old Silk Road , luxury goods, especially the coveted spices, became increasingly unaffordable, as they could previously only be imported from Asia by land. However, this thesis is highly controversial among historians, many are of the opinion that the Ottoman Empire hardly missed the lucrative business with the Christian West . The two Iberian nations Portugal and Castile saw the opportunity to eliminate the Italian and Asian middlemen and to profit from trade themselves through direct access to the riches of India. The Portuguese tried to find a way to India around Africa. In the course of the 15th century, the Portuguese Heinrich the Navigator and his pupils in particular prepared the way for this by exploring the west coast of Africa ; In addition, two new types of ships, the caravel and later the Nao or carrack were developed from other types of ship during this time , which made the trips possible in the first place. The large trading houses also played a major role in almost all of the trips, as they financed the respective expeditions and, if successful, drove the expeditions forward.

Many scholars of that time took the view that the earth was a sphere and that Asia could therefore also be reached by sea to the west. Her theories were fed by many legends and rumors, some of them ancient, as well as the fact that the Florence- born geographer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli erroneously estimated the size of the earth to be far too small, which ultimately gave other men of the time the idea to explore the western route to Asia. The first to succeed in this since the first voyage of the Vikings under Leif Eriksson was Christopher Columbus, sailing on behalf of the Spanish Crown in 1492. Columbus had opposed the factually correct objections of many geographers who had correctly assumed that the The distance to East Asia is far too great for a sea voyage with the means of the time. The way to India you actually found first by the circumnavigation of Africa: in the year 1498 reached Vasco da Gama , the city Calicut in India. This was the beginning of the India trade in the early modern period.

Driving forces and importance of the voyages of discovery

Monocausal explanations for the exploration expeditions, which only focus on one fact such as the hindering of trade in the Orient by the Islamic conquests ( Constantinople 1453) or the slowly beginning development of a capitalist economy (first full development in England in the 17th / 18th centuries), neglect them A multitude of conditions that determined the specific course of European expansion.

Contemporaries were already aware of the importance of this global transoceanic expansion, which is unique in human history . The American gold and silver strengthened the powers of the state in Europe against the competing aristocratic local powers, which in the Middle Ages had prevented the later sovereignty of the states and the kings. Even the industrial revolution in England was largely driven by the economic consequences of expansion. Above all, the West Indian sugar planters and the Liverpool slave traders raised the funds that were needed to develop English industry . Accordingly, Adam Smith judged in his work " Wealth of Nations " from 1776:

"The discovery of America and the trip to the East Indies around the Cape of Good Hope are two of the greatest and most significant events that human history can tell."

Scientific and technical prerequisites

The idea of ​​a systematic exploration of the earth arose in ancient times . The Pythagoreans in southern Italy already collected evidence of the spherical shape of the earth, which quickly became the decisive conviction in ancient Greece. Already in ancient times the idea was formed that one could reach foreign countries in Asia by traveling west across the Atlantic . People already knew about China and other Asian countries in ancient Egypt through the import of oranges and the Silk Road . In spite of different conceptions of distance, Eratosthenes (in the 3rd century BC) had already calculated the actual circumference of the earth approximately exactly. However, in the European Middle Ages, Ptolemy's astronomical textbook (“ Almagest ”) was known, which gave a value that was far too low. Columbus felt encouraged by this to be able to cope with the apparently not too long way to Asia. Furthermore, the medieval notion of the inhospitable regions in the far north and south, also based on the authority of Aristotle , had deterred expeditions to these parts of the world. It was not until the voyages of discovery by Portuguese seafarers along the African Atlantic coast in the 15th century that doubts about this prevailing opinion arose. Especially the expeditions of Heinrich the Navigator to search for direct routes to the African gold reserves and slaves , bypassing the Muslim traders of North Africa and the declining authority of Aristotle during the Renaissance put an end to European inhibitions.

The cartography developed in ancient times was not yet sufficient for orientation over greater distances. It was not until 1569 that Gerhard Mercator solved the problem of projecting the spherical surface on plan maps satisfactorily. The map material previously deviated so significantly from reality that its use was very questionable. Nevertheless, the further development of cartography in the time before its usefulness for larger dimensions had given essential suggestions for the voyages of discovery.

18th century Persian astrolabe

In the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, astronomical knowledge was much more important than map material to determine the location, even without a view of the coast , for ocean-going shipping . Star catalogs such as those drawn up by the astronomers of Alexandria were used as “heavenly guides” . However, observation by eye was too imprecise, and so the development of special instruments for more precise location determination was necessary.

The early Middle Ages had brought a clear relapse into ignorance compared to antiquity (although the idea that numerous church fathers and popes believed in a flat earth and fiercely opposed the idea of ​​the spherical shape of the earth is now itself regarded as a myth); During this time, the Greek heritage was preserved in the Arab culture. Through contact with Arabs , especially through Spain ( Caliphate of Córdoba , later Taifa kingdoms ), this knowledge finally came back to Europe. Also Persian and Indian knowledge and in the field of astronomy considerable internal activities of Arab researchers arrived at the beginning of the modern era to Europe. The Toledan tables of the Spanish-Arab astronomer Al-Zarqali from the second half of the 11th century enabled the exact determination of the daily position of the celestial bodies ( fixed stars ), which, together with the measurement of the height of the sun and the known solar declination of the day in question, made it possible to calculate it of latitude made possible. Portuguese navigators of the 15th century used this astronomical nautical technique , and Columbus was at least familiar with it.

In particular, the improvement of the astrolabe and the quadrant for measuring the height of the stars and the invention of the Jacob's staff for measuring angles were adopted by the Arabs and further developed by European scholars. Improved astronomical almanacs such as the Alfonsin Tables (around 1259), the Almanach Perpetuum (around 1475) and the ephemeris (1475) were also important contributions made by Western thinkers. The compass , adopted from China and already in use there around 1080, became known and improved in Europe around 1200 and was in use here no later than 1270. The deviation of the magnetic North Pole from the real one was also probably known before the discovery of America.

The most important technical development was probably ocean-going ships. While the galley of the Mediterranean peoples was unsuitable for longer ocean voyages, the slim and light Viking boat, which was quite suitable for the rough seas, was replaced at the beginning of the 13th century by the powerful and heavy cog developed in the Baltic Sea region . Made famous in northern Italy by Basque pirates , the cog was developed into a larger round ship around 1400 and replaced the “Mediterranean ship” galley. In the 15th century , a small, elongated ship with 50 to 100 tons was built in the Atlantic area , especially on the coasts of Portugal and Castile : the caravel . Due to its different mast sizes, this was suitable for strong and weak winds and, due to the rudder ( tiller ) taken over from the cog , was much more in the power of the helmsman than previous ships. In view of these late medieval and early modern developments in shipbuilding, Bertrand Gille (1920–1980) speaks of a “technical cosmopolitanism” that undoubtedly already existed at that time. The ship's guns on board made the ships almost invincible for non-European peoples.

• Columbus' flagship Santa Maria was armed with four rotating guns (caliber 9 cm);
• Vasco da Gama's flagship São Gabriel , a 21.3 m long Nau , had 20 cannons on board (with a crew of 60) when she took off from Lisbon on July 8, 1497 to find an eastern route to India. With the arrival of Vasco da Gama in India in 1498, the Arab traders realized that their lucrative monopoly of the Indian trade (e.g. the spice trade) with Europe was in danger. As a result, the expedition (13 ships with 1200 to 1500 men) that started in Lisbon on March 9, 1500 under the direction of Pedro Álvares Cabral was large and heavily armed; The Portuguese were the first Europeans to sail the coasts of Brazil and settle with the indigenous people who were already living there.

The expansion in Africa

→ See also: Henry the Navigator and Casa da Índia

In the early 15th century Portugal began to cross over to mainland Africa, conquering the Moroccan cities of Ceuta (1415) and Tangier (1471). However, they understood these conquests as part of the Reconquista , so back conquest of formerly Christian areas and what has been not as an expansion in foreign territory.

The first sea expeditions to map sub-Saharan Africa were probably those of Henry the Navigator , a Portuguese prince, at the beginning of the 15th century. First the uninhabited Madeira (1420) and the Azores (1427) were discovered and settled by the Portuguese, then the focus was on exploring the west coast of Africa. However, this was only after the first successful circumnavigation of the previously called the "end of the world" Cape Bojador by Gil Eanes be seriously continued in the 1431st After the discovery of Cape Verde (1458), which later developed, together with the Azores and Madeira, into very productive growing areas for sugar cane , the greed for gold and slaves drove the explorers ever further south. Especially after the discovery of Ghana, where the Portuguese found many slaves and gold, the expeditions increased considerably in size and number.

Animation (two images): Depiction of a slave ship (19th century)

In what is now the Nigerian town of Lagos , European traders then took part in an African slave auction for the first time. The Europeans did not introduce slavery in Africa, but used structures that had existed for thousands of years on which the Egyptians had already built. On their way south, they named important areas after their main trade goods. (Names like " Gold Coast " (today's Ghana ) or " Ivory Coast " have their origins in this period.)

Under the patronage of Heinrich the Navigator, the Casa de Arguim and de Guiné , also known as Companhia de Lagos ( Lagos Society), were founded around 1445 in Lagos, Portugal, on the Algarve , and served the development of Portuguese trade with West Africa. The Portuguese traded primarily in saddles, fabrics and brass goods, but also in grain and horses, which quickly succumbed to the African climate. Their Arab and black African business partners mainly supplied slaves, gold and ivory, as well as a special African pepper, called Malagetta pepper or grains of paradise , even at that time . The Portuguese received moral support from Pope Nicholas V with the Bull Romanus Pontifex , in which the pious deeds of Henry the Navigator were praised and the Portuguese were granted a trade monopoly for new areas. It was also allowed to enslave and take possession of unbelievers. After the death of Henry the Navigator, the Companhia de Lagos was relocated to Lisbon in the sixties of the 15th century and merged with other commercial establishments in the Casa da Guiné e da Mina . This later became the Casa da Índia .

Bartolomeu Diaz and Vasco da Gama were the first explorers to circumnavigate the southern tip of Africa at the end of the 15th century. South of the equator there was "not much of value" to the Europeans other than slaves, but their search for a sea ​​route to India prompted them to further explore the African coast. On the east coast they encountered numerous cities inhabited by Muslims, which traded with India and the interior of the country.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, the slave trade took place almost exclusively on the west coast. (In the early days it was different: the Egyptians had imported slaves mainly from Sudan and Ethiopia ). Numerous branches from Senegal to the Cape of Good Hope emerged for the sole purpose of shipping slaves, such as Luanda , today's capital of Angola . Initially the demand was limited, but in the 17th century the massive kidnapping of several dozen of thousands of people a year put local social conditions at serious risk. It is estimated that approximately 11.5 million Africans were abducted from their homes between 1450 and 1870, of which 1.5 million did not survive the passage to America . Almost half of those actually made it to America - over six million - were shipped to America in the 18th century, but after 1800 there were still over three million. It was only after many American colonies had gained their independence and slavery was banned in Europe that the number of slave transports and thus the number of deported Africans fell significantly.

→ Main article : Atlantic slave trade

In view of the lucrative business on the African west coast, other nations also set up trading posts along the coast from around 1600, such as B. the Brandenburg colony of Groß Friedrichsburg . For the nations active in East Asia Portugal, Great Britain and the Netherlands, and to a lesser extent France, Africa was also important in its function as a stopover to Asia, while the Spaniards approached their East Asian possessions from Mexico across the Pacific. The only region that was colonized to a greater extent was the Cape Colony , which was colonized by Dutch and French Huguenots from 1652 onwards . The Khoisan tribes resident there were subjugated or exterminated by the new settlers until 1800. Apart from the two Portuguese possessions in Angola and Mozambique , the Europeans did not advance further inland until the second half of the 19th century. Even if the direct control of the European states was limited to the coastal strips, their economic influence probably extended far into the continent.

The expansion in Asia

The way to Asia

After the exploratory trips of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator at the beginning of the 15th century, many navigators tried to find a way to China (see also China trade ) or to the " Spice Islands ". So while one Christopher Columbus, with the support of the Spanish crown, was looking for this route in the west, another was already preparing for an expedition in the opposite direction: Vasco da Gama . In July 1497 his four ships left Portugal with the royal order to completely open up the sea route to India. After circumnavigating the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa, which Bartolomeu Diaz had discovered in 1486/87 in November , they reached the Muslim city of Malindi on the east coast of the black continent. From there, with the help of a local pilot, the Portuguese sailed on to India , where they concluded a trade agreement with the King of Calicut . The resulting wealth prompted the Portuguese to conquer the city of Goa in 1510 and make it the capital of Portuguese India . From there, the sea ​​trade carried out by the Muslims in the Indian Ocean was stopped over time and taken over by Portuguese traders. After the Catholic Church threatened to withdraw the Portuguese trade monopoly for Asia, the Christian missionary work in India and other countries in Asia began in 1540 .

Emergence of the European trading empires

→ See also: East India Company

The Moluccas themselves were discovered by António de Abreu and Afonso de Albuquerque and conquered for Portugal as early as 1511 , but unlike the Portuguese, the Spanish were no longer interested in them due to the rich silver and gold deposits in the New World . Instead, they began with the occupation of an archipelago, which Ferdinand Magellan had discovered shortly before his death in 1521 while sailing around the world and which the conqueror Miguel López de Legazpi named the Philippines in honor of King Philip II in 1571 . The Philippines represented a peculiarity in Asia, as no urban culture had developed here before the arrival of the Europeans. Due to the rapid increase in the population of Spanish descent and the poor soils on the islands, the Spaniards used the local population to do forced labor in their fields. As early as 1600, Manila , the main Spanish base, developed into an inexpensive transhipment point for Chinese porcelain and lacquer furniture that was bought for silver from the American colonies. Soon, however, the Spaniards had to fight back, above all, the attacks by the Portuguese and Dutch on their ships and settlements.

Territory of the Indian Mughal Empire around 1700

In the meantime, the former acquired further trading ports in the Indian Ocean. After Goa, Malacca (1511) and Hormuz in the Persian Gulf (1515) were conquered and fortified by Portugal. Since the Portuguese traders were able to transport the valuable spices directly to Europe on their ships, they were able to bypass the Turkish and Venetian middlemen and thus outbid the price offers of the Arab buyers. Nevertheless, the Portuguese crown had to let German and Italian trading houses take part in the India trips due to lack of capital. On their journeys to Asia, gold and silver ducats as well as copper, lead and Slovenian mercury were part of the freight of the Portuguese, who from 1520 sold their spices exclusively at fixed prices in Antwerp .

The Indian Mughal Empire , which had gained access to the sea from the interior in 1570, was never friendly to the Europeans. However, the Mughals were never able to drive the European traders out. The Portuguese plan to conquer the island of Ceylon was therefore only thwarted by the death of the childless king in 1580, whereby Portugal fell to Spain. After the fall of the Spanish Armada in 1588, other European countries saw an opportunity to enter the spice trade. After numerous raids on Spanish and Portuguese ships and bases, the English East India Company was founded in 1600 , which was just as bad for Portuguese sea trade as the Dutch East India Company, which was founded in 1602 .

On behalf of the Dutch East India Company , the international lawyer Hugo Grotius wrote his work Mare Liberum ("The Free Sea"), in which the seas were declared international waters . This called into question the rights of the Portuguese, which were set out in the Treaty of Tordesillas . Soon after, the Dutch occupied the Portuguese Moluccas, conquered Ceylon and in 1619 established their trading post Hollandia (later Batavia and today's Jakarta). In Southeast Asia in particular, after the Portuguese had continued to lose influence there, they hit British sea trade hard. By imposing a kind of feudal relationship on the local princes, the Dutch East India Company gained more and more control of the spice trade. Due to the profit-oriented attitude of the company, however, nothing was done to proselytize the locals; on the contrary, it was even banned.

After their failures in Southeast Asia, the British concentrated on continental India, where they established Bombay and Calcutta as bases for their company . In the middle of the 17th century, France also gained a foothold in India with the establishment of the French East India Company . The English and the French often played off the Indian princes against each other in order to secure their support. In the second half of the 18th century, the hostilities developed into a proxy war waged by both sides , in which the British emerged victorious after the Battle of Plassey under the leadership of Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive in 1757. Finally, in 1773, the company was directly subordinated to the British government. The Mughal Empire, weakened by the court intrigues of the European ambassadors, uprisings and territorial claims of Great Britain, still nominally had suzerainty over the Indian subcontinent, but the real power was now in the hands of the British. By 1857, they also officially took control of India.

Above all, the East India Companies contributed significantly to the economic and military rise of Western Europe. Since the Asian trade after the opening of the direct sea route to India and East Asia made an intermediate trade via Muslim states like the Ottoman Empire useless, and consequently could be carried out via the western European coastal cities, the power of the Italian city-states declined. The economic focus shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast, where the port cities now took over and developed the early capitalist economic structures of the 15th and 16th centuries. In Great Britain, France and the Netherlands in particular, the introduction of a more progressive financial system resulted in the foundations of modern capitalism in all its forms. It was these states, along with Spain and Portugal, that pushed forward the integration of all economic areas in the world by building up large merchant fleets .

Trade with china

Picture by a Chinese astronomer from 1675; The astronomical instruments introduced by the Jesuits are clearly visible .

In China, as the successor to the Ming dynasty , the Manchu or Qing dynasty from Manchuria ruled an empire that had roughly as many inhabitants as all of Europe and had developed an enormous economic power. The factories in Nanjing alone produced several hundred thousand glazed porcelain vessels each year, which were mainly made for export and decorated with the desired motifs depending on the destination. The silk production also exceeded the production of the rest of the world many times over. Chinese silk and porcelain were in great demand all over the world; tea was also exported.

The Chinese trade developed more slowly than the lucrative Indian trade of the European sea powers, which was already lucrative in the 16th century . Although there was a small Jesuit mission through Matteo Ricci since 1601 , which particularly imparted astronomical knowledge, otherwise the European influence was small. Only silver (from the Spaniards) and gold (from the Russians) were accepted as means of payment for the Chinese goods. The Russians were granted unlimited trade in the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, but the other nations had no part in it. The only trading centers tolerated until the 19th century were the Portuguese island of Macau in the mouth of the Pearl River and the port of Canton , but all further measures on the part of the Europeans were not tolerated.

After Europe broke China's monopoly in both porcelain production ( Meissen porcelain ) and tea production (plantations in British India ) in the course of the 18th century , European traders bought fewer and fewer goods in China. Instead, the British and French tried to open up the Chinese Empire as a sales market ( Macartney Mission ). The illegal importation of opium into China was particularly profitable . However, since the Chinese economy was massively dependent on silver revenues, which were now declining more and more, state finances were increasingly heading towards ruin. When China began to stop the opium trade by controlling traders and confiscating the goods, Great Britain responded by sending warships. The First Opium War showed all too clearly the weaknesses of the empire. In the peace treaty, China had to surrender Hong Kong to Great Britain and open twelve treaty ports to unlimited trade. This finally heralded the decline of the Chinese Empire.

Trade with japan

→ See also: The era of the Namban trade

In 1543 the first contact between Europeans and Japanese came on Tanegashima . The newcomers not only revolutionized Japanese warfare with the introduction of the (Tanegashima) rifle , but also spread Christianity there . Japan had also become the leading East Asian exporter of copper and silver in the second half of the 16th century. A large part of the precious metals was transported to China to buy silk, as the rapidly increasing demand for silk - it was used to make kimonos - could no longer be met by the country's own production for a long time.

Some feudal lords, so-called daimyo , had adopted Christianity in the west of the Japanese islands as a sign of their independence from the central power in Kyoto . As a reaction to this, the Shogun prohibited further proselytizing and the practice of the Christian religion from 1590. Since almost all European countries had, in addition to trade, the conversion of the Japanese population in mind, every European was forbidden to enter the Japanese islands. In the Edo period (1603–1868), the Tokugawa dynasty forbade all foreigners from contact with Japanese, with the exception of the Chinese and Dutch, from 1639. Contact with the Dutch was limited to the artificial island of Deshima in Nagasaki Bay. They were only allowed to continue trading because they had not tried, like the other European countries, to convert the Japanese to Christianity. This isolation lasted for over 200 years until the American Commodore Matthew Perry forced the Japanese to reopen their ports with only four warships in 1853.

Expansion of Russia

→ See also: History of Siberia

The long rule of the Golden Horde and hostilities with neighboring states were one of the main reasons why the Grand Duchy of Moscow was effectively isolated from the western world around 1450. However, the conquest of Novgorod by Moscow in 1478 and the subsequent declaration of independence showed that the power of the princes of Moscow had not suffered a setback. The Tatars defended themselves bitterly, but they could not prevent the Muscovites from gaining control of the Volga basin by destroying the khanates of Kazan in 1552 and Astrakhan in 1556. Despite the sack of Moscow by the Crimean Tatars in 1571, a decade later they ruled the entire territory of what is now Russia as far as the Urals. However, this was not thanks to the tsar's troops . Instead, the wealthy Stroganov family had been granted extensive privileges on their large estates west of the Ural Mountains in the previous two decades , including the recruitment of their own troops. In 1582 they succeeded in conquering the residence of the Siberian Khan , Isker. Nevertheless, the expansion to the east was only supported by the state after the Livonian War of 1582/83, when the envoy of the Stroganovs came to the court of the Tsars with expensive furs and the news of the victory over the Siberian Horde.

The fur trade also attracted many settlers to the unexplored areas in Siberia. The indigenous peoples were either Russified or exterminated. The pioneers, mainly Cossacks , built new bases along the Siberian rivers on the trade routes, which gradually developed into cities. Examples are Tyumen 1586, Krasnoyarsk 1628, Irkutsk 1652 and Okhotsk 1649, and Omsk 1716 and Petropavlovsk 1752. The Pacific coast was first reached in 1639; ten years later Okhotsk, the first Russian city on the Pacific, was founded. Russia's rule over Siberia was based primarily on these settlements and a harsh tribute system. In the Far East, the local peoples refused because they declared that they had already made payments to a powerful Bogdoi . Who this Bogdoi was became clear when a Manchu army appeared in the Amur Basin and, after some initial difficulties, routed the undisciplined Russian army . In 1689, the area north of the Amur River, which Russia had previously taken from China, had to be returned to China in the Treaty of Nerchinsk . In return, the Russians were allowed the privilege of buying silk in exchange for gold. This was the first bilateral treaty ever signed by a Chinese emperor.

By the middle of the 17th century, there had been intensive colonization by Russian colonists, so that in the areas east of the Urals there were already more Europeans than indigenous people. This was mainly due to the rich natural resources and the settlement policy of the Russian tsars, who often recruited colonists from other European countries. From around 1700 the expansion moved to a different stage, because now scientific reasons came to the fore, such as the interest in information about the indigenous peoples. However, practical considerations also played a role here. The first expeditions to the Kamchatka Peninsula were not only intended to find a presumed land bridge between America and Asia, but also a possible sea route to the other European possessions on the American continent. Thanks to the efforts of the Russian general Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Muravjow-Amurski , large territories in the Far East could be contractually withdrawn from weak China in the 19th century. In 1860 the Russians founded the city of Vladivostok , the pearl of the east ; further ports were also built to take part in the Pacific trade. Up until the Russo-Japanese War 1904/05, the Russians also ruled Manchuria , built the Transmandchurian Railway there and founded the city of Harbin , among other things . The Kamchatka Peninsula and Alaska had also been occupied beforehand, but this no longer had a major impact on the further development of Russia.

The expansion in America

→ Main article : European colonization of America

America around 1750

The Native Americans (" Indians ") were descendants of Ice Age hunters who immigrated from Asia to North America via a land bridge and from there spread across the continent. In the course of this spread, the indigenous people adapted completely to their new surroundings. All groups developed diverse and yet sometimes completely different cultures. This resulted in an immense range of cultural and technological development of the indigenous peoples: Although agriculture and cattle breeding spread across the entire continent, advanced civilizations with a permanent population could only develop on the Yucatán peninsula and in central Mexico and in the Peruvian Andes . In the course of the centuries, comparatively complex state structures were formed here that were often technologically superior to the other tribes of America - and in some cases even to the peoples of Eurasia. What is striking, however, is the fact that many basic inventions - agriculture , ranching , pottery , primitive gold processing - were made independently of the rest of the world, but on the other hand many technologies were never invented in America. This includes the processing of copper, bronze or iron as well as the wheel or alphabetized writing. Thus the peoples of America were at a technically Neolithic stage of development, even if they had adapted perfectly to their environment and developed complex social structures. The number of Native Americans at the time of America's discovery in 1492 is very difficult to determine and has been the subject of heated disputes, especially among American historians, whose estimates are ten to one hundred million people for the entire continent.

South and Central America

The newly discovered areas were divided up between the participating powers Portugal and Spain in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 after Columbus' first voyages . According to this, Spain received all the countries that 370 Spanish iguanas (approx. 1770 km) west of the Cape Verde Islands had already discovered or were still to be discovered, and Portugal accordingly received everything east of this meridional line. Admittedly, neither of the two states had undertaken any serious territorial expansion until then, apart from the seizure of Hispaniola in 1493.

Spanish expansion

Spanish colonies

→ Main article : Spanish colonial history

→ See also: Conquistador and Asiento de Negros

After the occupation of Cuba by the Spanish in 1511, a small troop of soldiers and adventurers - many of them veterans of the Reconquista - landed on the Central American mainland in 1519 under the command of Hernán Cortés . Lured by the rumors and supported by various local Indian tribes, the Conquistadores moved to Tenochtitlán , the capital of the Aztec Empire . Their king Moctezuma II initially welcomed the foreigners. However, Cortés soon showed his true intentions and began a war against the Aztecs. The Spaniards could still be repulsed in 1520, but despite bitter resistance from the Aztecs, captured the city on August 13, 1521 and destroyed it completely. What would later become Mexico City emerged on their ruins, and settlers were quickly attracted by rumors of immeasurable wealth. Hardly three years later, Pedro de Alvarado subjugated several Maya tribes in what is now Guatemala in a bloody campaign.

→ Main article : Spanish conquest of Mexico

Francisco Pizarro , Conqueror of Peru

Around the same time that Cortés landed in what is now Mexico, Panama City was founded, the first European settlement on the Pacific. From here the Spaniards set out on their second great campaign: the conquest of the Inca Empire . Once again reports of an incredibly wealthy king had drawn the Spaniards south. A small group of scouts under the leadership of Francisco Pizarro had already reached an Inca outpost in 1527 and had provided more precise information about the structure and internal constitution of the empire. Pizarro obtained permission from Charles V for an organized campaign and in 1532, with barely more than 150 to 200 men, sailed from Panama again south along the west coast of South America. The conquerors landed on the coast of Peru and moved to the city of Cajamarca, where the Inca ruler Atahualpa camped. He had just triumphed against his stepbrother Huáscar in the civil war and captured him. He confidently received the newcomers, who took him prisoner in a coup d'état and demanded a ransom for him. When his subjects had delivered the required gold, Atahualpa was baptized and immediately afterwards strangled. The Conquistadores then routed three more Inca armies before they entered the capital Cusco without a fight . They had brought down an empire with a population equal to that of Spain, with a highly efficient administration and an army of probably over 30,000 men. As with the conquest of Mexico, the Spaniards benefited from a crucial weakness in the empire they attacked.

→ Main article : Spanish conquest of Peru

In the following decades the Spaniards occupied further parts of Central and South America, namely the areas of today's states of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and all of South America's Spanish-speaking countries; they also invaded California. However, due to the impassable terrain, it took a long time before revolts could be put down; The last Inca rebels of Túpac Amaru were defeated in 1572, and Tayasal , the last free Mayan city ​​in the Yucatán , was not defeated until 1697.

The crown established the two viceroyalty kingdoms of New Spain (Central America) and New Castile (South America) in the occupied territories by the middle of the 16th century ; later the two viceroyalty kingdoms of New Granada (~ Colombia) and La Plata (~ Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay) were spun off. Parallel to the establishment of a colonial administration directly subordinate to the crown, large parts of the local population were converted to Christianity by the Catholic Church. In some areas in which the military conquest and administrative control by the state failed, the Catholic Church made a decisive contribution to the success of Spanish rule, for example in the form of the Jesuit reductions in Paraguay.

Many of the war veterans and colonists who immigrated later entered into legitimate and illegitimate connections with Indian women. These connections formed the basis for the mixing of the Spanish and indigenous parts of the population, whose descendants, the so-called mestizos , became part of the colonial society. The purely indigenous population has been decimated to a large extent over the years by the diseases brought in by the settlers and the hard labor in the haciendas of Mexico and in the mines of Peru - especially in the city of Potosí . The so-called Leyes Nuevas introduced in 1542 , which were supposed to improve working conditions, had to be partially withdrawn from 1545 due to the resistance of many colonists. Later protective laws turned out to be just as useless; provincial governors and committed missionaries, such as Bartolomé de Las Casas , could not change the poor treatment of the natives with their decrees or sermons and writings alone.

The mass extinction of the Indians soon resulted in a labor shortage. Instead of improving the hard working conditions of the Indian (quasi) slaves, more and more slaves were shipped from Africa to the colonies, which intensified the massive change in the population structure in the colonies. The main export goods of the Spanish colonies were obtained mainly through the use of slaves: cosschenilla , hides, tallow, sugar and above all the silver from the Mexican and Peruvian mines, which was often used as a means of payment for the purchase of Chinese silk. In order to ensure the safe transport of the valuable goods to Spain and East Asia, a convoy system was soon introduced for transport across the oceans, as well as the privileged ports of entry and exit - Havana in Cuba, Cartagena in Colombia, Veracruz and Acapulco in Mexico and the Spanish one Seville , later Cadiz - heavily fortified. The Spanish crown often paid for its wars in Europe with the silver delivered, which made the silver transport a main target for opponents of the war. The silver arriving in Spain was mostly used to purchase various goods, especially grain, fabrics and metal goods. The wealth from the colonies could not prevent the Spanish state from having to declare its bankruptcy three times in the 16th century; Instead, it was mainly the Dutch and later also the British coastal cities that benefited from this, as they produced exactly the goods the Spaniards demanded. The wars fought by the Spanish in Europe, including the War of the Spanish Succession , and the end of the scarcity of precious metals caused by the mines of the colonies, which caused the prices of gold and silver to fall, ruined the Spanish state even more.

Simultaneously with the emergence of silver mining, the Spaniards for their part also introduced new farm animals, as there was not a single species on the entire American continent that was sufficiently suitable for their purposes as farm animals. So while livestock was introduced in the colonies of the New World, the Spaniards also brought crops from the New World to the Old World. Over the decades, potatoes , tomatoes and maize , especially in western and southern Europe, together with the sugar obtained from sugar cane , have become basic components of the diet of the local population.

From the middle of the 17th century, the colonial administration was greatly rationalized and the tax revenue of the settlers increased. Later the Bourbon dynasty tried to tie the American possessions even more closely to the motherland through further reforms and to subordinate its needs to those of the colonies. However, this resulted in an alienation of the colonial population from Spain.

When Spain was occupied by France in the Napoleonic Wars in 1808, the colonial administration was weakened in its authority. The colonists had become increasingly dissatisfied due to the tutelage of the Spanish authorities. They had long called for political, economic and administrative autonomy and now seized the opportunity to declare their independence. By 1826 the armies of José de San Martín of Argentina and Simón Bolívar of Venezuela managed to drive the Spaniards out of all of South America. In Mexico, Spanish rule came to an end after an eleven year uprising led by General Agustín de Iturbide .

Portuguese expansion

→ See also: Portuguese colonial history

Portuguese colonies

Portugal took a little longer to colonize America: Pedro Álvares Cabral officially took Eastern Brazil into possession as early as 1500, but the administrative seat of Bahia was not founded until 1549; but mainly because of Portuguese fears that the French and English might forestall them. Another reason for the late settlement was the need to choose between India and Brazil, with India initially appearing far more profitable. It is therefore significant that the Amazon was the first to be traveled not by a Portuguese, but by the Spaniard Francisco de Orellana . By the last quarter of the 16th century, the Brazilian coast had become the leading sugar cane producer, mainly due to the massive shipments of African slaves from Angola to America. Since Portugal and Spain were united under one crown from 1580, a slave surplus was later often delivered to the area ruled by the Spaniards against payment of silver. With the exception of the coastal areas of Brazil, the Portuguese colonial empire in America was not expanded any further.

The development of Brazil entered a new stage from around 1680. The Portuguese had previously only settled a 30-kilometer-wide coastal strip, but after the discovery of large gold deposits on the Rio Grande in 1693, an immense migration began inland. The number of immigrants from Europe also increased after the discovery of further deposits. The new settlements in the interior of the country also developed an effective self-sufficiency economy, as the Indians could not and did not want to provide for the workers on their own. In the eyes of the settlers, the Indians were useless because they were less suitable than African slaves for working in the fields. Thus, the demand for slaves also increased, which led to an intensification of slave transports.

After the establishment of the Minas Gerais captaincy in 1720 as part of a reform of the colonial administration, an influx of people began again when rich diamond fields were found there. Since the huge raw material deposits of southern Brazil were developed in the following years, the two new captains Goiás (1744) and Mato Grosso (1748) were established. Soon coffee, tobacco, indigo and cotton were also grown here, as it turned out that southern Brazil was ideal for this. The newly developed raw material areas and plantations formed the basis for a relative prosperity for the colonists. At the same time, a further intensification of the slave transports from Africa was deemed necessary, since the increased demand for exotic agricultural products in Europe could only be satisfied through increased productivity and thus more plantations. The relocation of the colonial capital from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro in 1763 also took into account the new economic weight of the south .

After the conquest of Portugal by Napoleon , the Portuguese royal family fled to Rio de Janeiro , where it made Brazil a kingdom linked to the motherland in personal union. After Napoleon's fall, the Crown Prince refused to give Brazil the status of a colony again and in 1822 declared Brazil's independence after a liberal officer coup. Nevertheless, the two countries were ruled by a monarch until 1826; only from this point on was the former colony truly independent.

The European powers in the Caribbean

→ See also: West India Company

At the time of Columbus' first voyages, the Caribbean islands were inhabited by two indigenous peoples who came to the islands in two colonization waves from the South American mainland: the Arawak or Taíno (since the 1st century BC) and the Caribs (from around 900). The Caribs had largely displaced the Arawak from the Lesser Antilles by the time Columbus arrived . The Caribs are also the namesake of this region and, due to (false) reports at the time, also the origin of our name for cannibals : cannibals . The term Antilles, on the other hand, comes from the mythical island of Antilia , which, according to legend, is said to have been in the Atlantic.

In the first years after the discovery of the New World, the Spaniards took possession of the islands of Hispaniola (with Santo Domingo , which they founded in 1496 , the oldest still existing European city in America), Cuba , Puerto Rico and Trinidad . Little gold was found on the occupied islands, however, and despite the profits from the initial sugar cane cultivation, they turned to exploring the mainland. After the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards from 1519 to 1521, interest in a serious consolidation and expansion of the Spanish colonial empire in the Caribbean waned completely. Since Portugal did not seem to make any efforts to take possession of the archipelago, other European countries soon made their claims.

At the latest after the third bankruptcy of the Spanish state and the fall of the Spanish Armada , the other European sea powers saw their chance. From around 1600 England and France, and a little later also the Netherlands, began gradually occupying some islands. The main reasons were economic and strategic. Since the Spaniards refused foreign traders access to their colonies and the islands were the place of origin of many tropical products, the establishment of their own colonies was obvious, especially since the Spanish silver transports organized in the convoy system had to pass through this region since 1561 this represented an attractive destination. (In fact, these transports were only brought up three times by the opponents of the Spanish.) As early as the first half of the 16th century, English and French ships were ambushed for the freighters in front of the Spanish ports, but now the transporters could be intercepted at their place of origin and the Circumvent Spanish trade restrictions through smuggling. Many British ( Jamaica , Antigua ) and French possessions ( Martinique , Guadeloupe , St. Kitts and Nevis as well as the eastern half of Hispaniola, which was later taken from the Spanish) profited from the smuggling of goods from the Spanish colonies.

As in Asia, the first trading companies soon emerged in the Caribbean, such as the Dutch West India Company (1621) and the French West India Company (1664). The colonial powers initially did not officially take control of the new properties, but only indirectly monitored the development. For the companies, a direct attack on the Spaniards was still too dangerous at first, which is why they relied primarily on pirates to damage the Spanish sea trade , who initially only traveled as so-called privateers with official letters of piracy . With freebooters, the Spaniards could cause problems in securing their freighters without losing the prestige of the respective state and without great expense.

The pirates were soon on the move without a letter of war. If a loyal seafarer like Francis Drake set out to provide the English crown with money and wealth, the pirates later became a plague. They massively hindered the economic development of the Caribbean colonies through their pirate trips. Their situation was made worse by the fact that many of them had their shelter in inaccessible bays, where they could go into hiding when the situation became too dangerous for them.

The Atlantic triangular trade

As in the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires, the Indians quickly fell victim to forced labor and introduced diseases; and as in the South American colonies, black slaves were used on the plantations . Even if the sugar cane plant cultivated by the farmers did not actually come from America, it found ideal conditions here. This meant that a large number of slaves had to be used to maintain the plantations. Their share was particularly high on the islands occupied by the British and French; at the end of the colonial period there were over 2.3 million of them in the Caribbean islands alone. Around ten percent perished on the slave ships, and the survivors had a life expectancy of just eight years. The large proportion of slaves and the frequently changing supremacy over the individual colonies also resulted in the emergence of their own slave languages, in which elements of various European languages ​​were mixed with remnants of the African original languages ​​of the slaves. Examples of this are the Creole languages and Papiamento .

The sugar cane was profitable until 1600, because even if previously, prices decreased, the sugar was but still affordable only for the rich, especially since their capital was invested only in gold or slaves. This changed fundamentally after the 16th century, when more and more capital owners preferred a secure profit to risk and got into sugar production. With their investments, the small plantations grew into large farms employing hundreds of slaves. Since the colonies did not manufacture any finished products, the so-called Atlantic triangle trade arose : Finished goods were transported from Europe to Africa and the colonies, slaves from Africa to America and sugar (later tobacco, cocoa and coffee) from America to Europe. Such an economic situation was only logical according to the principles of mercantilism , but it inhibited further development of the economy in the colonies. The beneficiaries of this development were instead the western European coastal cities, which on the one hand shipped colonists and finished goods to the colonies and on the other hand earned money from slaves and tropical products. Mainly these were London , Amsterdam , Bordeaux , Lisbon , Cádiz and Seville , but also cities like Glasgow , Liverpool , Bristol , Rouen , Nantes , Barcelona and Marseille .

Compared to the other colonies, the Caribbean islands only became independent very late; many are not yet today. It all started with Haiti , liberated in a slave revolt in 1804 , while the Spanish islands were withdrawn from Spanish rule after the Spanish-American War in 1898 and - with the exception of Trinidad , which had already been taken by the British - under more or less direct control of the USA came. Most French and British possessions did not become independent until the 20th century, and many - such as Martinique - are still subordinate to their European mother countries.

North America

The expansion in North America began relatively late. After the first modern discovery of North America in 1497 by Giovanni Caboto on behalf of the English crown - around the turn of the millennium, a Viking expedition under Leif Eriksson had landed on Newfoundland - a large part of the east coast was explored by Portuguese researchers within two decades Hoped to find passage to Asia. The first of them was João Fernandes Lavrador, after whom the Labrador Peninsula is named today; At that time, however, the entire previously known North America including Greenland was referred to. The discovery led to whole fishing fleets leaving Europe for the rich fishing grounds off what is now Canada's east coast. After 1520, the Portuguese gave up their search for a passage to East Asia, as did the Spaniards, who, at the latest after the conquest of Mexico , showed little interest in it. In return, England and France came on the scene. These two states were not interested in the newly discovered area either, as their only goal was to conclude lucrative trade agreements with the peoples of Cathay (China) and Zipangu (Japan). As a result, although the Spaniard Francisco Coronado had led an expedition through the southwest of what would later become the United States in the 1920s , the first seriously undertaken settlements did not emerge until forty years later. The French founded a first settlement in Florida in 1565, which was soon destroyed by the Spanish. The first two British attempts to colonize North Carolina failed under dire circumstances; the residents of Roanoke disappeared without a trace four years after their village was built in 1587. It was not until England and France founded Jamestown in 1607 and Québec in 1608 that Europeans were able to gain a permanent foothold in North America.

New France

→ Main article : New France

The French stood out , especially in Canada, for their zeal for settlement. The main reasons for the rapid development of the area were the lucrative fur trade and the endeavor to convert the Indians to Christianity . Under the governor Samuel de Champlain , the founder of Montréal , the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and Acadia was opened up and the Huron Lake and Lake Champlain , which is named after him, were discovered. Later, French explorers reached the Great Lakes and the upper reaches of the Mississippi, the mouth of which Robert Cavelier de La Salle had been looking for.

The French colony of Louisiana sold by Napoleon in 1803 (marked in red)

King Louis XIV sent an expedition there in 1699, led by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville , who founded a trading post that quickly developed into a flourishing city and is now known as New Orleans . The French colonial empire ( La Nouvelle France ) comprised the area of ​​the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River up to its mouth at New Orleans until the middle of the 18th century . The French took a completely different approach to building their colonial empire than the other Europeans. Although the main concern of the French crown was to settle as many colonists as possible in the cities and forts along the great waters, a large part of the settlers consisted of scouts traveling alone who, thanks to their knowledge of the Indian languages, often established a good relationship with the Indian tribes . The only exception to this was the powerful Iroquois Confederation. In this way, the trappers were able to advance much further inland, largely unhindered, than the other European states would have been able to do in their traditional way.

New France had some weaknesses in relation to the rest of the colonies: the British colonies in the south had much higher population growth - mainly through immigration from Europe - and developed much faster. In addition, the colony faced serious competition in the fur trade with the Hudson's Bay Company, founded by the British in 1670 and expanding from the north . Although the crown tried to force population growth through a reward system, the colony was not strong enough to withstand the British in the Seven Years' War , who were able to conquer Québec in 1759 . In the Paris Peace of 1763, France had to give up its Canadian possessions to Great Britain . The rest of the colonial empire ( called Louisiana ) first fell to Spain, was returned to France in 1800 and sold by Napoleon to the United States in 1803 for $ 15 million.

The Thirteen Colonies

The Dutch colonies on the east coast ( Nieuw Nederland )

The Thirteen Colonies

→ Main article : Thirteen colonies

→ See also: Nieuw Nederland , Neuschweden

England concentrated its efforts on the central areas of the North American east coast. However, the settlers were not supported by the authorities. The majority of the colonists, like the passengers of the Mayflower, had emigrated in 1620 due to the suppression of their denomination. Due to the profitable fur trade, however, more people soon poured into North America, which caused the settlers' land requirements to rise sharply. However, there were many obstacles for the colonists, including the Appalachian Mountains, which are difficult to traverse in an east-west direction, and the natives who were often hostile to them.

In 1636, however, due to lack of land, some settlers moved inland from the coast of Massachusetts under the leadership of Roger Williams and established the colony of Rhode Island . Other regions opened up for the fur trade were the Connecticut River area and several other river valleys. The Dutch also had an interest in the furs that could be obtained there and founded some settlements, all of which were taken over by the English in a series of wars over time. These include u. a. Fort Orange (today's Albany ) on the Hudson River , Fort Nassau at the mouth of the Delaware River and New Amsterdam, today's New York . The presence of the English together with their good relationship with the Indian tribes, mainly the Iroquois , led to tensions with the French resident in Canada. The end of the Seven Years' War brought Great Britain to profit from all French possessions in Canada.

The Quaker William Penn became governor of the Pennsylvania colony named after him in 1681 . He founded the city of Philadelphia (thus one of the oldest still existing cities in North America) and also recruited settlers in Germany for his property, which culminated in 1683 in the establishment of the village of Germantown , which is now a district of Philadelphia. The old colony in Virginia grew steadily too ; In 1650 there were already 5000 whites living there. From here, the colonization of many areas further west and south began. Amazingly, many of the Europeans of the time believed that the Pacific Ocean began behind the mountains of Virginia, which was reinforced by many reports from the Indian tribes of "many rivers flowing into a great sea beyond the mountains".

In 1651, Governor William Berkeley commissioned the German John Lederer to review these reports. His expedition brought no new cartographic knowledge, but opened a trade route to the Cherokee and Catawba tribes . It was not until the second half of the 18th century that the first explorers managed to cross the Appalachians in the south and advance to the Ohio and Cumberland rivers . Further south, from South Carolina and Georgia, the Europeans advanced as far as Tennessee and Kentucky and Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. The Thirteen Colonies developed a thriving economy in the course of their formation. In addition to fur hunting, the cultivation of tobacco, sugar cane and later cotton also became very important. It is noteworthy that up to 1660 most of the unfree workers were white, whose social status was hardly better than that of the medieval serfs . These workers, the so-called " Indentured Servants ", were emigrants who could only afford a trip to the new world through a compulsory obligation. Only when the standard of living in England rose significantly around 1660 did the transfer of black slaves from Africa to the colonies begin.

In 1776 the thirteen colonies broke away from Great Britain after some unrest and declared their independence . After several years of war against the troops of the British Crown, the latter had to admit defeat in the Treaty of Paris in 1783 . The colonies were recognized as a sovereign state and at the same time received the area between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. This treaty finally secured the existence of the United States of America . However, the Canadian lands remained under the sovereignty of the British monarch.

Spain and Russia on the North American west coast

→ See also: Russian America , New Spain

The west of North America remained unknown to Europeans for a very long time. The Spanish had explored the west coast from Mexico to Oregon in the 17th century ; However, their findings were very incomplete; for example, it was only proven after 1700 that Baja California was not an island.

Around this time reports reached Russia that there was still more unexplored land east of the Kamchatka Peninsula . The Cossack Semyon Deshnev had already sailed around the Eastern Cape of the peninsula in 1648, but his report had not reached the Tsar's court in St. Petersburg. Tsar Peter I sent the Dane Vitus Bering on an expedition in 1724 , on which he found the Bering Strait named after him , but it wasn't until 1741 that it landed on the coast of Alaska . Reports from his sailors about fur animals - he himself had perished on the way back - attracted many settlers to Alaska, who founded a few bases on the south coast there and oppressed the local natives. Alaska was finally sold to the USA in 1867 as the tsarist empire suffered from a growing lack of money.

The Spaniards took possession of the California coast from around 1750. They were driven to do so by reports of Russian and British activity in the area. Here, for the first time, they also advanced across the valleys inland. Important city foundations of this period are Los Angeles (1781), San Francisco (1792), San Diego (1834) and Sacramento (1848). These Spanish, and from 1823 then Mexican, areas came to the USA in 1848 after the Mexican-American War .

The expansion in Oceania

Explorations by European explorers until 1812

1606 Willem Jansz

1606 Luiz Váez de Torres

1616 Dirk Hartog

1619 Frederick de Houtman

1644 Abel Tasman

1696 Willem de Vlamingh

1699 William Dampier

1770 James Cook

1797-1799 George Bass

1801-1803 Matthew Flinders

→ See also: History of Oceania

Practically all exploration trips in the Pacific were aimed at the discovery of the legendary Terra Australis . In the 16th century it was the Spaniards who first found a way from Mexico to the Philippines, which, however, could not be traveled in the opposite direction due to the adverse wind conditions. So their main concern was to find this sea route, which was accomplished by Andrés de Urdaneta and Alonso de Arellano almost simultaneously. As a result, other Spaniards discovered many archipelagos in the Pacific, but without finding the assumed southern continent. Australia was finally discovered by the Dutch in 1606 but was not recognized as a continent. The European researchers explored almost the entire coastline of " New Holland " - with the exception of the east coast, which would have been economically viable as the only stretch of coast. As a result, the Dutch East India Company decided to stop the exploration trips, which obviously could not open up any new markets.

They were only taken up again after the Seven Years' War, but this time with a much more scientific character. Abel Tasman and James Cook roughly measured the vast land mass of Australia in the 17th and 18th centuries. Only after reports from the east coast did the British Parliament decide to set up some penal colonies in the southeast , the first of which was Sydney in 1788 . These settlements also had the purpose of protecting the shipping routes in the South Seas from the French. With the other European powers seemingly showing no interest in the vast area, the whole continent was annexed by Great Britain in 1829.

Reasons for the technical superiority of the Europeans

The different degrees of influence on the indigenous people may be due to the respective technical situation of the peoples. Since the cultures of Africa and America were inferior in this respect to the inhabitants of Eurasia , it was easy for the Europeans to subdue the local peoples and to oblige them to perform forced labor. Since most of them did not live in larger states but in smaller tribes, organized military resistance was hardly possible; In addition to these factors in Africa, there is the immense linguistic diversity of the tribes there, which also caused difficulties in communicating with one another. In East and South Asia, on the other hand, they had gone through a technical development that could well be on par with that of Europe. The Europeans consequently did not have enough power to subjugate and directly control local peoples and states. As a rule, they took advantage of signs of weakness, as in the case of the Indian Mughal Empire or the Chinese Empire , but direct rule could only be achieved in the age of imperialism in the 19th century, when Europe's technical lead was achieved through the industrial revolution had become big enough and made such a development possible.

The relationship between Europeans and locals

The indigenous peoples in the areas conquered by the Europeans or at least culturally influenced, sometimes suffered completely different fates. The European conquerors and settlers wiped entire cultures off the map in America, enslaved the original inhabitants of the occupied areas and forced them to work on the plantations and in the mines. Most of the Indios were not used to the harsh working conditions and were carried away by the thousands by them and the diseases brought in from Europe. This prompted the Europeans to import and use slaves from Africa. Many of the African slaves already died from the unbearable conditions on the ships, many more succumbed to hard physical labor as well as disease and malnutrition. For the colonists, importing new slaves was always cheaper than supplying the existing slave population. Critical voices like that of Bartolomé de las Casas , who protested against the enslavement of the Indians, only helped to overcome the cruelest traits of slavery.

In East Asia, where the Europeans did not manage to rule a territorially closed area until the 19th century, except in India, the peoples were influenced by European culture, which often undermined the administrative and economic structure of the states there. These defended themselves more or less successfully, be it through war (like China ) or self-imposed isolation (like Japan during the Edo period ). In Asia, most of the peoples were able to assert their culture against the Europeans. In America and Africa, on the other hand, native cultures have been almost completely uprooted. The Abyssinian Empire is an exception in Africa .

See also

• Neocolonialism
• War of Independence

literature

For expansion in general

• Thomas Beck: Columbus' heirs. European Expansion and Overseas Ethnic Groups in the First Colonial Age, 1415–1815. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1992, ISBN 3-534-11872-3 .
• Urs Bitterli (ed.): The discovery and conquest of the world. Documents and reports. 2 volumes. Beck, Munich 1980–1981, ISBN 3-406-07881-8 (Vol. 1), ISBN 3-406-07954-7 (Vol. 2).
• Ronald Daus : The Invention of Colonialism. Hammer, Wuppertal 1983, ISBN 3-87294-202-6 .
• Andreas Eckert : Colonialism (= Fischer 15351 Fischer compact ). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-596-15351-4 .
• Jörg Fisch : European expansion and international law. The disputes about the status of the overseas territories from the 15th century to the present (= contributions to colonial and overseas history. Vol. 26). Steiner, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-515-04056-0 .
• Michael Kraus, Hans Ottomeyer (ed.): Novos mundos. New worlds. Portugal and the Age of Discovery. Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2007.
• Frédéric Mauro: The European expansion (= Scientific Paperbacks, Social and Economic History. 17). Steiner-Verlag-Wiesbaden-GmbH, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-515-03879-5 .
• Jürgen Osterhammel : Colonialism. History - Forms - Consequences (= Beck'sche series 2002 knowledge ). 4th edition. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-39002-1 .
• Wolfgang Reinhard : The submission of the world. Global history of European expansion 1415–2015. Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-68718-1 .
• Wolfgang Reinhard: History of European Expansion . 4 volumes. Stuttgart 1983–1990.
• Eberhard Schmitt (Ed.): Documents on the history of European expansion. 7 volumes. Beck, Munich 1984.

At the beginning of European expansion

• Serge Gruzinski : dragon and feather snake. Europe's reach for America and China in 1519/20. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2014.
• Alfred Kohler : New World Experiences. A story of the sixteenth century. Aschendorff, Münster 2014.
• Heinz Schilling : 1517. One year world history. CH Beck, Munich 2017.
• Hugh Thomas: Rivers of Gold. The Rise of the Spanish Empire. London 2003 (ND New York 2005).
• Hugh Thomas: The Golden Empire. Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America. New York 2010.
• Hugh Thomas: World Without End. Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire. New York 2014.

To expand in Africa

• Fernand Salentiny: The Spice Route. The discovery of the sea route to Asia. Portugal's rise to become the first European sea and trading power. DuMont, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-7701-2743-9 .
• Ulrich van der Heyden : Red eagles on Africa's coast. The Brandenburg-Prussian colony Großfriedrichsburg in West Africa. 2nd, modified edition. Selignow, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-933889-04-9 .
• Bruce Vandervort: Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830-1914. New York 1998.

For expansion in Asia

• Hans Beelen: Trading with New Worlds. The United East India Company of the Netherlands 1602–1798 (= writings of the State Library Oldenburg. 37). Holzberg, Oldenburg 2002, ISBN 3-87358-399-2 (exhibition catalog of the Oldenburg State Library, October 17 - November 30, 2002).
• Michel Beurdeley: Porcelain from China "Compagnie des Indes". Bruckmann, Munich 1962.
• Peter Feldbauer: Estado da India. The Portuguese in Asia 1498–1620 (= expansion, interaction, acculturation. Vol. 3). Mandelbaum, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85476-091-4 (and Magnus Verlag, Essen 2005, ISBN 3-88400-435-2 ).
• Gerhard Fouquet : From the sea to the land. India 1502 from the perspective of a German traveler. In: Stephan Conermann, Jan Kusber (Eds.): Studia Eurasiatica. Kiel festschrift for Hermann Kulke on his 65th birthday (= Asia and Africa. Vol. 10). EB-Verlag, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-930826-99-2 , pp. 71-95.
• Gernot Giertz (Ed.): Vasco da Gama. The Discovery of the Sea Route to India, 1497–1499. Edition Erdmann, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-86539-822-2 .
• Philippe Haudrère, Gérard le Bouëdec: Les Compagnies des Indes. Éditions Ouest-France, Rennes 1999, ISBN 2-7373-2169-7 .
• W. Bruce Lincoln: The Conquest of Siberia. Piper, Munich et al. 1996, ISBN 3-492-03441-1 .
• Pius Malekandathil: The Germans, the Portuguese and India (= Periplus Parerga. Vol. 6). Lit, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-8258-4350-5 .
• Gudrun Ziegler: The eighth continent. The conquest of Siberia. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-550-07612-6 .

For expansion in America

• Frank Bardelle: Privateer in the Caribbean Sea. On the emergence and social transformation of a historical “marginal movement”. Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster 1986, ISBN 3-924550-20-4 (At the same time: Münster, University, dissertation, 1986: The privateer being in the Caribbean Sea in the 16th, 17th centuries. ).
• Urs Bitterli : The “savages” and the “civilized”. Basics of an intellectual and cultural history of the European-overseas encounter. 3. Edition. Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-35583-8 .
• Alfred W. Crosby : Ecological imperialism. The biological expansion of Europe, 900-1900. Reprinted edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994, ISBN 0-521-32009-7 .
• John Hemming: The Conquest of the Incas. Pan Books, London 2004, ISBN 0-330-42730-X .
• Felix Hinz: "Hispanization" in New Spain 1519–1568. Transformation of collective identities of Mexica, Tlaxkalteken and Spaniards (= series of publications studies on historical research of the modern age. Vol. 45). 3 volumes. Kovač, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-8300-2070-8 (also: Cologne, University, dissertation, 2004).
• Wolfram zu Mondfeld: blood, gold and honor. The conquistadors conquer America. Bertelsmann, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-570-02073-8 .
• Teresa Pinheiro: Appropriation and Rigidity. The construction of Brazil and its inhabitants in Portuguese eyewitness reports 1500–1595 (= contributions to colonial and overseas history. Vol. 89). Steiner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08326-X (also: Paderborn, University, dissertation, 2002).
• Hans Pohl : The economy of Hispanic America in the colonial period (1500-1800) (= Scientific Paperbacks. 25). Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-05518-5 .
• Claudia Schnurmann : Europe meets America. Atlantic economy in the early modern period 1492–1783 (= Fischer 60127). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-596-60127-4 .
• Hugh Thomas : The Conquest of Mexico. Cortés and Montezuma. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-10-078003-5 .
• Tzvetan Todorov : The Conquest of America. The problem of the other (= Edition Suhrkamp. 1213 = NF 213). 8. Pressure. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-11213-9 .
• Howard Zinn : A History of the American People. Volume 2: Declaration of Independence, Revolution and the Rebellion of Women. Schwarzerfreitag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-937623-52-3 .

To expand in Oceania

• James Cook: Exploring the Pacific. The logs of the journeys from 1768 to 1779. Edited by A. Grenfell Price. 4th edition. Edition Erdmann in Thienemanns Verlag, Stuttgart et al. 1983, ISBN 3-522-61040-7 .
• Stuart Macintyre: A Concise History of Australia. 3rd edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-73593-3 .

Web links

• Introduction of the University of Münster for European expansion in the early modern period

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Schweer: Keyword natural religions. Heyne, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-453-08181-1 . P. 8.
2. ↑ Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaur's New Historical World Atlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 140.
3. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 184.
4. ↑ Peter Feldbauer: From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic: The medieval beginnings of European expansion . Oldenbourg, Munich 2001.
5. ↑ Jeffrey B. Russell: The Myth of the Flat Earth . American Scientific Affiliation. Retrieved March 14, 2007.
6. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 184 f.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 185.
8. ↑ Ronald Daus: The Invention of Colonialism . Hammer, Wuppertal 1983, p. 33.
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaurs Neuer Historischer Weltatlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 155.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaurs Neuer Historischer Weltatlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 162.
11. ↑ Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaur's New Historical World Atlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 163.
12. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 190.
13. ↑ Ronald Daus: The Invention of Colonialism . Hammer, Wuppertal 1983, p. 62 f.
14. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 300.
15. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 310.
16. ↑ ^{a b} Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 312.
17. ↑ Ronald Daus: The Invention of Colonialism . Hammer, Wuppertal 1983, p. 108 f.
18. ↑ ^{a b c} Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaurs Neuer Historischer Weltatlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 156.
19. ↑ Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaur's New Historical World Atlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 172.
20. ↑ Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaur's New Historical World Atlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 168.
21. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, pp. 328-332.
22. ↑ Around 1700 about 115 million people lived in Europe, see: Cipolla, Borchardt: Population history of Europe, Middle Ages to Modern Times . Munich 1971, p. 80 f. In China about 125 million, see: Spence, D. Jonathan: Chinas Weg zu Moderne . Munich 2001, p. 154.
23. ↑ ^{a b c} Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 315.
24. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 317.
25. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 96.
26. ↑ ^{a b} Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 319.
27. ↑ Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaur's New Historical World Atlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 170.
28. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 320.
29. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 116.
30. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 126.
31. ↑ ^{a b} Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaurs Neuer Historischer Weltatlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 158.
32. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 363.
33. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 364.
34. ↑ ^{a b c} Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 365.
35. ↑ Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaur's New Historical World Atlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 144 f.
36. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 258.
37. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 270.
38. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 276.
39. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 241.
40. ↑ ^{a b} Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 304.
41. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 302.
42. ↑ Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaur's New Historical World Atlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 198.
43. ↑ Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 305.
44. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 232.
45. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 202.
46. ↑ ^{a b c} Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 306.
47. ↑ ^{a b} Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaurs Neuer Historischer Weltatlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 151.
48. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 218.
49. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 221.
50. ↑ ^{a b} Geoffrey Parker (Ed.): The Times - Great Illustrated World History . Orac, Vienna 1995, p. 308.
51. ↑ ^{a b c d} Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaurs Neuer Historischer Weltatlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 160.
52. ↑ Geoffrey Barraclough, Geoffrey Parker (ed.): Knaur's New Historical World Atlas . Weltbild, Augsburg 1999, p. 153.
53. ^ Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): World history in 12 volumes . Volume 9. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1996, p. 235.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on September 11, 2006 .