Colonial society
Colonial societies (also colonization societies) were societies with very different purposes and legal forms. Mainly it was about the German colonialism .
After the determination, the following types of society are summarized:
- 1. Organizations for the colonization and government of whole areas
- 2. Societies for emigration and transfer of people to foreign countries
- 3. Companies for agitation purposes
- 4. Companies for the operation of various economic enterprises in colonies, mostly organized as private corporations .
Colonization Organizations
Type 1 is represented by the trading companies such as the British East India Company , the Hudson's Bay Company , the French Compagnie de la Nouvelle France , the Russian-American Company or the Dutch East India Company , which for centuries implemented the colonial policy of their home countries economically, see also East India Company . They were distinguished by the fact that they were not only corporations, but - like the Congo , Benadir or British South Africa Company - exercised sovereign rights (in Mozambique until 1947). In 1894 an International Colonial Institute was founded in Brussels to promote the colonial interests of the great colonial powers. Less well-known examples from Germany are the Deutsche Witu- Gesellschaft or the Deutsche Togogesellschaft .
Societies for emigration
Type 2 societies were numerous in Germany. These included the Association for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas (1840s), the Giessener Emigration Society , the Colonization Association of 1849 in Hamburg , which was continued as the Hanseatic Colonization Society and the South American Colonization Society . In a broader sense, the American Colonization Society also belongs to this type, since it sought the settlement of African Americans in Africa.
Societies for agitation
Type 3 representatives in Germany were the German Colonial Society , the Central Association for Commercial Geography and Promotion of German Interests Abroad (with regional subdivisions), the West German Association for Colonization and Export , the two African associations of the churches, the Nachtigal Society , the Pan-German Association and later the Reichskolonialbund . In Great Britain the Imperial Institute and the Colonial Institute existed , in France the Alliance française and the Comité de l'Afrique française and in Belgium the Association Internationale Africaine .
Private companies
Type 4 included u. a. German corporations ("colonial society " according to the Protected Areas Act ) after the concept of protected areas had failed. These included the German-East African Society , the Rheinische Handeï-Plantagen-Gesellschaft , the Deutsche Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft , the Otavi Mining and Railway Company , the South Cameroon Society , the New Guinea Company and the Jaluit Society and the German Colonial Society for South West Africa . At the beginning of the 20th century there were around 50 such companies in the German colonies, some of which were still traded on the stock exchange in the early years of the Federal Republic . There were also German colonial societies outside the protected areas , such as the German Pondoland Society , which was active in what is now South Africa. Conversely, companies under foreign law existed within the German colonies, such as the South West Africa Company in German South West Africa .
