From Colonization to Exploitation

1. Why do people colonize?

Colonization usually occurs whenever any one or more species populates a new area. Although colonization may be portrayed as a positive thing to the colonizers point of view it can be different from the colonized point of view. Usually the colonizers have taken over and changed a country for better or worse.

By establishing countries, the colonizers gain an advantage, as they are able to have the natural resources and the land itself. While colonizing, both the colonized and the colonizers cultural identity might change a bit or a whole lot. The colonized might adopt/adapt to their new lifestyles and begin to actually utilize it in their everyday life.

There are many reasons why people colonized other countries. Richard Hakluyt justified colonization by stating that its purposes was to “glory God by planting of religion among those infidels” and "The possibility of the enlarging of the dominions of the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, and consequently of her honour, revenues, and of her power by this enterprise." From these two statements we can tell that they mostly colonized as they wanted to spread their religion (Christianity), and to honour the Queen by expanding the nation. He stated that it was important to plant Christian religion and to conquer at the same time as many colonizers felt that it was their right to colonize other weaker and poorer countries.

Religion played a huge role in the western part of the world. Most of the people living in the western part were Christians and they did nothing to disobey their religion. Everything revolved around religion as the people thought it was their duty to keep the religion going. As some of them got the idea that other countries were not in the Christian zone, they thought it was their mission to convert the world to Christianity and to them about God.

However it wasn’t just the religion that made the colonizers (white men) colonize countries. They wanted to fully expand their nation, as to have more power. Countries who had a lot of power were more recognized in the 1900’s and in the western part of the world; they were competing against each other for land. Countries, who had the power to conquer, usually benefited from the land, resources and the trades. 

2. Explain how the reasons behind colonization lead to exploitation.

Exploitation is defined as make full use of and deriving benefit from something or someone. In many circumstances, the colonized were exploited from the colonizers. The colonizers usually took advantage of the colonized and, the colonized usually had to satisfy the colonizers.

Leopold II was one of the Kings who abused his power and amassed a huge fortune exploiting the Congo. At first Leopold just colonized Congo. Then he began to take advantage of the fact that he was stronger than the natives and treated the Congo citizens like dirt. He treated the natives like slaves and encouraged the Spain citizens to exploit the fact that the natives were the servants of Spain. The resources (mostly ivory) were sold or mostly given to the Spain in a very cheap price, resulting in the downfall of economics in Congo. He also killed, and kidnapped the natives as slaves to other countries and raped women threatening them to do whatever they could to please the men. Most of the citizens were living in very harsh and poor conditions, but nobody helped them. The males were forced to work in harsh conditions, and not getting any food or shelter, Leopard held the wives and children as captives until they returned back with their ivory quota. Those who refused or failed to supply enough ivory had their children murdered, their wives raped and their hands cut off. Currently the death tolls vary from investigators as they support different explanations. The Encyclopedia Britannica gives a total population of death of 8 million to 30 million. 

"I believe that the moment is come for us to extend our territories. I think that we must lose no time, under penalty of seeing the few remaining good positions seized upon by more enterprising nations than our own.” This was stated by Leopard II, which tells us that all he wanted to do was to conquer. We can tell that he was only looking for the benefits of resources and not thinking about how to communicate effectively. In the historical cartoon above, a Congo man is strangling to death by Leopard II who has transformed its body to a big strong snake. This picture portrays the actions done by the Spanish very well as this is what really happened. The Congo man is probably strangling to death just because he didn’t meet the will of Leopold. This picture represents every Congo man who had to go through the terrible memories.

Another case of exploitation would be the Aboriginals. When the British colonized Australia, the Aboriginals were treated like slaves. The British men raped women, took away their child [The Stolen Generation] and once again gained benefit from their natural resources. Although the British Government justified in saying that it was for the half-caste’s own benefit, most of the Aboriginal kids sent to foster homes were either abused or had problems with the parents. Aboriginals who did not satisfy the British were taken away to prison or were sometimes executed using the cruelest ways.

Overall, colonization can usually lead to exploitation and can gain benefit from the fact that one is stronger than the other. It usually leads out to abusing power and then taking all the honour rights the citizens have.