A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule.[1] [2] Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, the rule remains separate to the original country of the colonizers, the metropolitan state (or "mother country"), which together have often been organized as colonial empires, particularly with the development of modern imperialism and its colonialism. This coloniality and possibly colonial administrative separation, while often blurred,[2] makes colonies neither annexed or integrated territories nor client states. Colonies contemporarily are identified and organized as not sufficiently self-governed dependent territories. Other past colonies have become either sufficiently incorporated and self-governed, or independent, with some to a varying degree dominated by remaining colonial settler societies or neocolonialism.
The term colony originates from the ancient Roman, a type of Roman settlement. Derived from colonus (farmer, cultivator, planter, or settler), it carries with it the sense of 'farm' and 'landed estate'.[3] Furthermore the term was used to refer to the older Greek apoikia, which were overseas settlements by ancient Greek city-states. The city that founded such a settlement became known as its metropolis ("mother-city"). Since early-modern times, historians, administrators, and political scientists have generally used the term "colony" to refer mainly to the many different overseas territories of particularly European states between the 15th and 20th centuries CE, with colonialism and decolonization as corresponding phenomena.
While colonies often developed from trading outposts or territorial claims, such areas do not need to be a product of colonization, nor become colonially organized territories. Territories furthermore do not need to have been militarily conquered and occupied to come under colonial rule and to be considered de-facto colonies, instead neocolonial exploitation of dependency or imperialist use of power to intervene to force policy, might make a territory be considered a colony, which broadens the concept, including indirect rule or puppet states (contrasted by more independent types of client states such as vassal states). Subsequently some historians have used the term informal colony to refer to a country under a de facto control of another state. Though the broadening of the concept is often contentious.
The word "colony" comes from the Latin word Latin: [[Colonia (Roman)|colōnia]], used for ancient Roman outposts and eventually for cities. This in turn derives from the word Latin: [[Colonus (person)|colōnus]], which referred to a Roman tenant farmer.
Settlements that began as Roman Latin: coloniae include cities from Cologne (which retains this history in its name) to Belgrade to York. A telltale sign of a settlement within the Roman sphere of influence once being a Roman colony is a city centre with a grid pattern.[4]
See main article: List of colonies.
See also: Timeline of national independence.
Angola: a colony of Portugal from the 16th century to its independence in 1975.
Australia was formed as a British Dominion in 1901 from a federation of six distinct British colonies which were founded between 1788 and 1829.
Barbados: was a colony of Great Britain that was important in the Atlantic slave trade. It gained its independence in 1966.
Brazil: a colony of Portugal since the 16th century. Independent since 1822.
Canada: was colonized first by France as New France (1534–1763) and England (in Newfoundland, 1582) then under British rule (1763–1867), before achieving Dominion status and losing "colony" designation.
Ghana: Contact between Europe and Ghana (known as the Gold Coast) began in the 15th century with the arrival of the Portuguese. This soon led to the establishment of several colonies by European powers: Portuguese Gold Coast (1482–1642), Dutch Gold Coast (1598–1872), Swedish Gold Coast (1650–1663), Danish Gold Coast (1658–1850), Brandenburger and Prussian Gold Coast (1685–1721) and British Gold Coast (1821–1957). In 1957, Ghana was the first African colony south of the Sahara to become independent.
Greenland was a colony of Denmark-Norway from 1721 and was a colony of Denmark from 1814 to 1953. In 1953 Greenland was made an equal part of the Danish Kingdom. Home rule was granted in 1979 and extended to self-rule in 2009. See also Danish colonization of the Americas.
Guinea-Bissau: a colony of Portugal since the 15th century. Independent since 1974.
Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands gained full independence in 1949.[5]
Jamaica was part of the Spanish West Indies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It became an English colony in 1655 and; independence in 1962.
Liberia a colony set up in 1821 by American private citizens for the migration of African American freedmen. Liberian Declaration of Independence from the American Colonization Society on 26 July 1847. It is the second oldest black republic in the world after Haiti.
Malaysia was initially colonized by the Portuguese Empire in 1511 after capturing Malacca.[6] After 1511, Britain established colonies and trading ports on the Malay Peninsula; Penang was leased to the British East India Company. The Dutch Empire encountered Malaysia when it was looking for spices to trade with.[7]
Malta was a British protectorate and later a colony from the French Revolutionary Wars in 1800 to independence in 1964.
Mozambique: a colony of Portugal since the 15th century. Independent since 1975.
Philippines, previously a colony of Spain from to 1898 as part of the Spanish East Indies, was a colony of the United States from 1898 to 1946. Achieved self-governing Commonwealth status in 1935; independent in 1946.
Puerto Rico was a colony of Spain from 1493 to 1898, when it passed to be a colonial possession of the United States,[8] [9] [10] classified by the United States as "an unincorporated territory".[11] In 1914, the Puerto Rican House of Delegates voted unanimously in favor of independence from the United States, but this was rejected by the U.S. Congress as "unconstitutional" and in violation of the U.S. 1900 Foraker Act.[12] In 1952, after the US Congress approved Puerto Rico's constitution, its formal name became "Commonwealth of Puerto Rico", but its new name "did not change Puerto Rico's political, social, and economic relationship to the United States."[13] [14] That year, the United States advised the United Nations (UN) that the island was a self-governing territory.[15] The United States has been "unwilling to play in public the imperial role... it has no appetite for acknowledging in a public way the contradictions implicit in frankly colonial rule."[16] The island has been called a colony by many,[17] including US Federal judges,[18] US Congresspeople,[19] [20] the Chief Justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court,[21] and numerous scholars.[22]
South Africa consisted of territories and colonies by various African and European powers, including the Dutch and the British, and the Nguni. The territory consisting of the modern nation was ruled directly by the British from 1806 to 1910; became a self-governing dominion of Union of South Africa in 1910.
Sri Lanka: a British colony from 1815 to 1948. Known as Ceylon. Was a British Dominion until 1972. Also a Portuguese colony in the 16th–17th centuries, and a Dutch colony in the 17th–18th centuries.
United States was formed from a union of thirteen British colonies. The Colony of Virginia was the first of the thirteen colonies. All thirteen declared independence in July 1776 and expelled the British governors.The Special Committee on Decolonization maintains the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories, which identifies areas the United Nations (though not without controversy) believes are colonies. Given that dependent territories have varying degrees of autonomy and political power in the affairs of the controlling state, there is disagreement over the classification of "colony".