Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/202

* COLONY. 164 COLONY. the position. In the case of a cleruchy, the con- quered territory was divided into parcels and assigned to the poorer citizens by lot. The original inhabitants, though, according to cir- cumstances, dillcrently treated, were generally made dependents of the settlers. The first Athe- nian cleruchy was sent to the land of Chalcis in Euboea, about B.C. .'JOO. It was one of the triumphs of the organizing genius of the Romans to develop the colony to its most perfect form. It was a principle of Roman policy that not only every conquered territory, but every district where Roman citi- zens settled, should be an integral part of the Empire. The colon ia was one of the municipal institutions of the Empire, having its own gov- erning corporation dependent on Rome. There were various grades of colonies — some where there was the high privilege of Roman citizen- ship, and others wlicre the citizenship was of a humbler grade. Corresponding ■ with the con- suls in Rome, there were numicipal officers in the colonies {diniinviri, (juatiiorviri). in whom were preserved, after the Empire was formed, the old republican institutions. The Romans appointed men of very high rank to the govern- ment of their provinces or colonies — men who had held such offices as the consulship or pretor- ship at home. It was a feature of the Roman system to limit their period of government, lest they should l)ecome independent of the Empire and establish separate States. After the fall of Rome, centuries passed be- fore colonization recommenced ; for the various tribes who broke into the Empire were not con- nected with any parent State, and the Normans who spread themselves over Europe at a later period were utterly unconnected, in the coun- tries where they settled, with the government of the northern States whence the.y migrated. When Venice and Genoa were at the height of their power, they sought to advance their com- mercial interests by the establishment of colo- nies in the islands of the Mediterranean and on the shores of the Hellespont and the Black Sea. At the close of the iliddie Ages the Portuguese and Spaniards became the great colonizing na- tions of Europe. Portugal was first in the field, establishing settlements along the western coast of Africa in the fifteenth century. After the roirading of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartholo- meti Dias in 1488, which was followed ten years later bv the voyage of Vasco da Gama. she ex- tended her settlements along the eastern coast and into India, finally penetrating to the islands of the Pacific. The Emperor Charles V., who ruled Spain when at the height of her power, aimed not only at the restoration of the Roman Empire in Europe, but at the creation of a new empire in America. Neither Spain nor Portu- gal followed the policy of developing the agri- cultural resources of the regions which they oc- cupied, but merely used the colonies as a basis of profitable trade with the home country and as an asylum for high-salaried officials. Portu- gal established mere trading factories. The Spanish colonies were chiefly concerned with mining. They were governed by an official hier- archy, under the general direction of an execu- tive department in Spain. The other govern- ments of Europe — Great Britain, France, Hol- land, and the minor States — subsequently colo- nized in America, the East Indies, and Africa. The earlier British colonies arose in the re- verse order to those of Spain — the colonists went hrst, the dignitaries followed. This was espe- cially true of the New England colonies. Be- fore Hi30 the British race had gained a firm foothold in America. The settlers were organ- ized as privileged companies with royal letters patent, which in practice made them virtually independent of the Government at home ; and as they were, for the most part, dissenters seek- ing a place of refuge from what they considered the grievances of the Established Church and the Government, they took care not to convey the grievance with them. The northern colonists, indeed, acted as if they w'ere a sort of private corporation. The policy of Great Britain toward her American colonies was the result of the ac- cepted economic philosophy of the times (see Political Economy), according to which it was thought that the trade with colonies must be strictly confined to the home country. The idea was that the colonies should supply raw mate- rials to the mother country, and in return should purchase from the latter its manufactured prod- ucts. Shi])ping was to be in the hands of the home country. This policy was no more char- acteristic of England than of other European States, and the reason why it encountered such vigorous opposition in the Anglo-American colo- nies was that the latter Avere settled by men who deliberately planned to establish homes in the New 'orld, whereas those who made up the colonies of Spain, Portugal, or France were .seek- ing wealth and prestige with which to reestab- lish their position in Europe. During the eighteenth century Great Britain rose to a. foremost position among colonial pow- ers, and in the nineteenth century she firmly es- tablished her primacy. Rich compensation for the loss of the Thirteen Colonies — a loss which for a time seemed to threaten the dissolution of her empire — was found in the vast realm built up in India and in the flourishing colonies of Canada and Australia. In Africa, which became the principal scene of colonial activity for the European powers in the last quarter of the nine- teenth century. Great Britain holds possession of Ca|)e Colony and the former Boer republics, and of immense tracts of territory in Central and Eastern Africa. Coupled with her pre- dominance in Eg^-pt, this would seem to assure to England a splendid colonial development in the Dark Continent. Spain's colonial empire attained its fullest development in the seven- teenth century, declined in the eighteenth, and disappeared in the nineteenth. The Treaty of Paris, in 1703, deprived France of her posses- sions in America, and put a quiettis on French colonization, Algeria excepted, for more than one hundred years, tintil the statesmen of the Third Repidilic initiated a new policy of ex- pansion in Africa and the Far East. The Dutcli establishments in the East were founded in great part upon the ruins of the colonial power of Portugal. At the time of the French Revolution- ary wars, Holland was shorn of some of her possessions (Ceylon, Cape Colony), which went to increase the colonial domain of Britain. The annals of Dutch dominion in the East Indies have until recent times been the history of a nation seeking to enrich itself at the expense of downtrodden peoples. With the loss of Brazil in 1822, the importance of Portugal as a world-