The British Colonial Empire
The British Colonial Empire… The empire on which the sun never sets…
Although the British, who can be called the elder brother of overseas colonialism, started their first exploitation activities after Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, it went down in history as the empire, with the largest colonial lands. So how did the British turn from an island state, to an empire with endless lands, on which the sun never sets? Let’s examine this together…
Until the 15th century, Europe had followed a largely introverted policy, and was often preoccupied with the devastating wars, between France and the British. However, after the 15th century, it had to open up to the outside world, to increase its population and gain new economic gains. The invention and widespread use of the printing press, gunpowder, and the compass in this period, led European states, especially Spain and Portugal, to the open seas. Cueta made history as the first place to be colonized in 1415, while European sailors left their first overseas footprints in Ceuta, in north Africa. Over time, the new lands discovered by the Portuguese and Spaniards through colonialism, and the cheap labor they obtained, began to whet the appetite of the British. Thereupon, from the end of the 15th century, the British sailed to the seas, and started overseas colonial activities.
The first overseas voyage began in 1496, when King Henry VII, commissioned a sailor named Giovanni Caboto to find a route from the North Atlantic to Asia. Reaching the coast of Newfoundland, which is on the borders of today’s Canada, in 1497 with a ship of 5 pieces, Caboto did not attempt to establish any colony there. Caboto, who stayed here for a year, turned to exploration again the next year, but he was never heard from again.
After this incident, the British, who did not engage in any overseas activities for a long time, returned to the seas with the accession of Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth, who wanted to take her share in the colonial world, sent the sailor Martin Frobisher, on an expedition to the vast lands beyond the Atlantic Ocean in 1576. After a one-year voyage, Martin landed on the island of Baffin in Northeast America in 1577 and seized it in the name of Queen Elizabeth. However, due to the cold climate of the region and the fact that almost half of the island was covered with ice, he left here in a short time. After continuing to wander around the region, Frobisher, who reached Greenland, seized it in the name of the queen but had to leave the region in a short time for the same reasons. In 1580, the first colonization movements in North America were initiated, this time under the leadership of an English sailor named Walter Raleigh. After a difficult journey, Walter, who set foot in the lands of today’s North Carolina, founded the first British colony, which he named “Virginia” in honor of Queen Elizabeth I. However, this colony had a very short lifespan. The colony, which had supply problems due to the long distance from the English mainland and the naval wars with the Spanish, was completely evacuated in the middle of 1590. Thus, the first colonial adventure of the British failed.
While the British continued their colonization activities on the American front, on the other hand, they continued their search for colonies in Asia. There was one place in particular that whetted the appetite of the English, as well as the Portuguese and Dutch. India! This large central Asian region was adorning the colonial dreams of all European states, both with its wealth and because it was the starting point of the spice trade.
In 1600, a few merchants, supported by Queen Elizabeth, set off with a letter written by the Queen’s hand, and set off for the Mughal empire, which dominated most of India. The merchants persuaded the 3rd Mughal emperor Akbar Shah and started the activities of the British East India Company on 31 December 1600. The company created a trade bridge between India and England, thanks to the concessions it obtained from both the queen and the Mughal empire. The company, which subsequently expanded its dominance to the East Indies, the Malay Peninsula, and Java in 1601, established its first permanent trade center on the island of Java in 1602. When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, although England was not a significant colonial territory, she left a good colonial plan for her successor, James I. James I, who ascended the British throne in 1603, and immediately ended the naval wars with the Spaniards. He then accelerated his colonial activities in North America.
The first permanent English colony in the Americas was established in 1607 at Jamestown, in what is now Virginia. Although the population of the town of Jamestown, which was established with 300 people taken by ships from London, increased to 14 thousand in a short time, it fell to 1200 after 1 year due to Indian raids and diseases. The second settlement, founded by the English in 1609, was Henrico, a little north of Jamestown. Although Guiana Colony, which was established in South America in the same year, went down in history as the first colonial land of the English in South America, they lost these lands to the Dutch in a short time. From this date on, the British, who focused on colonization activities in North America, expanded their colony lands until 1750 and became significant landowners.
While these were happening in America, the British, who had good relations with the Mughal Empire in India, established trade centers in Bengal and Bihar after India.
According to the British, the only nation that could pose a danger to them in the Indian geography was the Dutch, who came before them and knew well how the trade was going in the region. Dutch traders were selling the region’s products at better prices than British traders, and British traders were unable to break the Dutch hegemony in the Indian Ocean. However, this would soon change.
In 1651, the British published a bill under the name of the Act of Navigation, and according to this law, other state companies were prohibited from trading in the British colonies. This arrangement was seen by the Dutch as a deliberate blow to shipping. Thus, while entering the period of naval wars to be experienced between the two states, both sides could not achieve success in the three naval wars between 1652 and 1672. In this period when the two colonial states were fighting each other, a new rival joined the power struggle in India. This rival was France, under the name of the “French East India Company”. The French company became the new rival of the English by building a factory in Surat in 1668 and Calcutta in 1690. However, thanks to the strong relations with the Mughal Empire over the years, the Mughal ruler of the time, Alamgir Shah, gave the British East India Company the right to use the lands of several villages in Calcutta and Madrasa. Thus, the British acquired the first colonial territories in India, even within the borders of the Mughal Empire.
After the death of the Mughal ruler Alemgir Shah in 1707, while there was a vacuum of authority in the Indian lands, the governors began to act independently against the central government. During this internal turmoil, the officers of the British East India Company formed their military unit, consisting of Indian soldiers, which they trained in need of protection. This military force, which was initially established for defensive purposes, would lead to the seizure of Indian lands by the British in the following years. This brought the French against the British, who were trying to establish a strong Indian company in the region. However, the rivalry between France and England was not limited to Indian geography; As a matter of fact, the colonies of both states in North America were a matter of debate in terms of borders. Even though England was transferring people to its colonies in North America due to its increasing population on the mainland, after a while it started to be insufficient in the colonies it had. For this reason, it started to expand its territory towards the inner parts of North America, causing the French and British armies to come face to face.
In 1755, the British army under General Boscawen destroyed a French battalion in the Ohio Valley. This event led to the outbreak of the 7 Years War, which started between France and England and was later joined by Prussia, Austria, and Russia.
While Austria took Russia and Sweden to its side and formed an alliance against Prussia, England allied with Prussia against France. The British first gained the upper hand in North America by taking Ohio in 1757, Quebec in 1759, and Montreal in 1760 from the French. Then, in 1763, the British invaded French-controlled Bengal, completely ending French rule in India. With the Treaty of Paris signed between England and France on February 10, 1763, the French left all of their colonies in North America and India to England, thus the British doubled their colonial lands in America.
However, when the British tried to cover the economic damage they suffered during the Seven Years’ War with the additional taxes they brought to their colonies in North America, the British colonies in the Americas united and rebelled, causing the war of independence.
While an American congress was held in 1774, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, the colonies decided that taxes could only be possible with the laws prepared by them. The American War of Independence, which started in 1775, ended with the defeat of the British in 1783. While the independence of the United States of America was officially accepted with the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783, the British lost all their colonies except Canada as a result of this agreement. Fortunately, the British, who made a breakthrough in colonialism, quickly found new ones to replace the lands they lost. The British, who set foot in Africa in 1784, established their first colony on this continent in the Gambia. In addition, the east coast of Australia, which was discovered by the British navigator James Cook in 1790, was quickly colonized by the British. Thus, England became a giant empire that ruled over 6 continents.
During the Coalition wars, the British continued their expansion by annexing French-controlled Trinidad-Tobago, Dutch-controlled Guyana, and Sri Lanka in 1793. In addition, the British, who took the opportunity of the Mughal empire, which was experiencing internal turmoil, to ask for help from them, continued its expansion in these lands by taking control of half of India, thanks to the army established by the East India Company.
The British East India Company, which started commercial activities in China after India, has been doing opium trade with China since the 1730s. However, when China banned the Opium trade in 1839, the First Opium War broke out between the Europeans and China. The East India Company, which profited from this war, occupied the Hong Kong region, which was the rich commercial center of China.
Although the East India Company was responsible for the Asian activities of England, some arrangements were made for the company from the end of the 18th century. In particular, some laws were enacted, such as the Charter Act of 1813, which established the dominance of the British royal administration in the lands under the control of the company. In 1857, while the revolt of Indian soldiers, who were dependent on the British, spread to all of India, the existence of the Company was terminated by England, and all of India, Burma, and Malaysia came under the rule of England. As soon as the British government took control of India, a government-appointed governor-general began to rule India, and Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India.
While these were happening in Asia, the British annexed the entire island of Australia until 1850. It also made another landing on the African island and colonized South Africa, Sierra Leone, and Ghana. As for the Americas, it expanded its territory in North America and dominated all lands east of Alaska and north of the United States. It also colonized Jamaica and Belize and did not neglect to plant the British flag in Central America.
In 1869, the opening of the Suez Canal, which was very important in terms of maritime transportation in Egypt, caused the British to accelerate its African activities. Although the British initially opposed the construction of the Suez Canal, they realized the strategic value of the region when they saw the profit from the canal. In 1875, the British government bought the 44% share of the Egyptian governor, Ismail Pasha, in the Suez Canal for 4 million pounds. This situation suddenly made the British influence in the region. While these were happening in Africa, the start of the 1877–78 Ottoman-Russian war in Europe was a development that closely concerned England. After the Ottoman Empire lost this war, which was called the ’93 War, Sultan Abdulhamid left the island of Cyprus under the auspices of England on the condition that the Ottomans be supported against the Russians. This situation was planned by the British. The British, who made Cyprus a base, landed troops in North Africa in 1882 and completely occupied Egypt. In this way, the British would not only be able to advance into the interior of Africa, but also easily reach the lands of the Middle East that they coveted. Although the Suez Canal was the reason why the British gave so much importance to Africa at first, economic reasons were also involved due to the cheap labor, gold, and precious stones that the French obtained from Africa. Continuing their expansion in Africa until World War I, the British acquired many new colonies from Sudan to East Africa, from Somalia to Rhodesia, and from Nigeria to Togo. It also set foot on the Arabian Peninsula and added the so-called armistice states to its colonial territory.
When World War I broke out, the majority of the soldiers that made up the British army were, indigenous peoples in the British colonies. This meant a land force of about 3 million people. During the days when the war was in full swing, the French and the British made a secret agreement and divided the Middle Eastern lands to be won from the Ottoman state. While this agreement entered into force after the victory of the war in 1918, Britain added countries with significant oil reserves such as Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq to the lands of the colonial kingdom. Thus, the British Empire reached the largest territory in its history in 1918.
In the period after the 1st World War, England, which started a new structure in Canada, which is its colony on the American continent, first divided the country into an administration consisting of 4 federations. Then, in 1926, it unified these 4 federations and declared that it officially recognized the independence of Canada. Thus, the British left the colonial lands in the North American continent after about 4 centuries.
By 1939, the Second World War, which started with the German attack on Poland, continued with France and England declaring war against Germany. After Germany invaded France in 1940, until the Soviet Union declared war on Germany, Britain fought alone against Nazi Germany.
Although the British were on the winning side as a result of the Second World War, which lasted for about 6 years, the superpower epaulet of the Empire, on which the sun never sets, was removed. The fact that it was defeated in some naval battles with Japan during the Second World War and lost Singapore as a result of the war, was an indication that Britain was no longer as strong as it used to be. The independence uprisings that took place in the colonies after the war, were about to cause disaster for England, which was already coming out of the war with great economic ruin. That’s why British leader Churchill declared that, he could agree to a peaceful separation from his colonies, as long as strong governments were established. The first country to gain independence in this policy was India, which it had seen as the apple of its eye for centuries. India and Pakistan declared their independence from Britain in 1947 and became two separate states. A year later, in 1948, the British announced their withdrawal from Jordan and Palestine. In the same year, Sri Lanka became another country that gained its independence. After this date, like dominoes, Burma in 1949, Sudan in 1956, Ghana in 1957, Cyprus and Nigeria in 1960, Jamaica, Uganda, Trinidad and Tobago in 1962, Malaysia, Tanzania and Kenya in 1963, Zambia in 1964, Guyana, Barbados and Rhodesia in 1966, Yemen in 1967, Lesotho and Swaziland in 1968, Bahrain and Qatar in 1971, Bahamas and Belize in 1973 and Brunei in 1984 gained their independence from Britain.
The last colony to leave the imperial territory was Hong Kong. Hong Kong, a rich commercial city with a population of 3 million, left the UK in 1997 and joined the People’s Republic of China, and the British Colonial Empire became history.
Well, let’s get to the main question. Do you think these countries that gained their independence formed a stable government? Or are the countries that declared independence really independent today? I leave the answers to these questions to you…
