The major stages of European expansion from the 16th to the 20th centuries

De Baripedia


This is a long period, four and a half centuries, so we have to cut out this base period. Our geographical coverage is wide, America, Asia, and Africa.

European colonization sometimes concerns one region and sometimes another. For example, European colonization in America lasts from the beginning of the 16th century until the beginning of the 19th century. On the other hand, the last large region to have been subjected to the colonial yoke, i.e. sub-Saharan Africa, lasted from 1890 until the 1960s.

As these are not the same periods, distinctions must be made. It is necessary to set milestones that will serve us for the future, we must put in boxes the phases of major stages and the regions concerned.

In the middle of the 19th century, a very large part of Asia was not under European colonial domination and sub-Saharan Africa was not concerned by colonial domination. Above all, it is necessary to establish a chronology in which chronological and geographical breakdowns appear.

It is also necessary to establish terms of comparison. America is colonized in a certain way, i.e. the phenomenon of European domination takes on particular forms, characteristics specific to a particular moment. We need to isolate them, because the processes are different. It is comparisons that allow us to identify the particularisms and singularities of colonisation.

Sometimes we go out of the cases and take something that is revealing, that evokes something.

Periodization begins at the very end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century. At that time, things happen that have extensions. For historians, the events that count are those that have extensions. We start things at that period because there are two major events at that time that are turning points in the history of humanity.

The first event is the beginning of the 1490s, which is marked by the discovery, or rediscovery, of America by Christopher Columbus on October 12, 1492.

A little later, at the end of the 15th century, on 27 May 1498, Europe discovered that the earth was larger than had been imagined until then. A very large new portion of the planet was added to the known world; this part of America would be colonised in its entirety.

Le contournement de l'Afrique par Vasco de Gama.
Premier voyage (1497-1499).

The second discovery is that, not of a continent, but the eventual discovery of a new sea route. Until 1498, land routes were used to get to Asia. The European deep-sea ships, first Portuguese, made this discovery possible by Vasco de Gama.

European ocean-going ships could not go beyond certain latitudes, but technology, science, and a relentless effort made it possible for Europeans to reach Asia directly into the sea.

All these Asian entities and mainly the Ottoman Empire became a secondary route. This new route allows the transport of goods, of course through this new route Vasco de Gama arrives in an Indian port called Calicut which is a trading centre for spices, which is what the Europeans are looking for.

Columbus is looking for China, looking for glory, maybe he wants to get the glory of the lord, but this adds to the myth of the Eldorado.

These are two major events in the 1490s; Europeans discover and then get their hands on America.

The Europeans manage to circumnavigate Africa by the Cape of Good Hope and reach the subcontinent through the Indian Ocean.

Adam Smith, in Research on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations[7] published in 1776, dedicates a chapter dedicated to colonization, with an appreciation of these two events that we have just recalled, namely that the discovery of America and the discovery of the Route of the Indies by the Cape of Good Hope are the two greatest events in the history of humanity.

It is these two events that opened the European colonial epic from the beginning of the 16th century. These two events open a new era in the history of the New World, in the history of Africa because of the Atlantic slave trade and of course in the history of Asia and Europe.

In the Atlantic basin, men of sandstone or of strength will circulate. On the other hand, through the Cape of Good Hope and a