Arguably, European and African immigration into the New World was facilitated by colonization. Colonization is the process by which communities migrate into and occupy foreign territories. Besides, colonization involves controlling native peoples, their institutions, and traditions. Typically, colonialism and colonization are viewed in a bad light because they constitute armed invasions and disruption of specific quarters’ social, political, and economic structures[1]. Studying colonization remains a crucial basis for understanding the world’s detailed histories and the relations between different societies, cultures, and societies. Indisputably, Western colonialism is the most widely recognized example of colonization. Western colonization links to the invasion, occupation, and exploitation of overseas territories, by European powers including Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and others. In the process and during colonization, the European powers stated above imposed and spread their institutions, political systems, religion, traditions, and cultural ideals on native people from different parts of the world like the Americas, Asia, and Africa[2]. From this perspective, this paper examines European and African migration in the new world, the implications on migrant communities, and the cultural legacies evident in contemporary society.
The exploration and migration processes
According to extensive studies, the Atlantic world denotes the exchanges, interactions, and links between Europe, Africa, and the Americas that commenced in the 15th century. Although the Atlantic Ocean separates these three continents, scholars argue that the ocean brought the above regions closer during the Trans-Atlantic trade[3]. In the 15th century, European economies expanded dramatically with an increasing industry demand for labour. In this situation, European countries explored all possible means of generating wealth through cheap and free labour. During this time, paid labour was unsustainable; thus, slavery emerged as the most suitable solution to the problem. Although most people associate slavery with colonialism, studies assert that slavery existed in the ancient world, even in European societies.
Given that European nations already recognized the numerous benefits of slavery, countries like Portugal and Spain set out to different parts of the world to establish trade links for slaves, minerals, and other resources to boost European industries. At first, European countries captured slaves from different parts of the world and transported them to Europe. Much later, after Western colonialism started in the 17th century, things took a new direction as slaves were captured and channeled to work in overseas colonies like in the Americas and Caribbean. Such trade operations later emerged as the Trans-Atlantic trade. According to Thorton, trade operations in the Atlantic began in the 17th century by shipping slaves, gold, and ivory from West Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean. As the trade intensified, millions of people and goods moved between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Such movement led to the settlement of people in foreign lands as colonizers and slaves. On the other hand, the influx of people into the Americas created new relations between the communities involved.
Europeans
Most studies concerning the impacts of Western colonialism in the Atlantic world point out that Europeans benefitted massively from the affair. Firstly, European countries like Portugal obtained profits from the direct slave trade. In this sense, shipping companies and insurance firms profited before slavery was abolished in the 1800s. Besides the slave trade, European countries utilized slave labour in the colonies to produce raw materials for their industries. For instance, the sugar plantations in Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti emerged as the major sugar-producing territories in the Americas. Besides these, other regions in the United States, like Maryland and Virginia, served as Britain’s tobacco production zones[4]. Although it seems clear that Europe benefitted economically by colonizing the Atlantic world, other scholars argue that the slave trade and colonization drained Europe due to the massive resources spent on slave procurement and transport, armed invasions, and administrative operations. Nonetheless, such an argument is discredited by evidence showing that European trading companies profited and more industries developed at the time[5].
Whether European countries profited or sustained losses in colonizing the New World, it remains evident that colonialism had profound effects on Native American society. Firstly, the Europeans brought a new production system based on extensive farming and a foreign land tenure system that did not resonate with native customs. Besides, European colonizers introduced new plants, animals and finished products that drastically changed the lives of the natives. Throughout the colonial period, the relationship between the Europeans and Native Americans remained considerably contentious. However, as European scientists explored the new world for cures, they discovered that Native Americans had developed traditional remedies for treating various illnesses. Although such remedies were initially disqualified, they later proved effective, and thus, efforts to incorporate them into conventional medicine started. Today, medical researchers in the U.S advocate for traditional Native American approaches in treating historical trauma[6].
Africans
Although Africans are often placed second in the processes that constituted colonization of the Americas, extensive studies assert that they played a central role in the initial stages. Before European nations ventured into the slave trade, indigenous African communities practiced slavery and slave trade as a supplementary economic activity to agriculture and barter trade. For instance, in most communities, condemned offenders and war captives became slaves. When the demand for slaves increased, Africans became part of the global production system that gradually undermined their societies. As Canny and Morgan stated, during the Trans Atlantic slave trade, African rulers conducted slave raids on their perceived enemies and to sell off some of their subjects as slaves in exchange for weapons and finished products. In this way, a portion of Africans facilitated the colonization of the Atlantic world.
The impact of European colonization on Africans is among the widely debated issues in human history. In this light, extensive research agrees that Africans and their societies experienced unimaginable transformation, disruption, and turmoil due to colonization in the Atlantic world. Firstly, the transatlantic slave trade drained Africa’s human resources as the European countries sought more slaves to work in their overseas plantations. According to Hardy, more than 5 million Africans were shipped from West Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean by the 18th century. The massive population loss deprived the continent of a huge workforce, considering that only about 1 million colonizers had settled in the Americas then. On the other hand, African rulers who engaged in the slave trade benefitted considerably because of the high demand for slave labour in the Americas and the preference for African slaves.
Beyond the economic perspective, the European colonization of the Atlantic had numerous adverse social effects on Africans. Firstly, the trans-Atlantic slave trade was incomparably brutal and more harmful than slavery in African societies. For instance, during the Trans-Atlantic trade, thousands of slaves captured from West African territories were chained and loaded into ships for long voyages to the Americas and the Caribbean. Not to mention that they remained chained throughout the journey, African slaves were treated inhumanely, and as a result, some died while most took their own lives by jumping into the sea to escape more suffering. In this sense, about 5 million slaves who left Africa during the Trans-Atlantic trade never arrived in the Americas or other destinations[7]. Once they arrived in the Americas, African slaves communities remained under the strict control of the European colonizers and were subjected to hard labor in the plantations. More importantly, the European settlers in the New World discriminated against Africans and prohibited intermarriages between Africans and other races. This aspect created a deep social divide between the marginalized African slave community and the wealthy White colonizers. Although many years have passed since slavery ended, the disparities and strained relations between the two communities are evident in contemporary society7. For instance, recent studies assert that in the United States, people of African descent receive lower income compared to Whites working in similar positions and organizations[8]. Similarly, African Americans are more likely to get arrested and convicted compared to Whites. Such instances show that the inequality created by slavery still haunts Africans despite their efforts to become a part of American society.
In addition to the suffering and traumatic experiences that Africans underwent in the Atlantic world, it is crucial to note that the trans-Atlantic slave trade adversely disenfranchised the oneness of the African community. As some scholars argue, the impacts of the trans-Atlantic trade and European colonization eroded African unity and promoted violence and brutality as a means of survival within the community[9]. For instance, due to slave raiding, African slaves became increasingly aware that they were vulnerable and could be sold out to other races, even by their people. With this view, no one could be trusted, and thus using violence was necessary even against fellow Africans. Combined with poverty and the hardships associated with poverty, African communities in Africa and those in the new world grew intolerant of one another and the colonizers and became brutal. Although this aspect has nothing to do with the biological, psychological traits, it is evident that the experiences witnessed during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the colonization of the new world exposed Africans to knowledge on violence and brutality. Much later, after the abolishment of slavery, African American communities in the United States were characterized by rampant violence and criminal activities such as drug trafficking and kidnappings. As evidence, recent studies pointed out that some of the cities considered the most violent in the United States have African Americans as the majority community. Such cities include Detroit, Memphis, and Atlanta[10]. Although the colonization of the new world adversely affected Africans from various perspectives, the African slave populations in the new world created new identities based on their indigenous traditions, slavery experiences, and European culture. Such identities have become an essential part of contemporary popular culture.
In my view, there are various ways in which we can acknowledge and explore more concerning the impacts discussed in this paper. Firstly, there is scanty research concerning how European cultures and societies were politically and socially affected by the colonization processes that involved the slave trade, armed invasions, and contact with subjugated communities. Again, while extensive historical studies demonstrate how European colonialism redefined the world and created inequalities, there is little emphasis on how the subjugated societies contributed to their marginalization and domination by European societies. For instance, as scholars analyze how European colonization undermined native societies, they should also explore the role played by the indigenous communities to their detriment.
Reference
Bassett, Deborah, Ursula Tsosie, and Sweetwater Nannauck. “Our culture is medicine”: perspectives of native healers on posttrauma recovery among American Indian and Alaska Native patients.” The Permanente Journal 16, no. 1 (2012): 19.
Canny, Nicholas, and Philip Morgan. The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World: 1450-1850. Oxford University Press, 2011.
Heller, M., & McElhinny, B. (2017). Language, capitalism, colonialism: toward a critical history. University of Toronto Press.
Knapp, Gregory. “The Legacy of European Colonialism.” The Physical Geography of South America: 279.
McFarlane, Anthony. British in the Americas 1480-1815, The. Routledge, 2014.
Milanovic, Branko. “Global income inequality in numbers: In history and now.” Global Policy 4, no. 2 (2013): 198-208.
Phillips, Coretta, Ben Bowling, A. Liebling, S. Maruna, and L. McAra. Ethnicities, racism, crime and criminal justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Thornton, John K. A cultural history of the Atlantic world, 1250-1820. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Young, Crawford. The heritage of colonialism. Routledge, 2018.
[1] Crawford,2012
[2] Heller & McElhinny, 2017
[3] Thorton, 2012
[4] Canny & Morgan, 2011
[5] McFarlane, 2014
[6] Basset et al. 2012
[8] Milanov
[9] Knapp
[10] Philips et al. 2017
