2 Pre-Colonial Cultural Characteristics and Development

“Colonization” a presentation by Bolaji Komolafe; Mohammed Ali; and Sahro Addow [YouTube]. For personal, educational purposes only. All rights reserved to copyright holders.

Explaining the Two Waves of Colonization

First Wave of Colonization: Age of Discovery

The first wave of colonization started from Europe’s Age of Discovery with the colonization of North and South America in the 15th century by Britain, Spain, France, and Portugal under the motivation of God, Gold, and Glory. “God” stood for the spread of Christianity, “Gold” meant the exploitation of colonized countries’ resources to enrich the European economies, and “Glory” determined the country with the highest conquered colonies. Europeans claimed the discovery of a “New World” in the Caribbean even though Christopher Columbus met the Taíno as most people living on Hispaniola Island now split into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. However, the natives suffered genocide, foreign diseases, and enslavement from the Europeans. (Osman J. 2020, October 11).

Second Wave Of Colonization: The Scramble for Africa

The second wave of colonization called the “Scramble for Africa” happened in the 19th century by Britain, Spain, France, and Portugal. (Osman, J., 2020, October 11). The colonists’ arrival and quest for resource acquisitions in the fifteenth century was due to decline in the slave trade in 1870. The Europeans eliminated and enslaved over twenty million Africans in the sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. There was absolute violence used by Europeans in controlling 90 percent of Africa by 1914. Bloody and peaceful independence struggles resulted in difficult and extensive confrontations with the Europeans in the twentieth century. (World 101, 2022).

Connection of Colonization to Larger Course Themes in Global Perspectives in Community Development Practice

Case Study: Colonization of Turtle Island

First Peoples of Canada were vibrant, splendid, diversified, and with self-sustenance cultures prior to the Europeans invasion. They were orderly and sovereign with their own cultures, economy, government, and policies. They lived in harmony with their natural environment that catered for their food, medicine, clothing, and shelter. (LeMay M., 2022). Indigenous peoples existed as diverse communities with trade networks and trading routes, establishing special treaties with one another. While setting local boundaries, they applied the knowledge of peaceful co-existence with the land they occupied, with power, language, traditions, faith, and habitual recognition. A wampum belt was used to certify coalition and treaties during use of pipe ceremonies. (Manitowabi S.). The Indigenous peoples lived and flourished in the land. They assisted traders to adapt to the environment with their skills and understanding in exchange for beneficial items like guns, metal knives, kettles, and animals like horses. (Kory Wilson K, & Hodgson C., n.d.).

However, the arrival of the first Europeans from Britain and France in the early 1600 to Turtle Island started the colonization of Canada. Upon gaining independence in 1867, treaty obligations, which were agreements entrenched between First Nations as sovereign nations and the Crown were inherited. Moreover, with the Indian Act of 1867, self-governance of the Indigenous nations was limited by Canada and control over Indigenous lands and services were extended. The government was determined to destroy and banish Indigenous identities as confirmed in a statement by Duncan Campbell Scott, Canada’s Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, in 1920. (Government of Canada, 2022, May18).

The Impacts of Colonization of Turtle Island in Relation to Community Development Practice

Colonization was an act of injustice which was criticized by the United Nations. First Nations faced systemic racism and discrimination through laws and policies emanating from the Indian act. (Government of Canada, 2022, May 18). The Indian Residential Schools and the patriarchal systems were enforced. The traditional leadership models were declared illegal, the sixty scoop and the millennium scoop replaced the abolishment of Indian Residential School. Pot Latch and other traditional ceremonies were banned as First Nations lost their sovereignty to colonization. More than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children were lost to the Indian Residential Schools within their over 150 years of operation. The children were separated by violence from the love and affection of their parents and the communities and were dissociated from their Indigenous language, culture, and traditions. They were abused physically and sexually, tortured, and had their identities stolen with the aim of pushing the Indigenous Peoples into extinction which the termed as cultural genocide by the TRC. (NCTR, 2021). Their lands were grabbed, they were pushed into reserves while their relationship with the government was based on the Doctrine of Discovery and the Terra Nullius’s racist principles. Indigenous inherent right, standing agreements and Wampum treaties such as the Two Row Wampum and Covenant Chain Wampum were ignored by the government of Canada. (Thornhill N., 2022). Colonization is the reason behind the social and ecological dilemmas facing the Canadian First Nations. (LeMay M., 2022).

Colonization in Current Society and its Implication for Community Development Practice Locally and Internationally

Colonization impacted Indigenous economies, politics and cultures, traditions and ways of life which were considered inferior while causing ethnic tensions across continents. All colonized nations around the globe suffered similar horrible treatments in the hands of the European colonists. The world today is shaped based on past violence and wickedness resulting from Colonization. The rich nations viewing Black and Indigenous Peoples as unimportant, acquired, and are currently hoarding the global wealth of the lands and resources of the colonized nations. (Osman, J., 2020, October 11). As a result of this exploitation, suffered unequal global development and wealth distribution leading to poverty, unemployment, and health crisis and environmental degradation in most colonized nations.

European colonists’ exploitative policies of mercantilism regulated the colonized countries from trading with other countries and free trade under minor restrictions and negligible tariffs were adopted. (PHILO-notes, 2021, September 17). Furthermore, colonial division of labour and its impacts on colonized nations’ environment, economy, cultures, and ways of life originated from colonization. This system introduced export monoculture which was the production of single crops such as peanuts, coffee, sugar, tea, and rubber that were shipped to Europe to boos their economy. In effect, this system forced Indigenous workers to surrender their handicraft and farms to become plantation labourers at European plantations. (Development and Social Change. A Global Perspective, 2022, pg. 34-35).

The colonization of Turtle Island for example resulted in systemic racism experienced by the first nations cutting across education, health care, judicial and prison systems. The inequalities in attaining post-secondary education by the indigenous people when compared to other Canadians is 8% to 20% respectively. Inequality has been the reason for Indigenous Peoples overrepresentation in correctional system. They have the highest rate of suicide due to traumatic experience from systemic racism and lack of mental health support. The “Sixty scoop” was a continuation of the IRS as Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families and were put on adoption lists or in foster homes. This is causing large number of first Nations children in the child welfare system till date as fifty percent of youth in care as of 2015 in British Columbia were Indigenous. Due to institutional racism, there is increase in infant mortality rates, homelessness, and lower life expectancy due to systemic racism in health care institutions. There is also many missing and murdered Indigenous women while 30% of Canada’s prison inmates are Indigenous. (Government of Canada, 2022 January).

However, colonization in currency society is viewed as an Eurocentric development, a description of human progress and epistemic superiority. It is seen as an industrial revolution where Indigenous lands were grabbed for industrial growth without remuneration causing poverty and health problems. Industrial wastes pollute the air and water and contaminate the soil, deteriorating life’s quality, reducing life expectancy, and causing ecological destruction. Colonization also resulted in globalization with the establishment of the United Nation, World Bank, Industrial Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. The colonial legacy of “veto powers” are enjoyed by the UN countries called the G8 and the Security Council members which are not open to other member countries. (Alam M., 2022). This in effect led to the creation of Export Processing zones in colonized nations while introducing world factory, world farm and the feminization of labour. Rich nations prefer to source for cheaper labours to the detriment of the host countries who suffer poverty, and climate and devastating health crisis, due to industrial pollution. Globalization also gives room to poor governance that causes huge poverty due to corrupt and incompetent political leadership causing unemployment, lack of good infrastructure and poor civil establishments.

Reflective Questions