HIST103: World History (1600–Present)

In the early modern period,⁴ settler colonies were limited to the Atlantic world. The low population density of the indigenous people in large parts of North America and mass mortality among the indigenous populations in the Caribbean and Central and South America as a result of diseases introduced from Europe provided favorable conditions for European settlement there.⁵

While many Spaniards – primarily Castilians – settled in the territory under Spanish rule, a mixed form of settlement and domination of the indigenous population emerged in this region. It was characterized by strong statehood, and through institutions such as the encomienda – where whole groups of native Indians and villages were put under the control of participants of the Spanish Conquista – a social hierarchy emerged, which disempowered the indigenous population.⁶

While in the Andes region, the indigenous population remained a substantial portion of the population, in the south of the continent, settler colonies developed, which subsequently became the states of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Brazil, which was settled by the Portuguese, was the only Latin American country that did not have a strong urban character.⁷ The settler colonies in North America saw themselves as communities of European settlers since attempts to include the indigenous population quickly failed or were rejected.⁸

With the exception of the Cape Colony, European expansion into the Indian Ocean did not result in settlement because the primary aim was to develop trade relationships. Up to the mid-18th century, European possessions in the region were bases for trade, in which mixed societies quickly emerged. It was almost exclusively European men who settled in these European bases and who chose spouses and partners from the indigenous population.⁹

In addition to the small number of Europeans, large numbers of Asians were drawn to these bases. In the early modern period, Batavia – present-day Jakarta – was a Chinese city ruled by the Dutch, in which no Javanese lived.¹⁰ It was not until the late 18th century that Europeans began to establish settler colonies in the Pacific region, in Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia.

Settlement typically began with the establishment of a bridgehead, usually a harbor city (Boston, Cape Town, Sydney), which then served as a base for further expansion into the hinterland. Europeans settled whole continents (North and South America and Australia) and large territories (Siberia), and they emigrated in such large numbers that by the late 19th century, they had marginalized the indigenous population groups.¹¹

Northern Ireland is an exception as a settler colony within Europe, which Great Britain established in the period of confessional conflict with the aim of strategically securing British rule in Ireland.¹² In the case of Siberia, the settlement did not occur overseas. Still, it certainly involved a settler colony, which had a moving settlement frontier up to the end of the 19th century, at which point the modern state extended its administrative power to the Pacific coast.¹³

The Cape Colony was the only settler colony of the early modern period in which the settlers not only permanently remained in the minority but they even became increasingly outnumbered with the expansion of the colony.¹⁴ 

Europeans were only able to settle in the malaria-free uplands of southern and eastern Africa. This, the immunity of the African population against the diseases introduced by the Europeans, and their stable social and political systems ensured that White people remained in the minority. The mass mortality of the Khoikhoi population of South Africa from smallpox in the 18th century was an exception.¹⁵

A second African settler colony did not emerge until the conquest of Algeria in 1830 and the migration of French, Spanish, Maltese, and Italian settlers to the northern African territory from about 1848. Other settler colonies in Africa were only established after the so-called "scramble for Africa," the rapid division of almost the entire continent between the European powers in the 1880s.

South Africa and Algeria had the largest numbers of settlers – more than a million in each country. Besides these, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Kenya, Mozambique, Angola, and German South-West Africa (Namibia) can also be described as settler colonies.¹⁶ In other countries, there were only regional enclaves of settlers, such as in German East Africa¹⁷ and Katanga (Congo),¹⁸ or they were such small minorities that they did not have the level of political influence that is typical of settler colonies.