deWned as internal colonialism. Importantly, classical colonialism and internal
colonialism are not completely exclusive concepts, as the cases of Australia
and South Africa indicate. Both colonies went through a process of colonial
expansion beyond and within their own frontiers. In the case of Japan, as
it was an island, her expansion over Taiwan, the south of Sakhalin, Korea
and her interest in Micronesia could be seen in terms of either type of
colonization.
Colonialism in the classical sense of the term focused on Asia, the PaciWc,
and Africa. These areas, especially the latter two, were highly populated by
non-state societies. In these three continents colonialism had existed from the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Chapters 8 and 9). Local populations,
therefore, had some experience of European expansionism before the advent
of nineteenth-century New Imperialism. Events in Africa constituted the
foremost example of the colonial appropriation of territories inhabited by
primitive societies. The century started with the British Crown’s conversion
into colonies of the settlements created by philanthropic societies in West
Africa. These had been established at the end of the eighteenth century in
order to re-allocate blacks repatriated from the New World. Other British
colonies in Africa were also set up as bases being used by the Navy in itsWght
against slavery and at missionary posts to re-socialize slaves. Sierra Leone
became theWrst British colony in that part of the world in 1807. On the basis
of their long-established trade links, Portugal claimed Angola and Mozam-
bique. From 1850 France invaded eastward from the coast of Senegal in West
Africa, reaching western Sudan at the end of the century. The appetite for the
control of new territories was stimulated by the reports distributed by an
increasing number of geographical societies, written by adventurers and later
by properly trained geographers, extolling the riches of the countries they had
visited. This coincided with a technological revolution. New engineering
works, such as the construction of the Suez Canal opened in 1869 and
transcontinental railways, made the domination over foreign territories by
the European powers much easier (Baumgart 1982; Cherif 1989; Porter 1999).
The words of the explorer David Livingstone (1813–1873), carved in his
brass-plated tomb in Westminster Abbey at his death, summarized the im-
perial ethos. He argued that in order to heal the open wound created by the
slave trade, organized by Swahili and Arabs in East Africa, Africa needed the
three ‘C’s: Commerce, Christianity, and Civilization (Pakenham 1991: xvi).
Livingstone’s ideas would be promoted by some romantic nationalists,
who advocated the partition of Africa. The European governments were
Wrst reluctant to undertake this step, but greed, the fear of being left
behind in a race that promised to deliver great economic gains and be a
potential source for national prestige, changed matters. The distribution of
280 Colonial Archaeology