the African continent by the imperial powers was largely decided at the Berlin
Conference of 1884–5, where Africa—with the exception of Ethiopia—was
divided up by the European powers, mainly Britain, France, and Germany
(ibid.). Despite theXood of data provided from explorers in theWrst half of
the nineteenth century (Curtin 1973), many parts of the continent were still
inadequately known when this partition took place, and as a result it was
divided up along largely artiWcial lines.
Internal colonialism became a form of colonial appropriation as eVective as
classical colonialism. Examples of occupation by white Europeans and Euro-
Americans (as well as Japanese) settlers of territories within state borders
inhabited by non-state societies took place in locations as far apart as Argen-
tina, Sweden, and Japan. In many cases contact with ‘primitive’ societies took
place after the expansion of state borders by the conquest of adjacent lands.
This occurred both in independent countries such as Russia (a process that
had started long before the nineteenth century, see Chapter 9) and the US,
and in colonies such as South Africa and Australia. In Argentina, settler
expansion occurred in areas classiWed as empty but de facto occupied by
native communities, which resulted in the extermination of the Indians by the
thousand. This happened both in the south of Argentina (the ‘Conquest of
the Desert’ in the late 1860s) and in the northeast of the country (Podgorny &
Politis 1990–2; Politis 1995: 199). In Japan the occupation of the island of
Hokkaido (map 4), the home of the Ainu, led to discussions of them as the
possible original inhabitants of the archipelago (Mizoguchi 2006: 66–7).
In Europe (map 5), internal colonialism occurred in the form of segrega-
tion and attempts to forcefully change the lifestyle of distinct ethnic groups
such as the Saami (Lapps), their region now in Norwegian territory but then
under Swedish rule (as was the whole of Norway until 1905). Although the
segregation of the Saami had already started in the early modern period, it
intensiWed in the second half of the nineteenth century with the expansion of
Swedish and Norwegian colonists northwards (Olsen 1986). Some authors
have integrated British-governed Ireland in discussions of colonialism. A note
of caution has been expressed by some, however. Joep Leersen, for example,
remarks that:
It would not be appropriate to consider even Ireland as a colonytout court. Certain
aspects in Irish history recall a colonial pattern, others do not; and it is a tenuous
assumption that such colonial aspects as we can trace in Irish history coincide with
that country’s ‘Celtic’ reputation. On the contrary, perhaps: (sic) to the (limited)
extent that IrelandWts the pattern of colonial experience, it may be less suitable as a
paradigmatic simple-case for European ‘Celticism’ in general.
(Leersen 1996: 10).Archaeology of the Primitive 281