Knowra European colonialism European colonialism European colonialism was the establishment and maintenance of European political and economic control over territories beyond Europe, through settlement, conquest, trade, and administration.
Chartered company : A company granted legal privileges by a state, sometimes including authority to trade, govern, or wage war. States delegated conquest and administration to corporations such as the English East India Company.
Age of Discovery : The period of European maritime exploration and overseas expansion beginning in the fifteenth century. Its voyages opened routes that enabled sustained European intervention beyond Europe.
Columbian exchange : The transfer of plants, animals, people, diseases, and ideas between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia after 1492. European expansion reshaped diets, ecologies, and populations across the Atlantic world.
Imperialism : A policy or practice of extending a state’s power over other territories or peoples. Colonialism is one way imperial power operates, but imperialism can also work without settlement or direct rule.
Settler colonialism : A form of colonialism in which incoming settlers seek permanent residence and displace Indigenous populations. European settlement transformed land ownership and population structures in colonies such as Australia.
Portuguese Empire : The overseas empire built by Portugal through trading posts, settlements, and territorial rule. Portuguese voyages established some of Europe’s earliest modern overseas colonies and trading networks.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas : The diverse peoples and societies native to the Americas before and after European colonization. Conquest, disease, land dispossession, and resistance profoundly affected Indigenous communities.
Informal empire : A form of influence that controls another polity through economic or political pressure without formal annexation. It contrasts with colonies governed directly as possessions of a European state.
Extractive institution : A political or economic arrangement that concentrates power and resources for the benefit of a limited group. Colonial governments often organized labor, taxation, and trade to transfer wealth to imperial centers.
Spanish Empire : The empire Spain built in the Americas, Asia, and other regions from the late fifteenth century onward. Spanish conquest of the Americas became an early model of European imperial rule.
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