Saturday, 25. April 2015
The sun never set
annika heinze, 15:32h
In 1922, just after the end of WWI, about 1/5th of the worlds population (at that time about 458 million people) were part of the British Empire, the largest Empire in history. Nearly 1/4 of the earth belonged to the British Empire and so the sun never really did set on it. It was so widely spread across the planet and different time zones that in some part of the Empire it was always daytime.
One of the earliest British, if not the first, so called colony was Ireland. The settlement in Ireland began in the 16th century. It can still be seen today that the colonization of Ireland was not all good. This however is not just a feature of British colonies but of nearly every colony of every country, whether it was a German, French or Spanish colony. This is only understandable, who would rejoice if foreign people came into your land and claimed it theirs, forced you to believe in their religion and work for them in nearly slave like conditions.
One of the worst examples for this might be the slave trade where people with darker skin where treated inferior to people with lighter skin.
People from Africa, where enslaved by traders from Europe and shipped off to North America under horrible conditions. If they survived the trip they had to work for white 'masters' in America and were treated and sold like cattle.
In exchange for the slaves the traders brought lots of raw material like sugar, tobacco and cotton back from the New World to Europe. There they manufactured them and shipped the new products off to Africa, where they were traded for new slaves again.
The effects are still visible today with racism all over the world. Even after WWII in the USA, although slavery had been forbidden since December 1865, there was still racial segregation in the USA because people with dark coloured skin were still seen as inferior.
So the British Empire, in my opinion was very enriching for the British but less so for the countries they colonized.
One of the earliest British, if not the first, so called colony was Ireland. The settlement in Ireland began in the 16th century. It can still be seen today that the colonization of Ireland was not all good. This however is not just a feature of British colonies but of nearly every colony of every country, whether it was a German, French or Spanish colony. This is only understandable, who would rejoice if foreign people came into your land and claimed it theirs, forced you to believe in their religion and work for them in nearly slave like conditions.
One of the worst examples for this might be the slave trade where people with darker skin where treated inferior to people with lighter skin.
People from Africa, where enslaved by traders from Europe and shipped off to North America under horrible conditions. If they survived the trip they had to work for white 'masters' in America and were treated and sold like cattle.
In exchange for the slaves the traders brought lots of raw material like sugar, tobacco and cotton back from the New World to Europe. There they manufactured them and shipped the new products off to Africa, where they were traded for new slaves again.
The effects are still visible today with racism all over the world. Even after WWII in the USA, although slavery had been forbidden since December 1865, there was still racial segregation in the USA because people with dark coloured skin were still seen as inferior.
So the British Empire, in my opinion was very enriching for the British but less so for the countries they colonized.
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