Exploitation colonialism is the policy of conquering distant lands to exploit its natural and human
resources. This practice contrasts with
settler colonialism, a policy of conquering distant lands not with the intention of exploiting its resources, but rather to send
settlers in order to shape its demographic similarly as in the
metropole. A
motherland might pursue this second goal in order to lighten the pressure its growing population apply to its home territory, and shape other parts of the
world according to its image, thus extending its territorial continuity and preserving it indefinitely. The reasons that push a country to choose the first option are to attain more immediate benefits, extracting cheap
raw materials and
enslaving directly or indirectly its
inhabitants.
Imperialist powers may opt for one type or the other, or both at the same time. Perhaps the most clear example of this difference is the
British Empire, whose white population settled mainly
North America and
Oceania, exterminating in the process the native population and building modern
infrastructures, and disregarded the
Indian subcontinent and
Africa, already densely populated. Those areas, instead, were ruled by a small colonial population, and their economies were oriented exclusively around agriculture and extraction aimed at export to the
United Kingdom.
See also
