Similarities Roman Colonialism, XIXth century colonialism

Hi all,

Was trying to think about similarities, if there were any between XIXth century colonialism and Roman colonialism.

We can see some similarities in the tactics of the very late XIXth century with the likes of Lyautey or Gallieni, but it seems roman colonialism was much more inclusive of local people and local elites in particular?

Any thoughts?
 
Does this mean the 19th Century or the 1800s? I highly suggest both changing the the title and the first post to be more specific. One of the guys you mention seems to have been born in 1880 something, so he would be around the time imperialism was wrapping up anyways. As for inclusiveness, their was plenty of room for local elites. The French and British couldn't manage their Asian empires without them. And while I am unsure if it is true or not, the Romans maaay have attempted, or succeeded in, genocide against Carthage, the Dacians, and much of the Gauls. Made a good try(sarcastic, not supportive) of the Jews as well, slaughtering a hundred thousand I think and selling or dispersing a million. Rome was the empire for one city, build on the back of slave labor. And the drafting of their own population into the army (which at one point they had to pay for their own food, armor, weapons, burials, etc) for a decade, then paying them by giving them land in areas filled with angry locals they had dispossed/slaughtered.
 
There was no Roman colonialism. The entire empire was the metropole so I'm not sure what you mean? Simply conquering people isn't colonialism. The way the British treated local elites and the way Romans treated local elites was completely different. It's not just a matter of "inclusiveness".
 
There was no Roman colonialism. The entire empire was the metropole so I'm not sure what you mean? Simply conquering people isn't colonialism. The way the British treated local elites and the way Romans treated local elites was completely different. It's not just a matter of "inclusiveness".
Well, the Romans coined the term colonies by conquering other ethnies/cultures and assimilating them into their own empire culturally and economically. That's colonisation, just like the US colonised the Wild West and Russia colonised Central Asia, the presence of a sea doesn't really matter...
Even if it did, we have at least the examples of North Africa, the Eastern Empire, the Mediterranean Islands and Britannia not being on the same landmass as Rome itself

Does this mean the 19th Century or the 1800s? I highly suggest both changing the the title and the first post to be more specific. One of the guys you mention seems to have been born in 1880 something, so he would be around the time imperialism was wrapping up anyways.
Yeah, more Imperialism post-1870, when imperialism was in full swing with the conquest of East/South-East Asia and Africa. Imperialism didn't really wrap up until the 1910's

As for inclusiveness, their was plenty of room for local elites. The French and British couldn't manage their Asian empires without them.
That's a fair point, however most of the the roles available for local elites were mostly local roles, and fairly subaltern. At least in Indochina, locals didn't have any real power of decision and were not represented in the "management".
Plus, there were local roles, I don't recall any colonial subject (with the exception of Sénégalese) being in metropolitan, important roles. No Vietnamese generals fighting for France in Africa for example

And while I am unsure if it is true or not, the Romans maaay have attempted, or succeeded in, genocide against Carthage, the Dacians, and much of the Gauls. Made a good try(sarcastic, not supportive) of the Jews as well, slaughtering a hundred thousand I think and selling or dispersing a million. Rome was the empire for one city, build on the back of slave labor. And the drafting of their own population into the army (which at one point they had to pay for their own food, armor, weapons, burials, etc) for a decade, then paying them by giving them land in areas filled with angry locals they had dispossed/slaughtered.
Fair point
 
Well, the Romans coined the term colonies by conquering other ethnies/cultures and assimilating them into their own empire culturally and economically. That's colonisation, just like the US colonised the Wild West and Russia colonised Central Asia, the presence of a sea doesn't really matter...
Even if it did, we have at least the examples of North Africa, the Eastern Empire, the Mediterranean Islands and Britannia not being on the same landmass as Rome itself


Yeah, more Imperialism post-1870, when imperialism was in full swing with the conquest of East/South-East Asia and Africa. Imperialism didn't really wrap up until the 1910's


That's a fair point, however most of the the roles available for local elites were mostly local roles, and fairly subaltern. At least in Indochina, locals didn't have any real power of decision and were not represented in the "management".
Plus, there were local roles, I don't recall any colonial subject (with the exception of Sénégalese) being in metropolitan, important roles. No Vietnamese generals fighting for France in Africa for example


Fair point

While the term "colonialism" and "colonies" can have very vague definitions, the uses of the terms colonies of British India, "colonization" for the mass settlement of the US, and the "colonies" of the Roman Empire are completely different. The presence or absence of seas is irrelevant. The US didn't "assimilate" native groups into their culture, they expelled and slaughtered them and mass-imported Anglo's to take the land. The British didn't "assimilate" India economically, it kept it in a deliberately subordinate position for the benefit of the British metropole. The Romans settling small groups of vetaran farmers in conquered territories is little different from the Ottomans settling Islamic people into conquered territories. Both the land and-through Romanization-the people were considered integral, organic parts of the Roman state.The US didn't care if Native Americans tried to assimilate-see the Trail of Tears. The use of the term "colonization" to refer to the expansion of the US is tied to the mass settlement of the Anglo-American ethnic group. You may have noticed that while the US "colonized" North America, they never "established a colony" there. Simply conquering and assimilating people isn't enough for colonization-otherwise every empire in history would have practiced colonialism.
 
The Romans settling small groups of vetaran farmers in conquered territories is little different from the Ottomans settling Islamic people into conquered territories. Both the land and-through Romanization-the people were considered integral, organic parts of the Roman state.

It's impolite not to mention pointless to just invent new definitions and argue from there. The Romans and the Ottomans were - beyond any reasonable argument - colonizers. The Romans in particular gave us the words colonus and colonia. Fancy that. Europe was, for large parts of its history, colonized.

You may have noticed that while the US "colonized" North America, they never "established a colony" there. Simply conquering and assimilating people isn't enough for colonization-otherwise every empire in history would have practiced colonialism.

I fail to see any utility for your narrow definition because by that definition most colonial empires are not colonial. While I do hear your implied objection about it being too broad, the broader definition nonetheless at least allows us to talk about the process itself.

...It seems roman colonialism was much more inclusive of local people and local elites in particular?

Any thoughts?

Not sure what you're basing that on?

It took centuries and several civil wars for even ITALIANS to move from socii to citizens. No European Empire even lasted as long as the Romans did treating other Italians as pure clients, then as second-class. And after the Italians, it was the turn of everyone else that the Romans conquered, slaughtered and enslaved to patiently wait to move on from being strictly auxiliaries. Entrance to Roman nobility was near-impossible without intermarriage. Any moderately well-off Roman was in a much better political position than anyone hailing from Greek or Gaulish royalty. Some never did move upwards, incidentally! There are no Gaulish generals leading any Roman armies any more than there are any Vietnamese generals leading the French, and some of the latest conquests never even got to be free within a Roman context, but went directly from conquered foreigners to serfs. Even by the time intermarriages allowed for Germanic magisters of war, Rome had occupied the lands up to the Danube for close to half a millennium, and the Goths had lived as foederati among them for three generations.

The Roman state was not inclusive at all. Any semblance of inclusiveness was won with much blood and much patience.
 
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Just like the Romans, the British (and assumingly other European empires, but I only know a fair bit about the British) saw themselves as a civilizing force and that their conquest, exploitation, and settlement of far off lands were a moral good because of it.

White Man's Burden and other horrendous colonial mindsets and practices were based off of the Roman colonization of much of Europe.
 
It's impolite not to mention pointless to just invent new definitions and argue from there. The Romans and the Ottomans were - beyond any reasonable argument - colonizers. The Romans in particular gave us the words colonus and colonia. Fancy that. Europe was, for large parts of its history, colonized.



I fail to see any utility for your narrow definition because by that definition most colonial empires are not colonial. While I do hear your implied objection about it being too broad, the broader definition nonetheless at least allows us to talk about the process itself.



Not sure what you're basing that on?

It took centuries and several civil wars for even ITALIANS to move from socii to citizens. No European Empire even lasted as long as the Romans did treating other Italians as pure clients, then as second-class. And after the Italians, it was the turn of everyone else that the Romans conquered, slaughtered and enslaved to patiently wait to move on from being strictly auxiliaries. Entrance to Roman nobility was near-impossible without intermarriage. Any moderately well-off Roman was in a much better political position than anyone hailing from Greek or Gaulish royalty. Some never did move upwards, incidentally! There are no Gaulish generals leading any Roman armies any more than there are any Vietnamese generals leading the French, and some of the latest conquests never even got to be free within a Roman context, but went directly from conquered foreigners to serfs. Even by the time intermarriages allowed for Germanic magisters of war, Rome had occupied the lands up to the Danube for close to half a millennium, and the Goths had lived as foederati among them for three generations.

The Roman state was not inclusive at all. Any semblance of inclusiveness was won with much blood and much patience.

The terms "colony" and "colonialism" have multiple context-dependent meanings. I originally said that the Roman Empire didn't have colonialism because I was assuming the OP was using the meaning applied in scholarship on the 16th to 20th century European colonial Empires. Once I realized that he was using his own definition, I detailed how the terms can have very different meanings which didn't mesh with his. I didn't "invent" any new definitions. In 19th c colonial scholarship, I can't think of any scholar who would automatically assume the Ottomans were colonial. At most, you have the argument that the late Ottoman state borrowed some aspects of colonialism as a means of survival. For example, see "They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery": The Late Ottoman Empire and the PostColonial Debate by Selim Deringil:

It is my contention that the Ottoman elite conflated the ideas of modernity and colonialism, and applied the latter as a means of survival against an increasingly hostile world: "Within its remaining territories, the Ottoman state began imitating the western colonial empires. The state consolidated the homogeneity of the core region, i.e-the Anatolian peninsula and the eastern regions of Thrace ... even as it pushed the periphery-principally the Arab provinces-into a colonial status."2 The novelty of the colonial idea meant that it had actually to be spelled out in books and pamphlets produced at the time. In a book entitled, "The New Africa" (Yeni Afrika), obviously written on an of- ficial commission, Mehmed Izzed, "one of the official interpreters for the Im- perial Palace," felt that he had to clarify the mechanics of colonialism: "The practice of 'colonialism' is one in which a civilized state sends settlers out to lands where people still live in a state of nomadism and savagery, developing these areas, and causing them to become a market for its goods."3 Where Mehmed Izzed refers to peoples and tribes living to the south of Ottoman Libya, his attitude can pretty much be summed up as the White Man's Burden wear- ing afez: "[these people] who are savages and heretics can only be saved by an invitation into the True Faith."4

Yet in their drive to achieve modernity, the Ottomans were not to build on a tabula rasa. In characteristically pragmatic fashion, the "Romans of the Mus- lim world," in the unforgettable words of Albert Hourani, were to dip into a whole grab bag of concepts, methods and tools of statecraft, prejudices, and practices that had been filtered down the ages.5 It is this type of colonialism that I propose to call "borrowed colonialism

If the Ottomans were obviously, indisputably colonizers from the time they sent in Islamic populations, the above makes no sense. This is because the usage of the terms are very different in different contexts.

I don't see how the British, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish and Japanese colonial empires aren't colonial by my definition? What do you think my definitions of colonialism are?

What conquering state doesn't count as colonial in your eyes?
 
What conquering state doesn't count as colonial in your eyes?
That is a very interesting question!

To me, the big difference would be the "mise en valeur" of the territory conquered.

When France conquers Indochina and develops coffee and rubber plantations by using French elements in capital while keeping the local population subservient, it is colonialism.
When Prussia went East in the Middle Ages to chase the pagans and put agricultural settlements with Prussians settlers, that is colonialism.
When the US goes West and starts exploiting local resources in unprecedented ways by using non-local elements, that is colonialism.

Now, when the Germans take Alsace-Lorraine and simply redirect existing infrastructures and economic production, I wouldn't say that's colonialism.
When the Monghols attack China and simply subvert existing structures of power, I would say it is not colonialism
When Germany occupies France in WWII I would say no.

Again, happy to discuss, semantics are quite important for that term :)
 
There are no Gaulish generals leading any Roman armies any more than there are any Vietnamese generals leading the French
Just to request clarification on only this point, doesn't the presence of Maximinius Thrax (who was definitely Thracian) and other Danube generals contradict this?

As a slightly related tangent, I've always been amused by the theory that some of the emperors considered bad but otherwise sane came from countries that had been conquered and brutalized by the Roman Empire, and therefore hated Rome and ruled the empire deliberately badly as the ultimate FU.
 
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The terms "colony" and "colonialism" have multiple context-dependent meanings. I originally said that the Roman Empire didn't have colonialism because I was assuming the OP was using the meaning applied in scholarship on the 16th to 20th century European colonial Empires.

Yes. Your definition doesn't allow for the discussion of obvious similarities between the Roman era and the early modern era. What's the point of using this definition in this thread? It may have uses in another discussion meant for 19th c. scholarship purists, but what's the point of tautologically saying "there was no Roman 19th c. colonialism because the Romans aren't from the 19th c?"

What conquering state doesn't count as colonial in your eyes?

There are some examples. One would be states that conquer other states where the population is at a similar technological level and of a compatible culture, so they come to various levels of accommodation with the local elites: Aragon in Italy and Sardinia, Sicilians in Malta, HRE in Italy, Switzerland in the Grisons, Lithuania in Belarus. There was no reason to plant colonies there.

Another example would be some decolonizing states and states that conquer bits of irredenta: modern Bulgaria, modern Greece. I would say no colonialism took place there.

Insofar that "colonialism" is not an inherent quality of a state but a relationship between two entities one of which is being colonized, not all conquests were colonial. A state might be doing colonial conquests and non-colonial conquests at the same time. Chile conquering the Atacama from Bolivia wasn't colonial even if Chile was doing colonizing conquests elsewhere. Russia conquering Livonia, or Finland from Sweden, or Belarus from the PLC wasn't colonial; France conquering Brittany, Flandres or Burgundy wasn't colonial.

The Ottomans conquering the Balkans and elsewhere was absolutely colonial. They came in without any treaties, stole the land from the original owners and distributed it to soldier-colonists and noble magnates, put entire nations into subaltern catagories for centuries based on language and religion, instituted differential tax rates and separate legal structures, took children of conquered peoples away from their families for reeducation and indoctrination, proselytized massively on all their borders to create an excuse for interventions for more direct conquests - keep in mind that the newly Islamised areas (like the North Caucasus) uniformly became a steady source of slaves, conquered direct rivals like Egypt and then ran their economies into the ground with deliberate neglect, actively propped up slaver regimes like Oman, the North African corsair states and Crimean Khanate to funnel manpower into the Empire (and even in those client states Ottoman state soldiers would be given land and settled and would form a permanent elite!), and when populations resisted hard enough but weren't strong enough to defeat them, they had no problems expelling or killing off said population and replacing them with Muslims, Turkish or otherwise.

How all that can be seen as non-colonial conquest is absolutely stunning.

Just to request clarification on only this point, doesn't the presence of Maximinius Thrax (who was definitely Thracian) and other Danube generals contradict this?

Maximinus Thrax was a Roman of Thracian descent who came from Moesia in the 3rd c. CE; Moesia was conquered by the Romans in the 1st c. BCE. That's 300+ years of colonial presence, as long as the entire early modern colonial period. It doesn't contradict very much about the Roman colonial expansion, it just shows that a lot can change in 300+ years.

As a slightly related tangent, I've always been amused by the theory that some of the emperors considered bad but otherwise sane came from countries that had been conquered and brutalized by the Roman Empire, and therefore hated Rome and ruled the empire deliberately badly as the ultimate FU.

Haha, the Roxelana Hurrem Sultan gambit. You know, there may be something in this.
 
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That is a very interesting question!

To me, the big difference would be the "mise en valeur" of the territory conquered.

When France conquers Indochina and develops coffee and rubber plantations by using French elements in capital while keeping the local population subservient, it is colonialism.
When Prussia went East in the Middle Ages to chase the pagans and put agricultural settlements with Prussians settlers, that is colonialism.
When the US goes West and starts exploiting local resources in unprecedented ways by using non-local elements, that is colonialism.

Now, when the Germans take Alsace-Lorraine and simply redirect existing infrastructures and economic production, I wouldn't say that's colonialism.
When the Monghols attack China and simply subvert existing structures of power, I would say it is not colonialism
When Germany occupies France in WWII I would say no.

Again, happy to discuss, semantics are quite important for that term :)

Thank you. I realize my posts may have come across as aggressive or condescending so I'm glad you aren't taking offence.

I'm not sure what "mise en valeur" means. Can you expand on that?

Yes. Your definition doesn't allow for the discussion of obvious similarities between the Roman era and the early modern era. What's the point of using this definition in this thread? It may have uses in another discussion meant for 19th c. scholarship purists, but what's the point of tautologically saying "there was no Roman 19th c. colonialism because the Romans aren't from the 19th c?"



There are some examples. One would be states that conquer other states where the population is at a similar technological level and of a compatible culture, so they come to various levels of accommodation with the local elites: Aragon in Italy and Sardinia, Sicilians in Malta, HRE in Italy, Switzerland in the Grisons, Lithuania in Belarus. There was no reason to plant colonies there.

Another example would be some decolonizing states and states that conquer bits of irredenta: modern Bulgaria, modern Greece. I would say no colonialism took place there.

Insofar that "colonialism" is not an inherent quality of a state but a relationship between two entities one of which is being colonized, not all conquests were colonial. A state might be doing colonial conquests and non-colonial conquests at the same time. Chile conquering the Atacama from Bolivia wasn't colonial even if Chile was doing colonizing conquests elsewhere. Russia conquering Livonia, or Finland from Sweden, or Belarus from the PLC wasn't colonial; France conquering Brittany, Flandres or Burgundy wasn't colonial.

The Ottomans conquering the Balkans and elsewhere was absolutely colonial. They came in without any treaties, stole the land from the original owners and distributed it to soldier-colonists and noble magnates, put entire nations into subaltern catagories for centuries based on language and religion, instituted differential tax rates and separate legal structures, took children of conquered peoples away from their families for reeducation and indoctrination, proselytized massively on all their borders to create an excuse for interventions for more direct conquests - keep in mind that the newly Islamised areas (like the North Caucasus) uniformly became a steady source of slaves, conquered direct rivals like Egypt and then ran their economies into the ground with deliberate neglect, actively propped up slaver regimes like Oman, the North African corsair states and Crimean Khanate to funnel manpower into the Empire (and even in those client states Ottoman state soldiers would be given land and settled and would form a permanent elite!), and when populations resisted hard enough but weren't strong enough to defeat them, they had no problems expelling or killing off said population and replacing them with Muslims, Turkish or otherwise.

How all that can be seen as non-colonial conquest is absolutely stunning.



Maximinus Thrax was a Roman of Thracian descent who came from Moesia in the 3rd c. CE; Moesia was conquered by the Romans in the 1st c. BCE. That's 300+ years of colonial presence, as long as the entire early modern colonial period. It doesn't contradict very much about the Roman colonial expansion, it just shows that a lot can change in 300+ years.



Haha, the Roxelana Hurrem Sultan gambit. You know, there may be something in this.

I just said that me saying that the Romans had no colonialism was based on a misinterpretation of the OP. My original post was not based on saying "there was no Roman 19th c. colonialism because the Romans aren't from the 19th c?"-that's a strawman. I had thought that Tanc49 thought that the Romans had a distinction between the metropole and the colony. Therefore, I posted and learned I was mistaken. My second post was about taking the definition of colonialism he gave me and pointing out how it didn't apply to various OTL examples of colonialism which have very different aspects to them.

You also keep saying that I have a "definition" when the posts you quote directly contradicts that. I ask again: Can you tell me what you think my "definition" of colonialism is?

I have literally never seen the Ottomans called colonial or said to have engaged in colonialism in all the 14th-18th c Ottoman scholarship I've read. If you can point me to a single instance of that happening for the early modern Empire, I will gladly concede the point. After all, if it's "absolutely stunning" to not see Ottoman conquest as colonialism, then it should be extremely easy to find a single academic describing it that way. On the other hand, basically all of the examples referring to Ottoman colonialism" i can find are in the vein of the article I named above-a debated "borrowed colonialism" of the late 19th c which denotes a form of alternate state perspective that borrows from European colonial discourse. I can name some more examples if you'd like.

EDIT: I feel our disagreement is getting a little more heated than necessary. I freely admit that I may have come across as a dick. It was not my intention. We're just having an argument about semantics at this point and we may be misunderstanding each other. I'd hate to see this get nasty-I respect you as a poster.
 
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Thank you. I realize my posts may have come across as aggressive or condescending so I'm glad you aren't taking offence.

I'm not sure what "mise en valeur" means. Can you expand on that?

No problem, the written medium isn't always the most practical to convey feelings and tone :)

Mise en valeur would be translated as "valuation", maybe? It's a colonial term that was quite widely used in the French empire. I would say it's reworking the land and the resource extraction infrastructure so it can produce more value, through tax and (often) raw material.

For example, sugar plantations in the Caribean or coffee and rubber plantations. In another context, putting up railways so you can facilitate economic flux

Is that a bit clear? Concept translation is always a bit tough
 
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