Under Foreign Flags

THE question of colonialism has come up again: How did it fare? What were its advantages and disadvantages? And is there a role for it in the future, or now?

The European colonial empires endured half a millennium, embraced a huge variety of forms, and produced results ranging from excellent to disastrous. At the better end of the spectrum were colonies in which the indigenous inhabitants were effectively replaced and the territory became a racial and cultural clone of the mother country. Such were the first, the Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic colonies of Madeira, the Canaries, and the Azores. Iberian colonies in Central and South America, all of which got independence early in the 19th century (Cuba excepted), have had mixed fortunes. Brazil, the best endowed by nature, with a mixed-race population second only in variety to the United States, has been disappointing its admirers and boosters for over a century. Argentina, the world’s eighth richest country in the 1930s, was wrecked by Peronism and has been economically and politically unstable for half a century. Cuba, once the second richest in Latin America as a U.S. appendage, is now, after 40 years of Communism, the poorest. The richest Latino state today is Chile, thanks to the Pinochet dictatorship, which followed Chicago-school economic policies, and itself reflects the substantial German, French, Scots, and English elements in the population. A separate group is formed by black former slave colonies, mainly British, in the Caribbean Atlantic area. The most successful is Bermuda, with a 50 percent white. 50 percent non white mix; also successful are Trinidad, with a large Indian element, which produced the latest Nobel Prize winner for literature, V. S. Naipaul, and black tourist centers like the Bahamas and Barbados.

About the Author

Paul Johnson

Mr. Johnson is a prominent author and historian.

THE question of colonialism has come up again: How did it fare? What were its advantages and disadvantages? And is there a role for it in the future, or now?

The European colonial empires endured half a millennium, embraced a huge variety of forms, and produced results ranging from excellent to disastrous. At the better end of the spectrum were colonies in which the indigenous inhabitants were effectively replaced and the territory became a racial and cultural clone of the mother country. Such were the first, the Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic colonies of Madeira, the Canaries, and the Azores. Iberian colonies in Central and South America, all of which got independence early in the 19th century (Cuba excepted), have had mixed fortunes. Brazil, the best endowed by nature, with a mixed-race population second only in variety to the United States, has been disappointing its admirers and boosters for over a century. Argentina, the world’s eighth richest country in the 1930s, was wrecked by Peronism and has been economically and politically unstable for half a century. Cuba, once the second richest in Latin America as a U.S. appendage, is now, after 40 years of Communism, the poorest. The richest Latino state today is Chile, thanks to the Pinochet dictatorship, which followed Chicago-school economic policies, and itself reflects the substantial German, French, Scots, and English elements in the population. A separate group is formed by black former slave colonies, mainly British, in the Caribbean Atlantic area. The most successful is Bermuda, with a 50 percent white. 50 percent non white mix; also successful are Trinidad, with a large Indian element, which produced the latest Nobel Prize winner for literature, V. S. Naipaul, and black tourist centers like the Bahamas and Barbados.