Colonisation, annexation and international migration

Overview

Why annexation is an unusual process for creating ethnic diversity and chain migration.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

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1. 1

   What is colonisation, and how does it create ethnic diversity?

   Model answer

   Colonisation is the settlement of a territory by people from another society who establish political control over it and over its existing inhabitants. It creates diversity directly by introducing a settler population alongside the indigenous one, and indirectly by moving other populations within the empire to work the colony, and by imposing a language, religion, legal system and land-ownership pattern that reshape the identities of everyone present. The resulting society typically contains several groups whose relative status was set by the colonial order.

2. 2

   Beyond settlers arriving, what other population movements did colonisation set in motion?

   Model answer

   Three main ones. Forced movement of enslaved people to work plantations, which relocated very large populations across oceans. Indentured labour, recruited under contract from other colonies to replace enslaved labour after abolition, which brought further groups with their own languages and religions. And later movement in the opposite direction, from colony to imperial centre, as colonial subjects with rights of entry, a shared language and established shipping links migrated to fill labour shortages. Each stream added a distinct group.

3. 3

   Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of how colonisation produced the ethnic composition of a plantation colony.

   Model answer

   A typical sequence runs as follows. The indigenous population is greatly reduced after contact through introduced disease, violence and forced labour. A small European settler group takes control of land and government. A large population is brought in under slavery from another continent to work plantations producing a tropical export crop. After abolition, indentured labourers are recruited from other colonies, adding further language and religious communities, and traders from a third region establish themselves in commerce. The result is a society that is ethnically diverse yet strongly stratified, with status historically aligned to origin, and this framework can be applied to any colony of this type.

4. 4

   Explain how colonial borders continue to affect ethnic diversity long after independence.

   Model answer

   Borders drawn to suit imperial administration and treaty-making frequently ignored the distribution of existing peoples. Some boundaries cut through a single group, leaving it as a minority in two or more states and creating cross-border loyalties. Others enclosed several groups with little in common inside one state, producing a diverse population that had to be governed as a nation. Both patterns persist because borders are rarely redrawn, and both are common starting points for later disputes over minority rights and territory.

5. 5

   What is annexation?

   Model answer

   Annexation is the formal incorporation of a territory, together with the people living in it, into another state. It is usually accomplished by force or by the threat of it, or imposed in a post-war settlement, and typically without the consent of the inhabitants. Legally it transfers sovereignty; in population terms it transfers a resident group into a state where it becomes a minority.

6. 6

   Explain why annexation is an unusual process for creating ethnic diversity.

   Model answer

   Because the diversity is created without anyone migrating. Colonisation and migration move people across a boundary; annexation moves the boundary across the people. A population that was part of the majority in one state wakes up as a minority in another, with a different official language, legal system and national symbols, while remaining in the same houses and villages. This is the origin of many national minorities in border regions, and it explains why such groups often have a neighbouring kin-state that takes an interest in their treatment.

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