COLONIZATION. - The history of modern c. begins with the discovery of the lands beyond the ocean, in search of which the Portuguese and Spanish explorers set out. One of the principal motives of their adventurous enterprises, besides extending national dominion, was that of spreading the faith. Thus the sovereigns of the two principal colonizing peoples of the 16th century, like the navigators, were unable to separate political and economic motives from the religious motive, and therefore a crusading spirit breathed over the whole risky work of exploration, of which Christopher Columbus will always remain a symbol, who, as soon as he landed on the new land, raised there the banner of the Cross and the flag of Castile.
As a result of this spiritual attitude, in conformity with the religiosity of the time, c. tended to the expansion sion of Christian civilization, for which the sovereigns themselves urged the sending of missionaries into the new possessions so that they might devote themselves to the education of the natives. Thanks to this royal interest, numerous hosts of missionaries, subsidized from the public treasury, swarmed out of Europe. Together with the conquerors, Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits put out to sea, bound for every corner of the vast colonial empires that were then taking shape. At the express request of the King of Portugal, John III, Francis Xavier set sail for the Indies, and in his footsteps followed the numerous missionaries of the new religious Order to which he belonged. Spain pursued the same policy in America. The first Dominicans and Franciscans, who landed immediately after the discovery, were followed by the Augustinians, and all of them began the civilizing of the barbarous tribes.
In these directions of Spanish and Portuguese colonial policy not everything was pure idealism; yet it remains true that colonization was not then understood as a mere work of exploitation, but at the same time as a sacred mission of civilization. Isabella's instructions to Christopher Columbus on the occasion of his second voyage bring out this meaning, since they enjoin the admiral to regard as his first and principal business the conversion of the natives to Christianity, and she cared nothing if, in order to obtain it, the treasury should be burdened. The Church did not fail to encourage and confirm this political direction. The concessions of the popes to Portugal and Spain were directed to this end. Two acts of Alexander VI document this action. In 1497 he granted to the Portuguese crown the right of exclusivity over the colonies of western Africa and a series of privileges, with the restrictive clause of the spontaneous subjection of the natives. A similar concession, made to Spain in 1493, in three consecutive acts, enjoined Ferdinand, by the bull of 3 May, "to send to the said mainlands and islands upright men, God-fearing, able, capable of instructing the inhabitants of the said regions in the Catholic faith and in good morals."
Certainly there was no lack in Spanish and Portuguese colonization of abuses, against which the missionaries rose up. This nevertheless does not take away from the fact that the directions of the courts were sound and humane, as the Spanish colonial legislation shows. One cannot fail to recognize, in reading the collection of the laws for the Indies, the wisdom of the Spanish laws and the humanitarian spirit that dictated them. Indeed, the order was always given to regard the Indians as subjects of Spain and free men, to protect them and defend them: for this purpose, moreover, they were granted the privileges that the law recognized for minors, with the right to dispose of their own property and the exceptional favor of being able to rescind contracts. These general provisions, issued by the royal authority and by the Council of the Indies, were often followed by particular ordinances inspired by the same spirit.
Despite the abuses, the colonial problem always presented itself to the mind of the Spanish legislator as a problem of civilization and humanity. The native is not despised, no racial hatred separates him from the rulers, no ordinance disqualifies him from marriage with whites; only from Madrid is there insistence that unions contracted with women of color be regulated by legitimate marriage. Because of this broad colonizing policy, a mixed population was born in New Spain, which became the cradle of the modern nations of Latin America and of their culture.
As a term of contrast, the parallel legislation of Virginia in North America may serve. The General Assembly of this State in 1660 granted to whites the power to capture the natives and sell them as slaves in reparation for any damages they had caused; in 1663 it established the principle of the collective responsibility of the whole village, in the event that a white man had been killed in the vicinity; in 1665 it deprived the Indians of the right to elect their chiefs; in 1676 it decreed that every Indian taken prisoner fell into the condition of perpetual slavery; in 1692 it forbade any marital union between whites and people of color, while by an article of the code it deprived Negroes, mulattoes and Indians of the right to possess property.
The ultimate effect of this colonial policy, from which every sense of humanity was excluded, was the extermination of the native populations, against whom a ruthless war was waged. In North America, consequently, no new nations arose from the fusion of the native and immigrant populations, but the white race, expanding, extinguished life around itself. The abuses of the colonizers were therefore no less serious in North America; but while here they had legal sanction, in the south they remained almost always illegal and were in part corrected by the work of the missionaries and the intervention of the Church.
The history of the missions in South America is intimately interwoven with the history of colonization. The distressing and often barbarous condition of the natives, reduced to slavery, was fought by the missionaries with a boldness that still today commands the historian's admiration. In Brazil, where the legislation is less coherent, Fr. M. Nobrega and Fr. Anchieta work and struggle for the cause of the Indians, still remembered today in the annals of Brazilian history.
The same battle is fought in the Spanish possessions by other noble figures, who took the field against the regime of the Encomienda, degenerated into disguised slavery, among whom the best known are the Dominicans Antonio Montesinos and Bartolomé Las Casas.
The Church supported with her intervention the work of these pioneers. In 1537 Paul III published the celebrated bull Veritas ipsa, in which, after having recognized the Indians as true men, he forbids that they be deprived of liberty, of the enjoyment of their goods, or that they be reduced to slavery. Later Benedict XIV, in 1741, reconfirming what Paul III and Urban VIII had already decreed, imposed the excommunication latae sententiae against all those who had deprived the Indians of liberty, including in the condemnation not only those who directly took part in dealings tending to despoil them of their goods and reduce them to slavery, but even those who indirectly had contributed to maintaining and favoring such practices.
Conceptions change with the 18th century, during which the European powers vied with one another in the conquest of ultramarine lands defined as nullus, in order to extend their influence, increase national prestige, strengthen strategic positions and above all to seize new sources of raw materials for their national industries in growing development, and commercial outlets for their manufactures. In conformity with the selfish spirit from which the motives mentioned were suggested, colonization was set upon the principle of the maximum exploitation of the riches of the soil and of the market, to the exclusive advantage of the colonizing power and with scant regard for the native populations, often subjected to a harsh servitude, as merchandise among other merchandise. This mercantile mentality has persisted almost to our own days, although movements of ideas to bring about a more humane conception have not been lacking.
These movements led in the 19th century to the abolition of slavery and induced the powers to accept, with the General Act of Berlin of 1885, somewhat higher principles. In it, with respect to the colonization of central Africa, the powers interested in it bound themselves to direct their work to the increase of the material and moral well-being of the native populations and to establish the conditions most favorable to the development of commerce and civilization. These provisions were later confirmed by the General Act of Brussels in 1890, and at St-Germain in September 1909, with some changes. Nevertheless, with the conventions mentioned, the nations went no further than a common declaration of humanitarian intentions, to whose implementation they committed themselves individually, without creating any organ of supervision over the fulfillment of the obligations assumed.
Only with the League of Nations was the colonial regime of the countries removed from the dominion of the powers defeated in the First World War decisively founded on the preeminence of the well-being of backward populations, and once again colonization came to be understood as a sacred mission of civilization. To implement this new program, the institution of the Mandate was created by the Covenant of the League of Nations, which introduced into the international order the new juridical figure of the tutelary regime, taken up again by the Charter of the United Nations, after the Second World War, under the name of trusteeship. In this last convention, however, the concept that colonization is a mission of civilization entrusted to the most advanced nations was accepted by all the colonial powers as a principle to be applied not only to territories ceded under trusteeship, but also to colonies subject to their sovereignty, and this marks a notable advance over the Covenant of the League.
The ideas, however, that finally succeeded in penetrating the international order after such a long and slow evolution, go back to the distant tradition of Catholic thought. Already in Spanish legislation there appears the figure of the Indian as a ward to be placed under guardianship. The concept that colonization is a mission of civilization predominates in the memorials written by Las Casas in favor of the natives. In them he maintains that the original inhabitants of the Indies were free men before the conquest, and such they have remained after it. They are subjects of the king of Spain only insofar as they are disposed to recognize him as such, and only on this act of voluntary subjection does his right to govern them rest, and not on a right inherent in his power. Colonization is, therefore, not arbitrary conquest, but the spontaneous submission of backward populations to a more evolved lordship, so that the latter may provide for their civil and religious education. These principles, barely sketched by Las Casas, obtained a theoretical systematization from the lucid mind of Francisco de Vitoria, with whom the doctrinal cycle properly begins.
The general problem raised by colonization involves two questions: the first concerns the legitimacy of occupation, the second the ethico-juridical norms that must regulate relations between colonizer and colonized people. Catholic doctrine dwelt by preference on the first, which is more difficult of solution. The first to deal with it systematically was Vitoria in his celebrated Relectiones de Indis insulanis. The soul of his system is the principle of equality among States, which have the same fundamental rights, immediately followed by that of interdependence, since peoples need the collaboration of others in order to live and progress, and therefore there exists a universal society of peoples willed by nature.
This community is governed by special laws, which derive partly from nature, partly from consent and conventions, and all have as their common principle that of justice. Having set forth these general principles, Vitoria proceeds to discuss the question of colonial expansion, which he does not condemn absolutely, but admits if supported by a just cause, reducing the particular problem to the more general one of the justice of war. Consequently he rejects many of the titles formerly alleged by the courtiers, because they are not supported by justice: neither the Emperor's dominion over the whole world, nor the Pope's claimed universal right, nor the spread of the faith, nor barbarous customs, nor discovery can validly establish the occupation of colonies.
He admits the title of voluntary choice, because volenti non fit iniuria, and yet in the case of the Indians he does not consider it sufficient, because the requirements for stipulating a true contract of subjection are lacking, owing to the immaturity of one of the contracting parties. Colonial expansion can be founded only on certain universal rights, such as those of free transit, commerce and exchange, which are possessed by all peoples, and whose violation by backward peoples can give rise to a just cause for subjecting them through the use of force, after peaceful means have been exhausted. He further admits as a legitimate title the salvation of innocent persons, because the law of nature entrusts their aid to one's neighbor; he remains, however, doubtful regarding the title of civilization, on which subject he anticipates his times, proposing for the attainment of this end a tutelary regime, whose terms have come to life again in the mandate system. The doctrine of the fathers Francisco Suárez and Taparelli departs little from that of Vitoria; it shows itself only more resolute in rejecting the title of civilization, maintaining that individual and social progress cannot be imposed by force, because it is not a juridical duty whose transgression can bring offense to others.
The theory remained on the positions described until a few years ago, when in France particularly and in Belgium an attempt was made to detach colonial expansion from the general doctrine of just war. To this end new titles were proposed. Starting from the principle, already upheld by Vitoria, that the goods of the earth were originally given to humanity so that it might use them to attain the purposes of life and advance in progress, it was concluded that peoples are not true owners of their territories, but simple administrators in the name of humanity. If therefore their resources remain unfruitful in the hands of a people, that people may justly be deprived of them by another more advanced one, so that their exploitation may contribute to the general well-being.
On this argument two new titles have been founded: the economic necessity of heavily industrialized nations, in need of raw materials and commercial outlets, and expropriation on grounds of public utility. Against them it has been observed that the principle according to which peoples are merely administrators of their goods is erroneous. Peoples, like individuals, are true owners, although subject to the laws that regulate the use of property, since the original community of goods, on which the argument relies, was merely negative and not positive, and the manner established by nature for earthly goods to serve humanity consists in the division of property, through the act of occupation, which binds such goods to a physical or moral person, generating a true right.
The title of civilization has furthermore been reproposed, founding it upon a supposed delegation which the colonizing nation would receive from the society of nations, to educate the backward people. Tradition, as was mentioned above, is contrary to this title. It rests upon a double equivocation: it imagines a nonexistent delegation, since the society of nations, as an inorganic society, possesses neither personality nor organs for exercising powers; it leaves to the subjective judgment of the advanced nation the opportunity of occupation for purposes of civilization; it forgets that one's own perfection is not a juridical duty whose observance can be imposed by force.
More recently an appeal has been made to vital necessity. From the fact of the existence of sparsely populated territories rich in resources left inert and of the contemporaneous existence of overpopulated nations, with poor soil and incapable of feeding their demographic surplus, relying on the principle that this condition can give rise to a grave case of necessity, to which nature attaches the right to occupy the goods of another, within the limits of that same necessity and as the law provides, it has been concluded that an overpopulated nation may legitimately expand into colonial territories with a sparse population and abundant unused resources.
Not even this argument is admitted by all. The Code of International Morality rejects it, holding that emigration is the most suitable means for lightening demographic pressure and resolving the case of necessity. In opposition, however, it has been observed that emigration is not a means free of harm for the nation forced to adopt it, since it takes away the best, impoverishing it of valid and capable forces, and does not in the end solve the problem. It is clear, in fact, that a prolific people will always be tormented by demographic pressure, despite the valve of emigration. Finally, no law of nature compels it to perform the function of a human nursery, to scatter its children throughout the world, forcing them to renounce the heritage of their language and their culture.
Catholic doctrine therefore remains to this day uncertain on these latest theoretical developments, while it is unanimous in maintaining that, once the occupation of colonial territories has taken place, c. [colonization] must provide first of all for the well-being of the subjected populations. It is the duty of the colonizing State to administer the colonies in such a way as to harmonize its own advantage with the material and cultural interests of the indigenous populations, toward which it must fulfill all the functions of public authority, which provides for the common good of the country that has passed under its control. Once occupation has taken place, that is, the moral and juridical laws of right government enter into force, which in the colonial field are not different from those existing within the colonizing power itself. - See plate I.
Bibliography19 works
Antonio Messineo