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105-569: In the modern colonial period , the word was borrowed in Portuguese latifúndios and Spanish latifundios or simply fundos for similar extensive land grants, known as fazendas (in Portuguese ) or haciendas (in Spanish ), in their empires. The forced recruitment of local labourers allowed by colonial law made these land grants particularly lucrative for their owners. The basis of

210-463: A villa rustica , including an often luxurious owner's residence, and operation of the farm relied on a large number of slaves, sometimes kept in an ergastulum . They produced agricultural products for sale and profit such as livestock ( sheep and cattle ) or olive oil, grain, garum and wine. Nevertheless, Rome had to import grain (in the Republican period, from Sicily and North Africa; in

315-477: A Christian school in Rome . James O'Donnell notes: [I]t is almost indisputable that he accepted advancement in 523 as the immediate successor of Boethius , who was then falling from grace after less than a year as magister officiorum , and who was sent to prison and later executed. In addition, Boethius' father-in-law (and step-father) Symmachus , by this time a distinguished elder statesman, followed Boethius to

420-643: A British-dominated territory. By the early eighteenth century, the French had become the chief European rivals of the British. During the eighteenth century, it was highly possible for the Indian subcontinent to have succumbed to French control, but the defeat inflicted on them in the Seven Years War (1756–1763) permanently curtailed French ambitions. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 restored the original five to

525-633: A colony; the company's lands were controlled directly and the rest through the rulers of what it called the Princely states . There were 565 princely states when the Indian subcontinent gained independence from Britain in August 1947. During period of the British Raj , famines in India , often attributed to El Nino droughts and failed government policies, were some of the worst ever recorded, including

630-568: A family of Syrian origin. His ancestry included some of the most prominent ministers of the state extending back several generations. His great-grandfather held a command in the defense of the coasts of southern Italy from Vandal sea-raiders in the middle of the fifth century; his grandfather appears in a Roman embassy to Attila the Hun , and his father (who bore the same name) served as comes sacrarum largitionum and comes rerum privatarum to Odovacer and as Praetorian Prefect to Theoderic

735-602: A global empire. The British Parliament 's attempt to raise taxes from North American colonists raised fears among the Americans that their rights as "Englishmen", and particularly their rights of self-government, were in danger. From 1765, a series of disputes with Parliament over taxation led to the American Revolution , first to informal committees of correspondence among the colonies, then to coordinated protest and resistance, with an important event in 1770,

840-420: A longstanding African slave trade ; at that point a minor trade, one the Portuguese would soon reverse and surpass . Around 1450, based on North African fishing boats, a lighter ship was developed , the caravel , which could sail further and faster, was highly maneuverable, and could sail " into the wind ". Enabled by new nautical technology, with the added incentive to find an alternative " Silk Road " after

945-661: A massive profit in Europe provided another reason for crossing the Atlantic, in particular, furs from Canada, tobacco, and cotton grown in Virginia and sugar in the islands of the Caribbean and Brazil. Due to the massive depletion of indigenous labor, plantation owners had to look elsewhere for manpower for these labour-intensive crops. They turned to the centuries-old slave trade of west Africa and began transporting Africans across

1050-706: A period of political instability , the Romanovs came to power in 1613 and the expansion-colonization process of Russia continued. While western Europe colonized the New World, Russia expanded overland – to the east, north and south. This continued for centuries; by the end of the 19th century, the Russian Empire reached from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and for some time included colonies in

1155-564: A renowned scholar and writer who served in the administration of Theodoric the Great , king of the Ostrogoths . Senator was part of his surname, not his rank. He also founded a monastery , Vivarium (or "Castellum"), where he worked extensively the last three decades of his life. Cassiodorus was born at Scylletium , near present-day Catanzaro in the Calabria region of Italy , into

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1260-470: A specific order of texts to be read, Cassiodorus hoped to create the discipline necessary within the reader to become a successful monk. The first work in this succession of texts would be the Psalms , with which the untrained reader would need to begin because of its appeal to emotion and temporal goods. By examining the rate at which copies of his Psalmic commentaries were issued, it is fair to assess that, as

1365-625: A strict monastic rule, such as that of the Benedictine Order . Rather Cassiodorus's work Institutiones was written to guide the monks' studies. To this end, the Institutiones focus largely on texts assumed to have been available in Vivarium's library. The Institutiones seem to have been composed over a lengthy period of time, from the 530s into the 550s, with redactions up to the time of Cassiodorus's death. Cassiodorus composed

1470-665: Is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians , Greeks , Romans , Turks , Han Chinese , and Arabs . Colonialism in the modern sense began with the " Age of Discovery ", led by the Portuguese , who became increasingly expansionist following the conquest of Ceuta in 1415, aiming to control navigation through the Strait of Gibraltar , spread Christianity , amass wealth and plunder, and suppress predation on Portuguese populations by Barbary pirates as part of

1575-795: The Cassa per il Mezzogiorno , the Italian government's development fund for southern Italy (1950–1984). In the Iberian Peninsula , the Castilian Reconquista of Muslim territories provided the Christian kingdom with sudden extensions of land, which the kings ceded as rewards to nobility, mercenaries and military orders to exploit as latifundia , which had been first established as the commercial olive oil and grain latifundia of Roman Hispania Baetica . The gifts finished

1680-598: The de facto ruler of Mughal Bengal , opposed British attempts to use these permits. This led to the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which the armies of the East India Company, led by Robert Clive , defeated the Nawab's forces. This was the first political foothold with territorial implications that the British had acquired in India. Clive was appointed by the company as its first Governor of Bengal in 1757. This

1785-684: The Alaska (1732–1867) and a short-lived unofficial colony in Africa (1889) in present-day Djibouti . The acquisition of new territories, especially in the Caucasus, had an invigorating effect on the rest of Russia. According to two Russian historians: The first stage to 1650 was an expansion eastward from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Geographical expeditions mapped much of Siberia. The second stage from 1785 to 1830 looked south to

1890-550: The Benedictine monks to study the medical texts of that era, the known herbals and texts of Hippocrates , Dioscorides and Galen . Cassiodorus is rivalled only by Boethius in his drive to preserve and explore classical literature during the 6th century AD. He found the writings of the Greeks and Romans valuable for their expression of higher truths where other arts failed. Though he saw these texts as vastly inferior to

1995-743: The Boston Massacre . A standing army was formed by the United Colonies , and independence was declared by the Second Continental Congress on 4 July 1776. A new nation was born, the United States of America , and all royal officials were expelled. On their own the Patriots captured a British Invasion army and France recognized the new nation, formed a military alliance, declared war on Britain, and left

2100-950: The Codex Grandior of the Bible being purchased by the Anglo-Saxon Ceolfrith when he was in Italy in 679–80, and taken by him to Wearmouth Jarrow , where it served as the source for the copying of the Codex Amiatinus , which was then brought back to Italy by the now aged Ceolfrith. Despite the demise of the Vivarium, Cassiodorus's work in compiling classical sources and presenting a sort of bibliography of resources would prove extremely influential in Late Antique Western Europe. Cassiodorus devoted much of his life to supporting education within

2205-608: The Crown of Castile , from 1402 to 1496, has been described as the first instance of European settler colonialism in Africa. In 1462, the previously uninhabited Cape Verde archipelago became the first European settlement in the tropics , and thereafter a site of Jewish exile during the height of the Spanish Inquisition in the 1490s; the Portuguese soon also brought slaves from the West African coast. Because of

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2310-558: The Dominican Republic ). The Portuguese and Spanish Empires were the first global empires because they were the first to stretch across different continents (discounting Eurasian empires and those with land in Africa along the Mediterranean), covering vast territories around the globe. Between 1580 and 1640, the Portuguese and Spanish empires were both ruled by the Spanish monarchs in personal union . During

2415-619: The Dutch , the English —who set up a trading post in the west-coast port of Surat in 1619—and the French. The internal conflicts among Indian Kingdoms gave opportunities to the European traders to gradually establish political influence and appropriate lands. Although these continental European powers were to control various regions of southern and eastern India during the ensuing century, they would eventually lose all their territories in India to

2520-827: The East India Companies and the Hudson's Bay Company . Imperial Russia had no state-sponsored expeditions or colonization in the Americas, but did charter the first Russian joint-stock commercial enterprise, the Russian America Company , which did sponsor those activities in its territories. In May 1498, the Portuguese set foot in Kozhikode in Kerala , making them the first Europeans to sail to India. Rivalry among reigning European powers saw

2625-587: The French Revolution in this slave society. Although independence was declared in 1804, it was not until 1825 that it was formally recognized by King Charles X of France . The gradual decline of Spain as an imperial power throughout the 17th century was hastened by the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), as a result of which it lost its European imperial possessions. The death knell for

2730-563: The Great Famine of 1876–78 , in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died and the Indian famine of 1899–1900 , in which 1.25 to 10 million people died. The Third Plague Pandemic started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading plague to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone. Despite persistent diseases and famines, however, the population of

2835-535: The Indian subcontinent , which stood at about 125 million in 1750, had reached 389 million by 1941. Like the other European colonists, the French began their colonization via commercial activities, starting with the establishment of a factory in Surat in 1668. The French started to settle down in India in 1673, beginning with the purchase of land at Chandernagore from the Mughal Governor of Bengal, followed by

2940-505: The Institutiones as a guide for introductory learning of both "divine" and "secular" writings, in place of his formerly planned Christian school in Rome: I was moved by divine love to devise for you, with God's help, these introductory books to take the place of a teacher. Through them I believe that both the textual sequence of Holy Scripture and also a compact account of secular letters may, with God's grace, be revealed. The first section of

3045-585: The Institutiones deals with Christian texts, and was intended to be used in combination with the Expositio Psalmorum . The order of subjects in the second book of the Institutiones reflected what would become the Trivium and Quadrivium of medieval liberal arts : grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. While he encouraged study of secular subjects, Cassiodorus clearly considered them useful primarily as aids to

3150-620: The Moghul rule and dynasty itself in less than a century. The East India Company monopolized the trade of Bengal. They introduced a land taxation system called the Permanent Settlement which introduced a feudal-like structure (See Zamindar ) in the Bengal Presidency . By the 1850s, the East India Company controlled most of the Indian subcontinent , which included present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh . Their policy

3255-532: The Scramble for Africa regulated by the terms of the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885. The conference effectively divided Africa among the European powers. Vast regions of Africa came under the sway of Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and Spain. Gilmartin argues that these three waves of colonialism were linked to capitalism . The first wave of European expansion involved exploring

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3360-631: The Thirteen Colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States and other colonies such as Newfoundland and Rupert's Land in what is now Canada. However, the English, French and Dutch were no more averse to making a profit than the Spanish and Portuguese, and whilst their areas of settlement in the Americas proved to be devoid of the precious metals found by the Spanish, trade in other commodities and products that could be sold at

3465-471: The economics of plantations , especially sugar , European colonial expansion and slavery would remain linked into the 1800s. The use of exile to penal colonies would also continue. The European "discovery" of the New World , as named by Amerigo Vespucci in 1503, opened another colonial chapter, beginning with the colonization of the Caribbean in 1493 with Hispaniola (later to become Haiti and

3570-643: The fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Empire effectively closed profitable trade routes with Asia, early European exploration of Africa was followed by the Spanish exploration of the Americas , further exploration along the coasts of Africa , and explorations of West Asia (also known as the Middle East ), South Asia , and East Asia . The conquest of the Canary Islands by

3675-530: The latifundia notably in Magna Graecia (the south of Italy including Sicilia ) and Hispania , was the ager publicus (state-owned land) that accumulated from the spoils of war, confiscated from conquered peoples beginning in the 3rd century BC. As much as a third of the arable land of a new province was taken for agri publici and then divided up with at least the fiction of a competitive auction for leased estates rather than outright ownership. Later,

3780-430: The 1870s (circa opening of Suez Canal and Second Industrial Revolution ) and the outbreak of World War I in 1914 are often characterized as the " New Imperialism ". The period is distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of what has been termed "empire for empire's sake," aggressive competition for overseas territorial acquisitions, and the emergence in colonizing countries of doctrines of racial superiority which denied

3885-585: The 1st and 2nd century as the supply of slaves dwindled due to lack of new conquests. Nevertheless, by the 2nd century AD, latifundia had replaced many small and medium-sized farms in some areas of the Roman Empire. In the 6th century, Cassiodorus was able to apply his own latifundia to support his short-lived Vivarium in the heel of Italy. In Sicily , latifundia dominated the island from medieval times. They were only abolished by sweeping land reform mandating smaller farms in 1950–1962, funded from

3990-480: The 20th century, the colonies of the defeated central powers in World War I were distributed amongst the victors as mandates , but it was not until the end of World War II that the second phase of decolonization began in earnest. Some commentators identify three waves of European colonialism. The two main countries in the first wave of European colonialism were Portugal and Spain . The Portuguese started

4095-425: The Atlantic on a massive scale – historians estimate that the Atlantic slave trade brought between 10 and 12 million black African slaves to the New World. The islands of the Caribbean soon came to be populated by slaves of African descent, ruled over by a white minority of plantation owners interested in making a fortune and then returning to their home country to spend it. From its very outset, Western colonialism

4200-520: The British, with the exception of the French outposts of Pondicherry and Chandernagore , the Dutch port in Travancore , and the Portuguese colonies of Goa , Daman , and Diu . The English East India Company had been given permission by the Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1617 to trade in India. Gradually the company's increasing influence led the de jure Mughal emperor Farrukh Siyar to grant them dastaks or permits for duty-free trade in Bengal in 1717. The Nawab of Bengal Siraj Ud Daulah ,

4305-474: The Christian community at large. When his proposed theological university in Rome was denied, he was forced to re-examine his entire approach to how material was learned and interpreted. His Variae shows that, like Augustine of Hippo , Cassiodorus viewed reading as a transformative act for the reader. It is with this in mind that he designed and mandated the course of studies at the Vivarium, which demanded an intense regimen of reading and meditation. By assigning

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4410-618: The Dutch turned their attention to the Old World, particularly South Africa and South Asia, particularly Southeast Asia , where coastal enclaves had already been established. In the 19th century, the Second Industrial Revolution led to what has been termed the era of New Imperialism , when the pace of colonization rapidly accelerated, the height of which was the Scramble for Africa , in which Belgium, Germany, and Italy were also participants. There were deadly battles between colonizing states and revolutions from colonized areas shaping areas of control and establishing independent nations. During

4515-420: The East Asian seaboard, where Japan joined the European powers' scramble for territory. The Berlin Conference (1884–1885) mediated the imperial competition among Britain, France, and Germany, defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of colonial claims and codifying the imposition of direct rule , accomplished usually through armed force. In Germany, rising pan-Germanism

4620-400: The East India Company's troops with British Army soldiers, the Company overcame the rebellion. The nominal leader of the uprising, the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar , was exiled to Burma, his children were beheaded and the Moghul line was abolished. In the aftermath all power was transferred from the East India Company to the British Crown , which began to administer most of India as

4725-447: The Empire, as leases were inherited, ownership of the former common lands became established by tradition, and the leases became taxable. Ownership of land, organised in the latifundia , defined the Roman Senatorial class as it was their only acceptable source of wealth, though they would set up their freedmen as merchant traders and participate as silent partners in businesses from which senators were disqualified. Latifundia included

4830-413: The French colony of Saint-Domingue , established Haïti as a free, black republic , the first of its kind. Haiti became the second independent nation that was a former European colony in the Western Hemisphere after the United States. Africans and people of African ancestry freed themselves from slavery and colonization by taking advantage of the conflict among whites over how to implement the reforms of

4935-485: The French while making it clear that France could not expand its control beyond these areas. The beginning of the Portuguese occupation of India can be traced back to the arrival of Vasco da Gama near Calicut on 20 May 1498. Soon after this, other explorers, traders and missionaries followed. By 1515, the Portuguese were the strongest naval power in the Indian Ocean and the Malabar Coast was dominated by them. The policy and ideology of European colonial expansion between

5040-508: The Good . This inspired him to adjust his educational program to support the aesthetic enhancement of manuscripts within the monastery, something which had been practiced before, but not in the universality that he suggests. Classical learning would by no means replace the role of Scripture within the monastery; it was intended to augment the education already under way. It is also worth noting that all Greek and Roman works were heavily screened to ensure only proper exposure to text, fitting with

5145-494: The Great . Cassiodorus began his career under the auspices of his father, about in his twentieth year, when the latter made him his consiliarius upon his own appointment to the Praetorian Prefecture. In the judicial capacity of the prefect, he held absolute right of appeal over any magistrate in the empire (or Gothic kingdom, later) and the consiliarius served as a sort of legal advisor in cases of greater complexity. Evidently, therefore, Cassiodorus had received some education in

5250-405: The Iberian kingdoms of Castile and Portugal along a north-south meridian, 370 leagues west of Cape Verde . According to this international agreement, the larger part of the Americas and the Pacific Ocean were open to Spanish exploration and colonization, while Africa, the Indian Ocean , and most of Asia were assigned to Portugal. The boundaries specified by the Treaty of Tordesillas were put to

5355-437: The Imperial era, from Egypt). The latifundia quickly started economic consolidation as larger estates achieved greater economies of scale and productivity, and senator owners did not pay land taxes. Owners re-invested their profits by purchasing smaller neighbouring farms, since smaller farms had lower productivity and could not compete, in an ancient precursor of agribusiness . Latifundia also expanded with conquest, to

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5460-422: The Islamic Ottoman Empire , itself gaining territories and colonies in Eastern Europe. The first foothold outside of Europe was gained with the conquest of Ceuta in 1415. During the 15th century, Portuguese sailors discovered the Atlantic islands of Madeira , Azores , and Cape Verde , which were duly populated, and pressed progressively further along the west African coast until Bartolomeu Dias demonstrated it

5565-602: The Jesuits still stand, such as the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Macau and the Santisima Trinidad de Paraná in Paraguay , the latter an example of the Jesuit Reductions . The Dominican and Franciscan buildings of California's missions and New Mexico's missions stand restored, such as Mission Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, California and San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico . As characteristically happens in any colonialism, European or not, previous or subsequent, both Spain and Portugal profited handsomely from their newfound overseas colonies:

5670-454: The Portuguese encountered ancient and well populated societies, and established a seaborne empire consisting of armed coastal trading posts along their trade routes (such as Goa , Malacca and Macau ), so they had relatively little cultural impact on the societies they engaged. In the Western Hemisphere, the European colonization involved the emigration of large numbers of settlers, soldiers and administrators intent on owning land and exploiting

5775-402: The Roman provinces of Mauretania (modern Maghreb ) and in Hispania Baetica (modern Andalusia ). The latifundia distressed Pliny the Elder (died AD 79) as he travelled, seeing only slaves working the land, not the sturdy Roman farmers who had been the backbone of the Republic's army. His writings can be seen as a part of the "conservative" reaction to the profit-oriented new attitudes of

5880-606: The Spanish Empire in the Americas was Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 1808. With the installation of his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, the main tie between the metropole and its colonies in the Americas, the Spanish monarchy, had been cut, leading the colonists to question their continued subordination to a declining and distant country. With an eye on the events of the American Revolution forty years earlier, revolutionary leaders began bloody wars of independence against Spain, whose armies were ultimately unable to maintain control. By 1831, Spain had been ejected from

5985-409: The Spanish from gold and silver from mines such as Potosí and Zacatecas in New Spain , the Portuguese from the huge markups they enjoyed as trade intermediaries, particularly during the Nanban Japan trade period. The influx of precious metals to the Spanish monarchy's coffers allowed it to finance costly religious wars in Europe which ultimately proved its economic undoing: the supply of metals

6090-460: The United States and Canada, or islands in the Caribbean, such as Aruba , Martinique , and Barbados , that had been abandoned by the Spanish in favor of the mainland and larger islands. Whereas Spanish colonialism was based on the religious conversion and exploitation of local populations via encomiendas (many Spaniards emigrated to the Americas to elevate their social status, and were not interested in manual labor), Northern European colonialism

6195-417: The acquisition of Pondicherry from the Sultan of Bijapur the next year. Both became the centers of the maritime commercial activities that the French conducted in India. The French also had trading posts in Mahe, Karikal and Yanaon . Similar to the situation in Tahiti and Martinique , the French colonial administrative area was insular, but, in India, the French authority was isolated on the peripheries of

6300-482: The age, including Bede , as an obscure supporter of the Church. In their descriptions of Cassiodorus, medieval scholars have been documented to change his name, profession, place of residence, and even his religion. Some chapters from his works have been copied into other texts, suggesting that he may have been read, but not generally known. The works not assigned as a part of Cassiodorus's educational program must be examined critically. Because he had been working under

6405-486: The apparently primitive (as perceived by Old World standards) indigenous peoples of the Americas . The result was that the colonization of the New World was catastrophic: native peoples were no match for European technology, ruthlessness, or their diseases which decimated the indigenous population . Spanish treatment of the indigenous populations caused a fierce debate, the Valladolid Controversy , over whether Indians possessed souls and if so, whether they were entitled to

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6510-456: The areas between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea . The key areas were Armenia and Georgia , with some better penetration of the Ottoman Empire, and Persia . By 1829, Russia controlled all of the Caucasus as shown in the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829. The third era, 1850 to 1860, was a brief interlude jumping to the East Coast, annexing the region from the Amur River to Manchuria . The fourth era, 1865 to 1885 incorporated Turkestan, and

6615-481: The attention of Britain, France, and the Netherlands. The entrance of these three powers into the Caribbean and North America perpetuated European colonialism in these regions. The second wave of European colonialism commenced with Britain's involvement in Asia in support of the British East India Company ; other countries such as France, Portugal and the Netherlands also had involvement in European expansion in Asia. The third wave ("New Imperialism") consisted of

6720-531: The basic rights of mankind. Bartolomé de Las Casas , author of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies , championed the cause of the native peoples, and was opposed by Sepúlveda , who claimed Amerindians were "natural slaves". The Roman Catholic Church played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities. The Dominicans , Jesuits , and Franciscans , notably Francis Xavier in Asia and Junípero Serra in North America, were particularly active in this endeavour. Many buildings erected by

6825-428: The block within a year. All this was a result of the worsening split between the ancient senatorial aristocracy centered in Rome and the adherents of Gothic rule at Ravenna. But to read Cassiodorus' Variae one would never suspect such goings-on. There is no mention in Cassiodorus's selection of official correspondence of the death of Boethius. Athalaric died in early 534, and the remainder of Cassiodorus's public career

6930-402: The clause in Adam's will excluding his authority from the New World. This challenge initially took the form of piratical attacks (such as those by Francis Drake ) on Spanish treasure fleets or coastal settlements. Later the Northern European countries began establishing settlements of their own, primarily in areas that were outside of Spanish interests, such as what is now the eastern seaboard of

7035-446: The entry of the Dutch , English , French , Danish and others. The kingdoms of India were gradually taken over by the Europeans and indirectly controlled by puppet rulers. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I accorded a charter , forming the East India Company to trade with India and eastern Asia. The English landed in India in Surat in 1612. By the 19th century, they had assumed direct and indirect control over most of India. After

7140-490: The first direct contact between Europeans and the peoples inhabiting present day countries such as Mozambique , Madagascar , Sri Lanka , Malaysia , Indonesia , East Timor (1512), China, and finally Japan. In the opposite direction, the Portuguese colonized the huge territory that eventually became Brasil, and the Spanish conquistadors established the vast Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru , and later of Río de la Plata (Argentina) and New Granada (Colombia). In Asia,

7245-581: The first work in his series, Cassiodorus's educational agenda had been implemented to some degree of success. Beyond demanding the pursuit of discipline among his students, Cassiodorus encouraged the study of the liberal arts. He believed these arts were part of the content of the Bible, and some mastery of them—especially grammar and rhetoric—was necessary for a complete understanding of it. These arts were divided into trivium (which included rhetoric, idioms, vocabulary and etymology) and quadrivium : arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. He also encouraged

7350-449: The fitness of subjugated peoples for self-government. During this period, Europe's powers added nearly 8,880,000 square miles (23,000,000 km ) to their overseas colonial possessions. As it was mostly unoccupied by the Western powers as late as the 1880s, Africa became the primary target of the "new" imperialist expansion (known as the Scramble for Africa ), although conquest took place also in other areas – notably south-east Asia and

7455-470: The former independent country which is now part of Yemen . European colonization of both Eastern and Western Hemispheres has its roots in Portuguese exploration. There were financial and religious motives behind this exploration. By finding the source of the lucrative spice trade , the Portuguese could reap its profits for themselves. They would also be able to probe the existence of the fabled Christian kingdom of Prester John , with an eye to encircling

7560-500: The improvement of his religious knowledge. Cassiodorus spent his career trying to bridge the 6th-century cultural divides: between East and West, Greek culture and Latin, Roman and Goth, and between an orthodox people and their Arian rulers. He speaks fondly in his Institutiones of Dionysius Exiguus , the calculator of the Anno Domini era. In his retirement, he founded the monastery of Vivarium on his family estates on

7665-565: The late 16th and 17th centuries, England , France , and the Dutch Republic also established their own overseas empires, in direct competition with one another. The end of the 18th and mid 19th century saw the first era of decolonization , when most of the European colonies in the Americas, notably those of Spain, New France , and the Thirteen Colonies , gained their independence from their metropole . The Kingdom of Great Britain (uniting Scotland and England), France, Portugal, and

7770-579: The latifundists as "day workers" for specific seasonal campaigns. The jornalero class has been fertile ground for socialism and anarchism . Still today, among the main Andalusian trade unions is the Rural Workers Union ( Sindicato Obrero del Campo ), a far-left group famous for their squatting campaigns in the town of Marinaleda , Province of Seville . History of colonialism The historical phenomenon of colonization

7875-454: The law. During his working life he worked as quaestor sacri palatii c. 507–511, as a consul in 514, then as magister officiorum under Theoderic, and later under the regency for Theoderic's young successor, Athalaric . Cassiodorus kept copious records and letterbooks concerning public affairs. At the Gothic court his literary skill, which seems mannered and rhetorical to modern readers,

7980-605: The long age of European colonization with the conquest of Ceuta, Morocco in 1415, and the conquest and discovery of other African territories and islands, this would also start the movement known as the Age of Discoveries. The Spanish and Portuguese launched the colonization of the Americas , basing their territorial claims on the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. This treaty demarcated the respective spheres of influence of Spain and Portugal. The expansion achieved by Spain and Portugal caught

8085-595: The mainland of the Americas, leaving a collection of independent republics that stretched from Chile and Argentina in the south to Mexico in the north. Spain's colonial possessions were reduced to Cuba , Puerto Rico , the Philippines, and a number of small islands in the Pacific, all of which she was to lose to the United States in the 1898 Spanish–American War or sell to Germany shortly thereafter. Brazil

8190-477: The military system necessary to support and defend the colonies outran the total trade they produced. Apart from the British Empire, they have not favored destinations for the immigration of surplus populations. Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus ( / ˌ k æ s i oʊ ˈ d ɔːr ə s / ), was a Christian Roman statesman,

8295-440: The monastery. This approach to the development of the monastic lifestyle was perpetuated especially through German religious institutions. This change in daily life also became associated with a higher purpose: the process was not merely associated with disciplinary habit, but also with the preservation of history. During Cassiodorus's lifetime, theological study was on the decline and classical writings were disappearing. Even as

8400-599: The northern approaches to India, sparking British fears of a threat to India in the Great Game . During the five decades following 1770, Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal lost many of their possessions in the Americas. After the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, Britain had emerged as the world's dominant power but found itself mired in debt and struggling to finance the Navy and Army necessary to maintain

8505-527: The people he encountered there were Indians with red skin. This is why Native Americans have been called Indians or red-Indians. In truth, Columbus had arrived on a continent that was new to the Europeans, the Americas . After Columbus' first trips, competing Spanish and Portuguese claims to new territories and sea routes were solved with the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which divided the world outside of Europe in two areas of trade and exploration, between

8610-430: The perfect word of Scripture, the truths presented in them played to Cassiodorus's educational principles. Thus he is unafraid to cite Cicero alongside sacred text, and acknowledge the classical ideal of good being part of the practice of rhetoric. His love for classical thought also influenced his administration of Vivarium. Cassiodorus connected deeply with Christian neoplatonism , which saw beauty as concomitant with

8715-425: The practice of establishing agricultural coloniae , especially from the early 1st century BC, as a way to reward Roman army veterans created smaller landholdings, which would then be acquired by large landowners in times of economic distress. Such consolidation into fewer hands, mainly patricians, was not universally approved of, but efforts to reverse the trend by agrarian laws were generally unsuccessful. Later in

8820-419: The rest of the structured learning. Cassiodorus's legacy is quietly profound. Before the founding of Vivarium, the copying of manuscripts had been a task reserved for either inexperienced or physically infirm devotees, and was performed at the whim of literate monks. Through the influence of Cassiodorus, the monastic system adopted a more vigorous, widespread, and regular approach to reproducing documents within

8925-527: The shores of the Ionian Sea , and his writings turned to religion. Cassiodorus's Vivarium "monastery school" was composed of two main buildings: a coenobitic monastery and a retreat, for those who desired a more solitary life. Both were located on the site of the modern Santa Maria de Vetere near Squillace . The twin structure of Vivarium was to permit coenobitic (communal) monks and hermits to coexist. The Vivarium appears not to have been governed by

9030-486: The study of divinity, much in the same manner as St. Augustine . Cassiodorus's Institutiones thus attempted to provide what Cassiodorus saw as a well-rounded education necessary for a learned Christian, all in uno corpore , as Cassiodorus put it. The library at Vivarium was still active c. 630, when the monks brought the relics of Saint Agathius from Constantinople, dedicating to him a spring-fed fountain shrine that still exists. However, its books were later dispersed,

9135-627: The superpower without any major ally. The American War of Independence continued until 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed. Britain recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by the British possessions to the North, Florida to the South, and the Mississippi River to the west. The Haitian Revolution , a slave revolt led by Toussaint L'Ouverture in

9240-532: The test in 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish sailors (among other Europeans), sailing for the Spanish Crown became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean, reaching Guam and the Philippines, parts of which the Portuguese had already explored, sailing from the Indian Ocean. The two by now global empires, which had set out from opposing directions, had finally met on the other side of

9345-638: The traditional small private ownership of land, eliminating a social class that had also been typical of the al-Andalus period. In the Iberian peninsula, the possessions of the Church did not pass to private ownership until the ecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal ( Spanish : desamortización ), the "secularization" of church-owned latifundia , which proceeded in pulses through the 19th century. Big areas of Andalusia are still populated by an underclass of jornaleros , landless peasants who are hired by

9450-579: The upper classes of the Early Empire. He argued that the latifundia had ruined Italy and would ruin the Roman provinces as well. He reported that at one point, just six owners possessed half of the province of Africa , which may be a piece of rhetorical exaggeration as the North African cities were filled with flourishing landowners who filled the town councils. As small farms were bought up by

9555-500: The victorious Ostrogoth armies remained in the countryside, they continued to pillage and destroy Christian relics in Italy. Cassiodorus's programme helped ensure that both classical and Christian literature were preserved through the Middle Ages. Despite his contributions to monastic order, literature, and education, Cassiodorus's labors were not well acknowledged. After his death he was only partially recognized by historians of

9660-414: The wealthy with their vast supply of slaves, the newly landless peasantry moved to the city of Rome, where they became dependent on state subsidies. Free peasants did not completely disappear; many became tenants on estates that were worked in two ways: partly directly controlled by the owner and worked by slaves and partly leased to tenants. The production system of the latifundia went into crisis between

9765-642: The world to find new revenue and perpetuating European feudalism . The second wave focused on developing the mercantile capitalism system and the manufacturing industry in Europe. The last wave of European colonialism solidified all capitalistic endeavours by providing new markets and raw materials. As a result of these waves of European colonial expansion, only thirteen present-day independent countries escaped formal colonization by European powers: Afghanistan , Bhutan , Iran , Japan , Liberia , Mongolia , Nepal , China , North Korea , Saudi Arabia , South Korea , Thailand , and Turkey as well as North Yemen ,

9870-504: The world. The conflicts that arose between both powers were finally solved with the Treaty of Zaragoza in 1529, which defined the areas of Spanish and Portuguese influence in Asia, establishing the anti-meridian, or line of demarcation on the other side of the world. During the 16th century the Portuguese continued to press both eastwards and westwards into the Oceans. Towards Asia they made

9975-512: Was bolstered by those emigrating for religious reasons (for example, the Mayflower voyage). The motive for emigration was not to become an aristocrat or to spread one's faith but to start a new society afresh, structured according to the colonist's wishes. The most populous emigration of the 17th century was that of the English, who after a series of wars with the Dutch and French came to dominate

10080-642: Was combined with British victories over the French at Madras , Wandiwash and Pondicherry that, along with wider British successes during the Seven Years' War , reduced French influence in India. After the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the company acquired the civil rights of administration in Bengal from the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II ; it marked the beginning of its formal rule, which was to engulf eventually most of India and extinguish

10185-480: Was coupled to imperialism in the Alldeutsche Verband ("Pangermanic League"), which argued that Britain's world power position gave the British unfair advantages on international markets, thus limiting Germany's economic growth and threatening its security. Asking whether colonies paid, economic historian Grover Clark argues an emphatic "No!" He reports that in every case the support cost, especially

10290-567: Was dominated by the Byzantine reconquest and dynastic intrigue among the Ostrogoths. His last letters were drafted in the name of Vitiges . Around 537–38, he left Italy for Constantinople , from where his successor was appointed; Cassiodorus remained in the eastern capital for almost two decades, concentrating on religious questions. He notably met Junillus , the quaestor of Justinian I there. His Constantinopolitan journey contributed to

10395-691: Was left in charge of Brazil and in 1822 he declared independence from Portugal and himself the Emperor of Brazil. Unlike Spain's former colonies which had abandoned the monarchy in favor of republicanism, Brazil, therefore, retained its links with its monarchy, the House of Braganza . Vasco da Gama 's maritime success to discover for Europeans a new sea route to India in 1498 paved the way for direct Indo-European commerce. The Portuguese soon set up trading-posts in Goa , Daman , Diu and Bombay . The next to arrive were

10500-483: Was not infinite and the large inflow caused inflation and debt, and subsequently affected the rest of Europe. It was not long before the exclusivity of Iberian claims to the Americas was challenged by other up and coming European powers, primarily the Netherlands, France and England: the view taken by the rulers of these nations is epitomized by the quotation attributed to Francis I of France demanding to be shown

10605-459: Was operated as a joint public-private venture. Columbus' voyages to the Americas were partially funded by Italian investors, but whereas the Spanish state maintained a tight rein on trade with its colonies (by law, the colonies could only trade with one designated port in the mother country and treasure was brought back in special convoys ), the English, French and Dutch granted what were effectively trade monopolies to joint-stock companies such as

10710-534: Was possible to sail around Africa by rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, paving the way for Vasco da Gama to reach India in 1498. Portuguese successes led to Spanish financing of a mission by Christopher Columbus in 1492 to explore an alternative route to Asia, by sailing west. When Columbus eventually made landfall in the Caribbean Antilles he believed he had reached the coast of India, and that

10815-530: Was so esteemed that when in Ravenna he was often entrusted with drafting significant public documents. His culminating appointment was as praetorian prefect for Italy, effectively the prime ministership of the Ostrogothic civil government and a high honor to finish any career. Cassiodorus also collaborated with Pope Agapetus I to establish a library of Greek and Latin texts that were intended to support

10920-534: Was sometimes summed up as Divide and Rule , taking advantage of the enmity festering between various princely states and social and religious groups. The first major movement against the British Company's high-handed rule resulted in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 , also known as the "Indian Mutiny" or "Sepoy Mutiny" or the "First War of Independence". After a year of turmoil, and reinforcement of

11025-516: Was the only country in Latin America to gain its independence without bloodshed. The invasion of Portugal by Napoleon in 1808 had forced King João VI to escape to Brazil and establish his court in Rio de Janeiro. For thirteen years, Portugal was ruled from Brazil (the only instance of such a reversal of roles between colony and metropole) until his return to Portugal in 1821. His son, Dom Pedro ,

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