What does race have to do with colonialism and imperialism?
Most writers who explore ideas of race in their works, from Aphra Behn to Jamaica Kincaid, do so in the context of imperial and colonial relations. “Colonialism” is the term used to describe the advent of large-scale permanent European settlement in areas of the world outside Europe, beginning soon after Columbus’s voyages at the end of the fifteenth century, and becoming widespread from the seventeenth century on. (Of course, on a smaller scale, colonization has occurred throughout human history.) “Imperialism” refers to the political domination of nations or regions by a foreign power (a common practice from antiquity, such as during the Roman Empire). After Columbus and the “discovery” of the “New World” in 1492, areas that were extensively colonized often became part of European empires, although many territories were politically assimilated without colonization. For example, in 1944 both India (where few Britons settled permanently) and Canada (a heavily colonized region) were uni
