137
votes
Accepted
Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
Europeans were introduced to at least one important disease from the Americas (syphilis), but far more Old World pathogens were introduced to the Americas than vice versa. There are several reasons ...
- 18.1k
99
votes
Why was Germany not as successful as other Europeans in establishing overseas colonies?
Which Germany do you mean?
Something that can reasonably called a German nation-state was founded only in 1871, when Prussia first defeated France and then unified most German states under their ...
- 16.4k
76
votes
Accepted
Why aren't there any Chinese colonies?
They did. Depending on the preferred definition of "colonies", Chinese states in fact established innumerable colonies throughout history. Certainly the most common form was overland colonies created ...
- 96.6k
58
votes
Accepted
Why didn't Portugal found universities in its colonies like Spain?
SHORT ANSWER
Spanish policy was rooted in the tradition of setting up universities in conquered territories, accompanied by the aim of converting the local people to Catholicism in order to bind them ...
- 107k
51
votes
Accepted
Why could China keep most of the lands it conquered after 17th century but European powers could not?
The Chinese situation was fundamentally different from the Western European colonial empires. In fact it's rather more like Russia, who also managed to keep her Eurasian empire, or the United States, ...
- 96.6k
50
votes
Accepted
Why did no other empire contest Russia's colonization of North-Asia?
Siberia was colonized earlier than the 18/19th centuries. There actually were a few challenges by great powers to Russia's colonial empire as it expanded and later: from China to some extent early on, ...
- 23.1k
46
votes
Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
Several good answers have already been suggested, but there are a few very important points that are worth mentioning: Native Americans were badly unprepared for the emergence of epidemic disease ...
- 2,259
46
votes
Accepted
Did Pope Urban II issue the papal bull "terra nullius" in 1095?
It seems likely this is a historical myth.
According to WikiPedia's list of Papal Bulls*, Urban II did issue a bull that year, but it had to do with who was allowed to excommunicate the ruler of the ...
- 114k
38
votes
Accepted
Why did China annex Tibet?
The other two answers speak in terms of Tibet's legal status; and these answers, while correct, don't properly explain why Tibet is important to China. This answer relates entirely to geography. The ...
- 7,402
33
votes
Accepted
Why was Germany not as successful as other Europeans in establishing overseas colonies?
Germany arrived late to the party, and did so unenthusiastically
Germany basically was a mess of small states at the onset of the colonial era. It took a very long time for Brandenburg-Prussia to ...
- 23.1k
32
votes
Are there historical instances of settlers who were largely uncontacted and undisturbed after settling?
The peopling of Hawaii in the 1100s or 1200s may qualify. Drifters or shipwrecks could have arrived in the following centuries (for which see Braden's On the Probability of Pre-1778 Japanese Drifts to ...
- 27.4k
28
votes
Why was Germany not as successful as other Europeans in establishing overseas colonies?
In order to support a global empire, you need to be capable of supplying and defending your outposts with a strong Navy. The five other European nations that you named all had long naval traditions ...
- 18.8k
27
votes
Were the Islamic Caliphates (Umayyad and Abbasid) and the Mongol Empires truly as benevolent as they are portrayed?
If your textbook indeed says this, it is evidently biased. First of all, these things (the Caliphate, the Mongol Empire, and European empires) belong to very different historical periods, and thus ...
- 38.1k
27
votes
Accepted
Why did it take over 100 years for Britain to begin seriously colonising America?
Here is a list with the major factors. This list focuses on the period Oct 1492 to April 1607 and is extracted from this Timeline of Colonial America. The timeline already contains links to sources ...
- 2,374
26
votes
Accepted
Why didn't Britain or any other European power colonize Abyssinia/Ethiopia before 1936?
Abyssinia / Ethiopia (the borders of which expanded and contracted frequently over the centuries) maintained its independence until 1936 by a combination of diplomatic skill in playing would-be ...
- 107k
25
votes
Did Japanese modernisation have an effect on Ethiopia?
Addis Hiwet first used the term 'Japanizer' to one group of modernisers in post-WWI Ethiopia who took the example of Meiji Japan as giving a model for development away from feudal forms. The model ...
23
votes
Accepted
Why has Nepal never been conquered or colonized?
There were some times Nepal was partially conquered.
Most were during the early medieval period. Documentation during this period can be problematic, but there are records of the Muraya Empire ...
- 114k
18
votes
Accepted
Why were Morocco and Tunisia made a French protectorate, but Algeria annexed as part of France?
One of the main differences between Algeria and other Maghreb countries controlled by France was the extensive settlements established there. European settlers began arriving immediately after the ...
- 7,032
18
votes
Accepted
Why did United Kingdom not keep the colonies after Napoleon's defeat?
Unlike the earlier European wars of the 18th Century, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, from a British perspective, were not about acquiring or retaining territory. The purpose of war for ...
- 18.8k
16
votes
Why didn't colonial empires exchange their colonies with others empire to make their territories whole?
The shorthand answer is that the age of colonial empires was not a board game where each empire has a a strategy, and there's a way of scoring a winner. Empires -- like everything human -- were ...
- 6,294
15
votes
Why did China annex Tibet?
tl;dr
Why invade?
Because government, in order to be legitimate (I'm using the term "legitimate" in the same sense as Fukyama - that the citizens perceive the government's actions as ...
MCW♦
- 31.7k
14
votes
Why aren't there any Chinese colonies?
Notice how big China is? There's a reason for that; it's only a semantic difference between calling conquered territory a "colony" and simply part of your country.
EDIT: Someone pointed out in ...
- 251
14
votes
Why do Afro-Caribbeans have English names whereas Indo-Caribbeans still have Indian(ish) names?
Afro Carribeans:
Afro-Caribbeans are Caribbean people who trace their heritage to Sub-Saharan Africa [...] Between the 16th and 19th centuries, European-led triangular trade brought African people ...
- 5,572
14
votes
Accepted
What caused the shift from annexation of territory, to colonization of territory?
Part of the problem is "colony" is a floaty term. I think there are at least three basic ways a country dominates land:
Colony: replacing the natives with your own people (the Americas, Australia, ...
- 54.4k
14
votes
Are there historical instances of settlers who were largely uncontacted and undisturbed after settling?
It doesn't reach the bars in the OP of 200 settlers and 3 centuries, but in case you are interested in a smaller experience, Pitcairn Island was settled in 1790 by 27 people. The community they built ...
- 5,552
13
votes
Accepted
Did Britain send convicts to Canada during the colonial era?
Yes. In 1730 and again in 1789, Britain sent convict ships to Newfoundland. However, neither experiment was successful as they found that St. John's could not incorporate the scores of new residents. ...
- 18.1k
13
votes
Why was the duration of territorial contracts often 99 years?
The origins of the 99-year lease are unknown, but have been a matter of speculation for centuries. However, that figure had become commonplace in many countries by the eighteenth and nineteenth ...
- 76.9k
13
votes
Are views in Thailand on Axis powers influenced by colonization?
Probably, to some extent. But clearly Nazi imagery just lacks the stigma it has in the west--not just in Thailand but throughout many Asian countries with very different histories. For a few examples ...
- 17.8k
12
votes
Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
Certainly some diseases are of New World origin.
The Old World had more diseases and more deadly diseases simply because the population was much greater and in certain place more concentrated.
It is ...
- 37.6k
12
votes
Why did the Portuguese colonies stay united whereas the Spanish ones split up?
Historically, there weren't multiple Portuguese colonies in South America. There was just one. The Portuguese governed Brazil as a single unit since 1549, when the failed Captaincies were merged. ...
- 8,470
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible