Pros and Cons of Colonism

Positive Effects

New technology, brought new religion, better farming methods, universal language, trade routs, roads, health, care, curing sicknesses

New Technology
Colonialism brought modernization to regions that were technologically underdeveloped. Modernization projects included building railroads for open trade, needed medical advancements and schools providing a modern education. These advances helped underdeveloped nations improve their global status as centers for trade.

e.g. Heugseon Daewongun was a regent of Joseon during the minority of King Gojong in the 1860s and until his death a key political figure of late Joseon Korea. His main policy was seclusion, which means keeping the tradition and blocking all of religion, culture, or thought coming from other countries. However, due to the Japanese's colonization, Korea was able to take a step to modern society. America can be one of examples too. While European use gun powder and cannon, American natives use spear and bow. Since European gave them new technologies, they are able to develop themselves.

Ending of Poor Tradition

After India was colonized, the long-standing practice of Sati was finally abolished. Sati was the practice where the first wife of a deceased husband would throw herself, or be thrown, onto the funeral fire with her husband as a show of mourning. It was not until the colonization of India that the rest of the world learned about the practice and moved to outlaw it.

High Quality of Education

The improvements to education provided an opportunity for colonized students to compete with foreign students in fields including literature, art, math and science.\

Negative Effects

Enslaved people, destroyed culture, killed people, made the people poor, took resources, made country borders that brought wars

Segregated Benefits

Many of the benefits of colonialism, such as education, were restricted to specific classes of individuals, usually based on skin color or ethnic origin.

e.g. The extreme racial segregation in South Africa, known as the apartheid, is a partial result of African colonialism. The education segregation left an economic disparity in South Africa that resulted in continued segregation after the colonial period and a legacy of poor civil rights and human atrocity.

Resource Drain

One of the primary goals of colonialism was the establishment of a resource-generating system through which natural resources from colonized regions were gathered and traded by the colonizing nation. This process reduced the availability of natural resources in the colonized nations, leading to times of hunger, poverty and need. Some colonies were heavily farmed, with food stores shipped to feed populations elsewhere while locals survived on less. Further, this created a system where a colonized country could be farmed for its natural wealth, but receive no monetary benefits.