Conquest isn't colonisation
My answer to the question of if there a consensus on whether or not Africa was colonized by European powers?
Consensus pales in comparison to correctness.
The European Great Powers did not colonise Africa. However, they conquered all of it, bar Liberia. Colonisation and conquest are distinct actions.
A colony is a settlement no different from your run-of-the-mill 4x game starting point. More specifically, it is a settlement established by foreigners. Those foreigners are called colonists. The process of establishing their new settlement is called colonisation.
The gamer lifts the fog of war through divergent processes of colonisation (establishing new settlements) and conquest (seizing established settlements).
Colonisation is something that only living things can do. It doesn’t matter if it’s water lilies colonising a polluted water body or Elon Musk’s clones colonising Mars; like swimming upstream, it’s something only the living can do! States — Great Powers or not — are artificial constructs. The Statesmen at their helm can send soldiers to conquer or funds to support pioneering colonists, but humans do the slaughtering or ploughing.
Colonists are not always conquerors. For example, the Ruriks, Romanovs and Marxist-Leninists colonised their vast Eurasian territories with everyone from Germans to Koreans, and the British brought Africans and Asians to the Caribbeans. Singapore is a colony of Chinese, Indians and Malays that was a British territory from 1819 to 1961. It’s not strange when groups that subjugated foreign peoples and lands differ from those who colonised those conquered lands.
Conquest and colonisation have separate histories. People instinctively understand this. For example, nobody writes or talks about the Ottoman colonisation of Africa or Napoleon’s colonisation of Spain. Even if they did, it’d be farcical.
Consider The Empire of Japan as she stood in 1932. There were Japanese colonies in the Qing Empire and Korea. The Japanese ruled more of China for longer than almost anywhere else in their empire. But that doesn’t mean that Japan colonised China. Parts of it, sure; all of it — most certainly not! Therefore, the presence of colonies is just that — a settlement in a territory. It’s erroneous to equate that to the colonisation of entire land masses. Logically, where would it end? Do the former Arab colonies in Andalucia mean that the Arabs colonised Europe?
Do I spy the Japanese colonisation (!!!) of Mongolia?
Anyways.
A coalition of Americans, Chinese and the Soviets conquered Japan and dismembered her empire. The Chinese liberated Chinese territories, while the Americans and Soviets split the rest, including Japan.
The impact of the Americans and Soviets is visible in any appraisal of Japan and the Koreas. Their influence shaped those countries from their borders to their institutions, culture and foreign policy. The Superpowers created modern Korea and Japan. Yet, it would be wrong to claim that any of the two colonised Korea or the USA colonised Japan.
Intuitively, we understand that there must be a difference between foreigners dominating a society through superior violence and the support of local clients and those very same aliens moving to a foreign land to displace or replace the locals.
The history of Europeans colonising parts of Africa stretches farther back than antiquity. Is Alexandria not the most famous of the Hellenic colonies outside of Europe? But that is separate from the history of European conquests in Africa which had a break of more than seven centuries during the Arab interregnum.
The European encounter with people on the African continent from the early modern era onwards occurred in the context of the emergence and shaping of the system of State hierarchies we call the International System or World Order. The creation of European settlements in Africa was part of that process. However, acquiring clients and imposing subservience were more important factors that affected and still affect most Africans and their countries.
If all you care about is a set of Wiki factoids for your next posting war, then Europe colonised Africa serves its purpose as well as President Zelensky is a Nazi! But I’d like to think that verity matters more than the short-term pleasures of routing the misguided online.
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-consensus-on-whether-or-not-Africa-was-colonized-by-European-powers/answer/Emmanuel-Francis-Nwaolisa-Ogomegbunam
Lol.