Europeans in the East before 1815

Abstract

Five European countries had possessions in the east during the eighteenth century, but until late in the period there were no substantial territorial empires there. Portugal and Spain stood apart from Holland, Britain and France. These two pioneered European contacts with Asia by sea during the sixteenth century, and created the alternative patterns of activity which greatly influenced all later European arrivals. The Portuguese showed Europe how to trade profitably in areas with advanced civilizations and strong indigenous governments. They avoided large territorial possessions and built a system of forts and naval bases stretching from Lisbon to China and Japan. In the Philippines, where political and social conditions differed from those found in most parts of Asia, the Spanish used the colonizing techniques they had worked out in America and created the first, and for long the only, true European colony in the east. By contrast with their North European successors, both Iberian states vested their eastern possessions in the Crown.