Settlement colonialism in the age of mass migration
Settlement colonies made for powerful rhetoric and popular appeal. States without investment capital (and even those with capital) could invest colonially in other ways, as was argued in Italy during a period of unprecedented mass emigration.
Industrialisation had created both push and pull factors: transatlantic steamships flattened global markets and made traditional agriculture uncompetitive, but the same technology also made emigrant travel predictable, reliable and inexpensive. By 1911, one-sixth of Italy’s population were Italian emigrants abroad. Where would emigrants go? Scandals of abused Italian emigrants in Brazil and the United States made an Italian East Africa appear a better destination for this ‘human capital’. Germany also counted on supporting those ethnic Germans outside of the empire, but also establishing settlement colonies in southwest Africa. Similarly, Japan hoped to build settlements in Manchuria and Korea.Theory justified Italy’s approach. In the same year that Leroy-Beaulieu published his study in Paris, Leone Carpi published, in Milan, the first colonialist study in Italian. Carpi’s title reveals how he framed the problem: Delle colonie e delle emigrazioni d’italiani all’estero sotto l’aspetto dell’industria, commercio, agricoltura e con trattazione d’importanti questioni sociali (Of Colonies and Emigrations of Italians Abroad, considering Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Important Social Questions). A veteran of the Roman Republic in exile after the failed revolution of 1848, Carpi noted that the Italian word coloma means not only overseas possessions, but also settlements of emigrants in foreign countries. Therefore,
it is not easy in Italy to write a history of colonies under all their different aspects, because (1) We do not have colonies in the true sense of the word, (2) The scattered parts of our beloved fatherland have been unified as a nation only for a decade, (3) We have infrequent, disconnected, and incomplete news about the colonies.15
Yet Carpi proceeded to write four volumes on ‘our colonies, or more precisely, the agglomerations of Italians found in so many areas of our hemisphere’.16 The challenge for the Italian state was to build lasting economic and cultural ties with these scattered groups of emigrants.
For Carpi, the path of armed colonial conquest appeared destructive and foolish.In emphasising population settlement, Carpi, while less systematic and programmatic than Leroy-Beaulieu, did have history on his side. Italians regularly pointed to the examples of the ancient Greeks, whose settler colonies brought Magna Grecia to the coasts of Sicily and Southern Italy, and the ancient Romans, who sent legions of soldiers and their families abroad to populate the empire.17 The model of settler colonies stood as a challenge to the new colonial model of economic exploitation with protected capital investments.
France’s takeover of Tunisia in 1881 changed the perspective of the Italian state. Imperialist war and colonial settlement offered a more immediate and concrete power and influence for ‘Greater Italy’. The principal architect was Prime Minister Francesco Crispi, who in 1890 pioneered state-sponsored settler colonialism in East Africa along the Red Sea, with emigration as the justification:
What is our purpose in Eritrea? Our purpose is the establishment of a colony that can accommodate that immense emigration which goes to foreign lands, placing this emigration under the dominion and laws of Italy; our purpose is also to do everything that can help our commerce and the commerce of the country we have occupied.18
In reaction to public prejudice, later made explicit with the lynchings of Italian emigrants in New Orleans (1891) and Aigues-Mortes, France (1893), Crispi promised to parliament to establish and protect emigrants on conquered Italian soil in Africa. His disastrous error was to assume that the African lands were empty, simply waiting for occupation by the surplus Italian population of would-be emigrants.19
In 1889 Crispi made passionate appeals to parliament for increased funding for Italy’s colony on the Red Sea, dreaming that the creation of overseas settlements would liberate Italians from the archaic large estates and tiny, scattered landholdings that polarised rural society and strangled economic development in Italy.
He appealed to parliamentarians’ patience and sense of perspective:Do you believe, Sirs, that the favours of fortune can be obtained without sacrifices? All the great conquests cost the various Powers in the beginning, and cost greatly! The benefits were gathered late. And must we, now that we are at the point of drawing profit from the money spent and the blood shed—today when we can have in Africa, at short distance from Italy, a territory to colonise, that permits us to direct all that mass of unfortunates who run to America to search their fortune—must we renounce this benefit which we are about to assure for our homeland?20
In Crispi’s mind, Italy’s overseas emigration could be turned to the direct advantage of the state. By shifting migrants’ destinations from America to Africa, Italy could establish its reputation as a world power. So in 1890 Crispi joined together the separate outposts of Asmara and the ports of Assab and Massawa to form the contiguous colony of ‘Eritrea’ on the Red Sea. Though Assab and Massawa were hot, harsh coastal deserts, Asmara on the high plateau boasted a temperate climate and some of the best agricultural land in Africa.21 Crispi proclaimed Eritrea a haven for Italian emigration ‘under the dominion and laws of Italy’.22 Territorial settlements would strengthen Italy’s African colony and allow masses of emigrants to thrive amid transplanted Italian customs, traditions and society under the Italian flag. Colonialism would serve as a bridge to emigration, with both serving as the hallmarks of Italy abroad.23
To extend its reach, the Italian state collapsed the analytical categories of emigrant, exile and expatriate into the single theoretical concept of ‘Italians abroad’ (italiani all’estero], tying mass migration to the powerful rhetoric of irredentism. The word and idea were invented by Italians in the 1870s, calling for the salvation of unredeemed Italian lands (le terre irredente) in the Dolomites and along the Adriatic, still under Austrian imperial rule, by including their people in the Italian nation and uniting their territory to the Italian polity.
Under the banner of ‘Italians abroad’, Italians pioneered an ethnic form of ‘cultural citizenship’, explicitly valuing cultural belonging over formal political allegiances.24 Beyond the idealised nation-state of the Kingdom of Italy, uniting all members of the Italian nation into a single state, there was the imagined ‘nation-superstate’, a network of Italians worldwide connected in a supranational ‘global nation’. The Italian state carried out censuses of Italians abroad, and sponsored congresses and expositions to showcase the accomplishment of Italians outside the borders of Italy. Italian politicians hoped to follow the path of Greater Britain, as the British had spread their influence by expanding British culture and population worldwide.25 To forge such bonds in a Greater Italy, the state deliberately treated emigration and colonial expansion as one and the same. This practice became a central and enduring principle for Italian politics.Italy reached its limit in the conquest of the Ethiopian high plateau, one of the healthiest and most prosperous regions in the entire continent, free of the tsetse fly and safe for cattle. After defeat at Adwa in 1896, South America seemed to offer more promise for Italy than the Horn of Africa. In 1915 the president of the Italian Colonial Institute, Ernesto Artom, distinguished between Italy’s ‘colonies of direct dominion’ in Africa and her widespread
‘ethnographic colonies’. He emphasised that the Colonial Institute had committed itself to both forms of colonialism:
promoting within our country that intense colonial movement, from which all civilised peoples draw prosperity and wealth, and to which Italy is called, by its traditions, geographic position and demographic development; constituting an organisation among the population colonies in the great ethnographic empire, which our people could have in the world, replacing the divided Italic members with a powerful vital organism, pulsing with the heartbeat of a vigorous national life; [and] preparing our country for colonial life in the colonies of direct dominion, addressing the principal problems of our possessions of Libya, Eritrea and Benadir [Somalia].26
With the proper incentives, the Colonial Institute hoped to promote a tradition of international unity within Greater Italy through a worldwide organisation. Not only would Italian imperial outposts and expatriate communities organise on a local level with mutual aid societies and local charities, but they would also trade with each other and share a common culture and society.
Until 1910 the Italian authorities saw the most potential in emigration to South America, as pressures for migrants to assimilate seemed less acute than in North America. Politicians also argued that the South American ‘races’ were ‘weaker’ and could be easily overwhelmed. With a coordinated effort, Italy could in theory dominate South America economically, racially and politically, forming a ‘New Italy’ like Britain’s New England and New South Wales.The unredeemed Italian territories of Europe enjoyed a special place in the imagined community of Greater Italy. Cultural belonging, rather than political borders or legal citizenship, provided the guiding principle of Italian colonialism in this period, built upon the politics of irredentism. At the Milan Exposition of 1906, the Pavilion of Italians Abroad subsumed the Eritrea exhibit into the category of ‘Italians Abroad’, situated between displays spotlighting Italians in Argentina and the Italian Schools Abroad programme. Thus Italy’s costly ‘firstborn colony’ was placed on an equal level with territories to which Italy laid no other claim than cultural affinity. Moreover, Italians in Eritrea were clearly outnumbered and outdone by their compatriots in the Americas, and even in French Tunisia. The monumental success of Italians outside of East Africa had more visual impact than the samples of seeds and collections of spears and hides sent from Eritrea. Instead of mirages in Africa, the pavilion aimed to recreate Italy’s lost glories in the Adriatic Sea. Italian-speaking provinces in east-central Europe were raised to the same level as Italy’s territorial possessions in Africa, as if they were already a living part of Italy.
Italian support for schools abroad, with a focus on basic language instruction, stands out from other European cultural policies of the time. While the Alliance Franqaise, founded in 1884, aimed to consolidate the prestige and influence of French culture overseas by interacting with cultural elites, the more democratic Italian literacy project hoped to spread Italian influence from the grassroots, in primary schools and in evening schools for adults.27 Italy’s emphasis on literacy and popular culture offered a model to the German Empire.
In 1896, shortly before Italy’s defeat at Adwa, the German Colonial Council discussed how best to develop the potential benefits of German emigration. The council believed that traditional tools of diplomacy could not protect emigrants once they had established themselves abroad. More nuanced organisations, such as churches and schools, would have to nurture the identity of transplanted Germans. The committee recommended changes in Germany’s proposed emigration law, to follow Italy’s example:It makes no difference whether Germans gather in villages or small cities, or establish communities in larger cities; if they prolong their residence in a foreign land, they will assume obligations which will restrict displays of their Germanity (Deutschthum). We must employ means that preserve the character of the Folk (Volk), through the influence of public and private life, so that affiliation to the Fatherland might remain protected for the coming generation. The Church and, above all, the school must take the lead. The State cannot do much about the Church, but it can do something about schools. Italy, despite its less favourable financial situation, spends many millions annually for the establishment and support of schools abroad. The Reich should do likewise. Through schools, we will preserve our language; through language, our customs and family solidarity; and through these, our national character (Volksthum) will survive.28
Schools could make the difference between loyalty and apathy abroad. As recommended, Germany indeed embarked on a serious campaign to support emigrant culture. Ironically, the empire marshalled wealth and resources to deploy Italy’s methods more effectively than Italy could.29
German churches and community schools in the Americas enjoyed an advantage over newer, less stable Italian communities. Italy’s state-subsidised Dante Alighieri Society, founded in 1889, viewed its German counterpart, the Universal German School Union, as a mortal enemy in the quest for ‘informal empire’, particularly in Brazil and in the Italianspeaking regions of Austria.30 Supporting emigrants’ language and culture became another battle in the uncontained struggle for international influence, with population at the basis of future growth. An economic depression, combined with neo-mercantilism and tariff wars, made international competition yet more desperate. By the 1880s, even Bismarck was persuaded to join the scramble for Africa, claiming colonies in East and West Africa for a variety of commercial and strategic reasons, including the goal of a colonial haven for settling ethnic Germans abroad; for example, in German South-west Africa (Namibia).31
The Japanese Empire also based its colonial expansion upon movements of population. Like Italy and Germany, Japan was an ancient land undergoing national regeneration in the 1860s. Direct rule by the Meiji emperor, transfer of the imperial capital from Kyoto to Tokyo, and centralised administration across all regions fostered swift modernisation and social change. Both Japan and Italy struggled to be taken seriously as global powers because of economic weakness and racist prejudices from Europe and North America. Both nations also associated the emigration of poor workers with colonialism. Impoverished Japanese settlers colonised Hokkaido and Okinawa, and Taiwan (Formosa) as well following Japan’s military defeat of China in 1894—1895. Japanese emigration to Hawaii and California was viewed by government officials in the same perspective. Zentaro Otsuka, a Japanese emigrant journalist, complained in 1910:
Emigrants and colonialists, just like the phenomena of emigration and colonisation, are often confounded... Colonialists embark as imperial subjects with a pioneer spirit under the aegis of our national flag for state territorial expansion; emigrants act merely on an individual basis, leaving [their] homeland as a matter of personal choice without the backing of sovereign power.32
But Japanese emigration, illegal until 1884, was much more centralised than the Italians’ fractured politics and liberalism could allow. Through 1894, the imperial government itself recruited and contracted Japanese workers for migrant work in Hawaii. In 1900 the empire stopped the emigration of Japanese labourers to the United States, Canada and Mexico, and this ban was strengthened in the Gentlemen’s Agreement, negotiated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907—1908 to counter racist discrimination against Japanese expatriates in the United States. Imperial subjects were expected by Japanese political elites to obey and uphold the emperor, wherever they travelled, anywhere in the world, as their standing directly affected the empire’s expansion.33 Like Italy and Germany, Japan pursued population-based colonialism, which complemented Tokyo’s interests in securing geographical advantage in East Asia, for both domestic and foreign policy purposes.
Overseas conquest and colonisation by countries such as Japan lacked the advantages of contiguous territorial conquest, as pursued by the Russian Empire and the United States. Russia’s conquest and settlement of Crimea, Siberia, the Baltic coast and central Asia strongly resembled the United States’ conquest of a third of Mexico and the purchase of Louisiana and Russian Alaska, followed by intensive settlement campaigns. Russia’s TransSiberian Railway (1904, 1916) also paralleled the United States’ transcontinental railway (1869). The United States and Russia could defend their new conquests with interior lines of communication, a large advantage over other scattered empires. A moral justification in population settlement was explicit in the invention of an American ‘manifest destiny’: ‘Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.’34 But these territories were not blank slates on which a new history would be written; the bloody, enduring conquests strongly resembled the imposition in Africa and Asia of French, Italian, German and Japanese imperial colonists.