British Empire

Background

The British Empire, once the largest on earth, was the world’s first modern superpower. At one point, nearly one in four human beings was subject to British rule—around 500 million people.

Geographically, its territories spanned nearly every time zone, giving rise to the saying, “the empire on which the sun never sets.” Its centuries-long subjugation of Indigenous peoples around the world has made the British Empire a symbol of the ambiguous, and often negative, legacy left behind by colonial powers.

Formation and Expansion

The British Empire began to take shape around the same time as the Dutch, French, and Spanish empires during the late 16th century, as the European powers sent explorers out in search of uncharted territory.

Competing with those rivals for new lands, resources, and markets, Britain expanded its empire through conquest, colonization, and trade. Its first colony was founded in 1585 on an island off the coast of what is now North Carolina.

At the same time, Britain expanded in the other direction via the East India Company, which maintained a trade monopoly in spices, tea, textiles, and opium, backed up by British sea power.

Life Under the Empire

Its colonies in the Caribbean and North America flooded the British Isles with new goods, such as sugar, cotton, and tobacco, produced by enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples. American colonists threw off British rule in 1783, marking the end of the so-called First British Empire.

Motivated by this loss, Britain pressed eastward in the 19th century, scrambling to acquire new territories across Africa, Oceania, and the Middle East. The rapidly industrializing country also tightened control over India to secure its textile mills as a steady supply of cheap cotton.

For imperial subjects living outside of Britain, life was disrupted. Colonized peoples saw their cultural and religious traditions displaced by British institutions, prompting rebellion against the empire.

Issues ranged from taxation without representation in Boston and land dispossession in South Africa to denying access to natural resources in India—a policy resulting in famines and Mahatma Gandhi’s famous Salt March in 1930. Over just 173 years, Britain extracted an estimated $45T in wealth from the subcontinent.

Decline

In the first half of the 20th century, nationalist movements gained momentum, and many British territories won independence. After World War II, a weakened Britain had even fewer resources left to devote to maintaining its overseas holdings, and public opinion toward colonialism was in decline.

India declared its independence in 1947, and by 1960, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan conceded that a “wind of change” was blowing, signaling that his government would not stand in the way of independence movements in Africa. The empire officially ended when Britain handed over control of its last remaining colony, Hong Kong, to China in 1997.

Legacy

The British Empire left behind a complex legacy. Its defenders note Britain brought modern railroads, common law, and banking to its colonies, while leading the effort to end the transatlantic slave trade.

Critics point to looted artifacts, racism, cultural erasure, and its longtime participation in the slave trade as negative consequences of four centuries of imperial rule.