Which euro nations imperialized India, China, Africa, and the Pacific Islands?
Portugal was the first European nation to get into the act starting with a slave-trading raid on an African village in 1444. By 1498, they had reached India and established a foothold there in Goa which India didn’t get back until 1961. Macao, in China, was a little different. The Portuguese did not use gun-boat diplomacy to take that place. The Chinese government allowed them to establish a trading post there. The Dutch came next and drove the Portuguese out of Ceylon and Taiwan (Formosa). Then, the British came along and eventually displaced the Dutch in South Africa and Ceylon. About the same time the French began gaining some footholds along the West African Coast. Swedes and Danes were also a little active in Africa too in Ghana and Togo but they were mainly interested in having places as whaling stations rather than as permanent colonies. By, the Mid-1700’s, the French and British were actively competing with each other for control of India. Eventually, the British got most of it
