Colonization

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Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples for the purpose of cultivation, trade, exploitation or settlement, setting up coloniality and often colonies, such as for agriculture, commonly pursued and maintained by, but distinct from, imperialism, mercantilism, or colonialism.^[1][2][3][4] Colonization is sometimes used synonymously with settling, as with colonisation in biology.

Settler colonialism is a type of colonization structured and enforced by the settlers directly, while their or their ancestors' metropolitan country (metropole) maintains a connection or control through the settler's colonialism. In settler colonization, a minority group rules either through the assimilation or oppression of the indigenous peoples,^[5][6] or by establishing itself as the demographic majority through driving away, displacing or outright killing the indigenous people, as well as through immigration and births of metropolitan as well as other settlers.

The European colonization of Australia, New Zealand, and other places in Oceania was fueled by explorers, and colonists often regarding the encountered landmasses as terra nullius ("empty land" in Latin).^[7] This resulted in laws and ideas such as Mexico's General Colonization Law and the United States' manifest destiny doctrine which furthered colonization.