Decisions made by colonial powers were generally made on the basis of?

In most cases, it is suggested that most colonial powers would make their decisions based on a desire to achieve a strategic and more resourceful colony in the distant future. However, there is also sufficient reason to believe that these colonial powers made many decisions based on their own egotistical beliefs of them being superior, as well as to maintain as much order as possible.

In many definitions, colonialism is reported to be exploitative of the common people who exist within the colony. But others have recognized it as a relatively good natured belief that is used by settlers to find a place to maintain and improve the lives of people within each particular colony.

It appears that there are two main forms of colonialism and therefore two rather different motivations for the decisions that each different colonies would make. The two main types are as follows:

• Settler colonialism

As mentioned before, this is the idea that a colony will collectively gather in a particular region and begin reproducing. They will look for fertile land to begin farming and developing their colony. The resulting motivations for this type of colonialism are mainly based on the desire for land, natural resources like oil, and human resources like people who are prepared for manual labor.

• Exploitation colonialism

This type of colonialism sees colonialists looking to take away resources from other areas to return them to their city or country of origin, solely to sell them on for profit. The exploitation of this type of colonialism comes from the idea that the colonists would benefit from the resources and the capital gained through the selling of resources, whereas the hard work and labor of the colony would be left to the native people of the land that the colonists had invaded.