Talk:Colony

Merge list

The newly created article List of colonies is the better suited location for the contentious list here. I just dont have the time to move it. Anyone? Nsae Comp (talk) 22:28, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Marxist bias throughout

Historical aspects buried under ideological ballast, relegated to etymology etc. Arminden (talk) 15:14, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Meanings of words have changed over time

According to Johnson's Dictionary, the first-ever comprehensive dictionary of the English language, published in 1755, a "colony" is a place inhabited by those who have relocated from the mother country and by their descendants, and a "province" is a "territory governed by a delegate." The "thirteen colonies" that ultimately became the thirteen United States of America were called "colonies" and were also called "provinces." At that time, they were called "colonies" not because they were ruled by a distant country but because they were inhabited by those who had relocated from that mother country, and they were called "provinces" because they were governed by governors appointed by authorities in that mother country. Thus calling them "provinces" did not mean that they were parts of some larger country whose "provinces" they were, but rather meant that they were governed from without.

Similarly, before 1867, there were "provinces" called "Nova Scotia," "New Brunswick", "Canada," "Prince Edward Island," and "Newfoundland," which were not called "provinces" because they were part of some larger territory whose "provinces" they were, but because they were governed from without, having governors appointed by authorities in Britain. What was then called "Canada" did not include what is today the Province of New Brunswick in Canada, nor what is today the Province of Nova Scotia in Canada, nor what is today the Province of Prince Edward Island in Canada, nor what is today the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in "Canada," but instead included the southern parts of what are today the provinces of Quebec and Ontario in Canada. Calling them "provinces" did not mean they are parts of some larger country whose "provinces" they were, but rather meant they had governors appointed by authorities in a distant country, the UK. Thus the things today called "colonies" were formerly called "provinces." And now look at Kenya before 1965. People say it was a "colony" of Britain. By that they mean it was under a governor appointed by British authorities. Thus what was once called a "province" came to be called a "colony." Notice that Kenya was not primarily populated by those who had relocated from Britain (although certainly some of those lived there) and the "colonial" rulers did not rule only over those who had relocated while regarding the people indigenous to that place as foreigners, but rather the "colonial" rulers ruled over the whole people of Kenya, meaning those indigenous to the place, not just those who had come from the mother country.

So this article ought to take note of the way in which the conventional meanings of these terms have changed over time. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:27, 6 September 2026 (UTC)