This chapter explores the conditions leading to the expansion of Europeans in the late fourteenth century; their tentative efforts to establish colonies in northern North America; and the impact of European contact on the Indigenous peoples who interacted with the intruders. The time frame is bounded by the Viking settlement at L’Anse-aux-Meadows in Newfoundland more than a thousand years ago and the founding by the English of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1670, which claimed trading rights in Rupert’s Land, the vast area whose rivers drained into Hudson Bay. It focuses on the reasons for and the range of European exploration and settlement in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the rivalry among European countries (especially England and France) for dominance in North America; and the role of the cod fisheries and the fur trade in luring people across the Atlantic to exploit North American resources and to interact with local inhabitants in what was seen by Europeans as a “new world.” The chapter includes a discussion of the efforts by England, Scotland, and France to plant colonies in eastern North America (Newfoundland, Acadie/Nova Scotia, and Canada) in the early sixteenth century.

Part III discusses the striking triangular relationship between humanitarianism, interventionism, and colonialism and imperialism in various parts of the world. It asks to what extent the idea of humanitarian intervention solidified in international politics as a colonial and imperial practice. Indeed, Chapter 7 will show how closely the struggle against the slave trade was intertwined with the colonial and imperial penetration of Africa. In West Africa British anti-slavery measures, which for strategic reasons increasingly shifted from seaborne military operations to dry land, led to direct interference in the internal affairs of African principalities. A particularly prominent case was Lagos, which ended up being formally annexed by the United Kingdom. From the middle of the century onwards, the by now tried and tested intervention measures came to serve as an example for the suppression of the slave trade in East Africa, increasingly turning the idea of abolition into a decisive catalyst and trailblazer for European expansionism across the African continent. At two international conferences – first in Berlin (1884–85) and then in Brussels (1889–90) – the ‘civilised’ states signed treaties by which they gave themselves a mandate in international law and thereby an effective carte blanche for direct intervention, in the name of civilisation, in the internal affairs of African realms.

Theodor de Bry, his sons, Johann Theodor and Johann Israel, and their son-in-law, Matthäus Merian, are famous for chronicling the expansionist politics of European nations outside of Europe. Following closely the English, French, and Spanish into the Americas, and the Portuguese and Dutch into Asia, they created the first Protestant travel collection with truly global ambitions. Building on the latest research, this essay will show how this first global Protestant travel collection used Calvinist migrant networks to successfully address the European elites beyond all confessional barriers. The way in which the de Brys dealt with the question of idolatry is of particular interest, as it was so central to discussions of European belief at the time. Fascinated by South-American goldwork, they cherished their indigenous colleagues as equals while at the same time harshly condemning the production of idolatrous images and rituals by "heathens" as well as by Catholics. However, the first Protestant comprehensive travel collection, paradoxically, relied on images that continue to define our pictorial archive of early European expansion.

The early Bengal delta had a highly mobile population and dynamic economy that was open to both the immense expanse of the Indian Ocean and an enormous hinterland. For as far back as we can reconstruct, the delta was integrated into networks of long-distance trade, pilgrimage, political alliance, cultural exchange and travel. It served as a gateway to the wider world for people and goods from the landlocked Ganges plains in the west, from Tibet and Nepal in the north, and from the Brahmaputra valley and China in the east. Conversely, traders, Buddhist pilgrims, political emissaries and adventurers who wanted to visit these regions had to pass through Bengal. It was in the coastal waterways of Bangladesh that Southeast Asians, North Indians, Sri Lankans, Chinese, Arabs, Central Asians, Persians, Ethiopians and Tibetans met from very early times.

The chapter gives the background to the main investigation, particularly with regard to how the concept of piracy developed, first in classical Rome and then in Europe during mediaeval times. It is argued that, although there is a long conceptual history of piracy in Europe, the modern understanding of the concept developed mainly during the early modern era in the context of the European overseas expansion. Several empirical examples demonstrate the extent to which early modern European navigators were regarded as pirates in Asia because of their ruthless deployment of sea power in order to obtain economic and political advantages. The establishment of the so-called piratical paradigm in Europe is described, focusing on the notion of pirates as the enemies of mankind and on the cultural fascination for pirates in Europe. The partly corresponding ideas of illicit maritime violence in Asian cultures and languages, including in China, Japan and the Malay world, are also discussed at some length. Finally, it is argued that the second half of the eighteenth century in Europe saw the emergence of an association between piracy and the purported lack of civilisation on the part of certain non-European piratical ‘races’.