ABSTRACT
Enshrining deep inequalities, few of the Empire’s political institutions resembled those in Britain. Even in the Dominion colonies where white settlers congregated, rule was imposed from the top. In many colonies, significant limitations on freedom of movement, of expression and of work were the most palpable effects of colonisation. Changes in land use often had negative ecological and human impacts, displacing peoples and often disfiguring and changing landscapes in pursuit of profit. The result, in some places, was serious famines which endangered and destroyed lives. Populations were exposed to hitherto unknown diseases. Colonised populations nonetheless found ways to make the situation work for them, whether through trading and political relations or through adapting religious and other practices and customs to local ones to create new belief systems.
