Gold European Conquest

680 Words2 Pages

“Gold, God and Glory” were motivators of exploration and led Europeans to colonize in ways that fostered economic development and Christianization. The conquest of European expansion and or conquest of the 15-16th century was mainly led by the declination of resources as well as essentials for new ones. European nation-states rivaled by two nations wanting to gain these increasingly scarce resources due to the depletion. This meant that all nation-states were aggressively looking for new land. They dreamed of finding new territories and gaining enormous riches. There was a big demand for resources in almost all parts of Europe because of the population pressure. They were rebounding from the plague, where economy underwent abrupt and extreme inflation and people abandoned their …show more content…

New assets were required to fulfill the yearn of necessities needed for Europe to sustain its increasing population. They were trying to rebuild their economy and they started by building ships for trade and discovery of new worlds. Due to this there was an obligation for timber but as deforestation occurred they were in search for more. Luckily when new lands were found there was large quantities of timber leading to the need to colonize. The new territories not only supplied timber but human capital, or in other words slavery. The natives that lived in these newly found territories were captured and sold for money. Cortez and his conquest for Mexico led to his control of natural resources as well as enslavement of natives. When more countries and explorers saw this opportunity to take people and use them as personal laborers they jumped to the occasion. Soon slavery became even more profitable than spices. Encomiendas and haciendas were an interesting way to claim that slaves were not just laborers and brought immense riches to Europe. The desire to be the wealthiest and biggest nation was what all fantasized about especially Spain who was not only

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