Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Colonization impact on african nations
Colonization impact on african nations
Colonization impact on african nations
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Colonization impact on african nations
How wonderful would it be to make atrocious things and be able to demonstrate those actions were meant to be? Unfortunately for the modern world, there are rules and consequences that prevent people from doing what they want. During the Medieval time, some regions in the Eastern Hemisphere were determined to get control of the so-called ‘New World’ regardless the measurements taken. Because the New World was full of natural resources that Europeans desperately wanted, indigenous Americans, in the Western Hemisphere, and Africans were the most affected ones by European’s desire to have it all. Massacres, separations of family, selling ‘individuals’, inhumane working conditions in plantations, and forced extraction to the New World were some of the occurrences that happened under the Europeans command. The European direct encounter with indigenous Americans was severer than their encounter with indigenous Africans. Europeans were once the main power in the Easter Hemisphere and even then, they wanted to have more. When the Columbian-Exchanged happened, a new opportunity to trade with the New World began; allowing the Old World to colonized and takes over. When the Europeans arrived to the Americas, their encounter with the indigenous can be defined based on the point of view the story was told. Because the indigenous Americans were isolated with any other developed regions for more than a thousand years, the arrival of the Europeans to their world was astonishing. According to Diaz, a Spanish expeditor, the Great Montezuma, the Aztec’s emperor, was a cruel and heartless man. Based on his document, ‘the Conquest of New Spain, Aztec made human sacrifices in which “they strike open the wretched Indian’s chest with flint knives, cut t... ... middle of paper ... ...by their own choice, and that did not satisfy Europeans desire to have it all. In conclusion, the Europeans encounter with the indigenous Americans and Africans brought change and extinction. Millions of Americans, Africans and some Europeans died in the course of the discovery of the new world. Africans had the bad luck to have the same climate as Americans and that was one of the reason they were took as slaves, however; Europeans were more than educated to believe the difference. Europeans made a lot of atrocious thing to men, women and even children without thinking about it. Sacrifices, killing, separation of families and others would never describe the suffrage caused by the Europeans to less develop regions. No matter how long I study ancient history, I will not understand or agreed with the type of treatment Europeans offered to the rest of the world.
Before the 15th century, the Indians in the Americas were not connected with the world and would remain that way until Columbus's exploration. In the beginning of 15th century, the Aztecs were the dominant group in Mesoamerica leaded by Montezuma, the last leader, before the Spanish conquest. In 1519, Hernan Cortez led the Spanish mission to explore and conquer the New World. This paper will compare three primary sources about this event. First, an informing letter sent from Cortez to King Charles V, the king of Spain. Second, the Broken Spears which is an Indian recollection about the conquest of Mexico. Lastly, Bernal Diaz’s (one of Cortez’s men) account was written by him to share his experience with Aztec civilization. Moreover, this paper will show the credibility of Diaz’s account compared to the other sources because the objectivity of his tone, written after a while of the event, and the author’s great experience and his independent purpose of the source.
Native American civilization was not always a pit of terror and agonizing torture for every single being. The Spanish arrived in Hispaniola, during the early 1500, with the seemingly good intention of introducing to the indigenous the Christian faith. Unfortunately, their mission turned into an almost complete annihilation of a culture unlike their own. Bartolome de la Casas, depicts a graphic and ultimately disturbing castings of the happenings during their expedition. The Spanish Christians involved in these happenings can be seen as hypocritical, heartless, and close minded. Although, in the minds of these men, they were completing their God assigned duties, such as
Prior to the arrival of European traders, the continent of Africa had developed sophisticated society as it demonstrated its ability to maintain advanced civilizations, withhold three major empires, and gain wealth through trade. Although European traders did advance organized society in Africa, it would be false to say that prior to their arrival Africa was underdeveloped.
The history of the Western hemisphere is full of war and conquest. One of the most significant and defining of those conquests is the downfall of the Mexica/Aztec Empire. While there are many other events to choose from, this one stands out since it was one over one of the largest empires in Central America. It is also important to look at because of the immense cultural impact it had. The story of this takeover reads like a movie script, a small band of Spaniards single handedly takes down the most powerful empire in Central America. It was an epic battle, which unfortunately led to the destruction of a magnificent culture. As in any major historical event there are many underlying themes and storylines that come together to make the event happen. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec is no different. Three major themes are seen in this struggle. One of them is the incredible advantage that the Spaniards technology gave them over the Aztecs. A second major theme is the greed that fueled the conquests in the New World. The last major theme was the effect of the political divisions and rivalries within Montezuma’s Central American Kingdom. As this historical event progressed each one of these themes began to intertwine until they became an almost unstoppable force.
Beginning in the fifteenth century with the arrival of Columbus, natives of the Americas were infected with European diseases that proved to be deadly to the Indians. The population in northern Mexico suffered an immense decimation of 2,500,000 peoples to less than 320,000 by the end of the sixteenth century (Vargas, 30). The Spaniards’ cruel treatment of the natives aided this vast reduction in the Aztec and Mexican population, enabling the Spaniards to conquer the lands of the Aztecs and other native tribes. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Spaniards had expanded their conquests into the southwest region of what is now known as the United States of America.
For many years’ native people of the North America lived in peaceful in their homelands. However, one day the lives of the Native Americans would come to an upsetting stop. In June of 1540, Hernando De Soto, a Spanish explorer to led the first European expedition deep into the United States mainland in search of god, glory and gold. Hernando set to out to conquer the empire and to capture the Aztecs, .On his next journey out as govern, he encountered the native’s people. From that day forward, natives would adapt to the settlers ways and even involved themselves in wars.
Diamond wrote this book to answer the question of a New Guinean politician, Yali. He asked “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own.” Diamond set out to find the answer to this question, to find out why history unfolded like it did. Diamond credits the inequalities in history to differences in environments not biological differences as so many people like to say. Most of the advantages the Europeans had were a direct result of geography. The main points that Diamond attributes to European dominance are early plant and animal domestication and as a result of close contact to animals the deadliest germs were given to the Europeans. As result of its East-West axis the diffusion of food production, technologies, humans and ideas were easily spread throughout Europe. The axis mean that there were similar climatic, geographic, and disease conditions to migrants and no barriers. So anything that could be grown in one area was sure to quickly spread and thrive in the neighboring locations. Moreover, political administration, economic exchanges, incentive for exploration and conquest, and making information available to every individual were facilitated after the development of writing.
The Spanish began their movement to Southwest America in the late sixteenth century. From that point on, their influence both on the Native Americans and the environment was extraordinaire. The goal of the Spaniards with regards to the Native Americans was to transform them “into tax-paying Christians.” This is in contrast to the idea that their goal was to eradicate the Indians form the Americas. Consequently, the Spaniards took many Indians so that they may plant their religion in the Natives and to use them as cheap labor. This led many Indians to learn the customs and language of the Spaniards so they could to be able to thrive in the Spanish culture. Thus, some Natives acquired Spanish, which was the main source of their Hispanicization; this was the notion of Indians becoming encompassed by the Spanish society. Furthermore, Indians gradually learned skills, obtained land, and sometimes found Hispanic spouses, thus furthering their Hispanicization. They now began to live in a Spanish manner and blend into the bottom of the Spanish societal ladder. This “acculturation” of the Native Americans was in contrast to the models of early English colonization. Spanish goals and plans sought to involve the Indians so that they may live in their society even if at the lower end of it’s ladder. English colonies viewed the Natives as savages and looked to them for slave labor or to rape their women. They did not plan to take the Indians into their society as the Spaniards did so throughout this era.
Analyze the major similarities and difference among European, Native American and African societies. What was the European impact on the peoples and the environment of the Americas and Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
Two of the biggest and greatest civilization in the Americas were the Aztecs and Incas. These two civilization were both said to be conquered by the Spanish, but it wasn’t just the Spanish who conquered them. These two civilizations both fell from a combination of a weak government, lack of technology, new disease introduced by the invaders, and not being prepared for the invaders. For many centuries the Aztec civilization revolved around a ideological, social, and political system in which expansion was the cornerstone. Expansion was the cornerstone of their whole civilization, because their religion requested that a large number of human sacrifices where to be made to the gods.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.
One of the main focus points in European colonization was to further their economic order by using abundant recourses that were found far from the home land. They looked to gain power and produce wealth. In order to reach these goals, Europeans directed cultural change among the indigenous people and justified their actions by claiming it was “God’s work”. However, with all of these changes came diverse reactions from the native people. In the beginning they were eager to build relationships, however after time passed many considered them as sons from the devil.
The prevailing opinion is that European explorers came to the America’s to peacefully colonize and gradually begin mutually beneficial relationships with the native people. However, Howard Zinn proves that the majority of explorers could not coexist with the native tribes, as the conquerors slowly stole their land, and did not return the initial hospitality most of the natives had showed to them. Therefore, the European colonizers blatantly ignored the rights of the Native Americans and acted with violence towards them. In order to conquer the natives, the colonizers “set fire to the wigwams of the village” and “ [destroyed] their crops” (Zinn).
Throughout history, industrialism by the west (i.e. England, France, and Spain) has led to many conflicts between them and the indigenous, native, people whom lived there. One indigenous group of people affected by western imperialism is the Native Americans in North America. The Europeans that settled onto the “New World” were confronted by Native Americans, and were faced with violent conflicts. These conflicts led to a belief that all Native Americans are savages as well as heathens (Democracy, 2012). This led to the Europeans to start to kill Native Americans, or kick them off of their land and place them onto reservations. Reservations were usually small and unusable land. But, other times, the chief was forced to sign treaties with the Europeans. These treaties usually stated that the Europeans had a right to be on the land, and if they were allowed to have some land as well as do colonize there, no conflict would occur. Yet, after the treaties were signed, the Europeans and Native Americans still had violent conflicts (Democracy, 2012). Today, there are very little Native Americans left in North America. Some of them are very poor, but some of them are rich due to the casinos they own within the reservations upon which they live. The treatment of these people original was harsh as well as cruel, and there is evidence of that today due to the low population of Native Americans within North America.
During the 19th century, Europe found a way to use Africa for its own growth and power. Using Africa for their resources, the Europeans colonized Africa without a second thought. European imperialism in Africa had a negative impact because of social disarray, cultural loss, and death it caused. As the Europeans started to invade Africa and split up the land, they paid no attention to the already existing natural boundaries. Over time, villages with different cultures had set these boundaries.