Was It a good or bad thing for the Europeans to come to the Americas? Some people would like to argue that it was a good thing, but in reality the bad outweighs the good of the situation. For instance, the Europeans brought deadly diseases with them, took land from Native Americans, and started the trend for other countries invading the Americas.
The Europeans came over to the Americas for money, resources, and land. The Europeans wanted the land, so they greedily took it from the Native Americans that were already there. They viewed the Americas as a shiny new toy and treated it as such. They forcefully took the land from the innocent Native Americans. How did they take it forcefully? Well they made the Native Americans their slaves using the ecomenida system, presidos, and congregcions. The encomendia system is when the Europeans
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said that they owned everything in the new world and created a law only allowing the Native Americas to stay in the Americas if they worked for the Europeans by farming and mining. Presidos is where the Europeans force the Native Americans create forts to oppress the Native Americans. Congregcions is where the Native Americans are forced to congregate (live in the same area). The Native Americas were forced to congregate so the Europeans could watch over them, teach them Christianity, and educate them on Spanish rules. The Europeans dehumanized the Native Americans just because they wanted the land that they could've easily shared with them. The Europeans making the Native Americans their slaves did not work out as well as they had originally thought.
The Europeans thought that because the Native Americans knew the land they would make perfect slaves. The Europeans, later on, found out was very untrue. The Europeans brought deadly diseases such as but not limited to: chicken pox, scarlet fever, and the bubonic plague. The Native Americans were not immune to such diseases which made them get sick and eventually die. The Europeans then needed new slaves because they had no idea how to farm the land. They decided to bring African Americans to the Americas. The Europeans “chose” the African Americans because they were immune to the European diseases. No one stopped the Europeans from doing this because they had "justified" why Europeans were property and not people. Europeans said that African Americas were uncivilized and not Christian. As Abraham London once said, "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.". The reason why this is so bad is because there should be no justification for dehumanizing
someone The last thing I would like to point out is that the European invasion lead to racism and discrimination. Another thing the Europeans brought over to the Americas was Christianity and while there's nothing wrong with Christianity at all, the fact of the matter is that they were forcing African Americans and Native Americans with their own beliefs and traditions to follow a religion that wasn't theirs. That would mean disrespecting their gods and beliefs making them choose between life or going to hell/underworld. Forcing the Native Americans to work for the Europeans in their own land was wrong because that was their land first and they put a lot of work into it, then the Spanish just come along and take it from them without their consent. Also bringing about 12.5-30 million Americans Africans over without their consent is wrong. They could've nicely asked both groups of people to work for them in exchange for a better life in the America or to stay in the Americas. All in all the Europeans could've gone about coming to the Americas much more peacefully. The Spanish were wrong to dehumanize and steal money and resources just because they wanted it. They could've easily made peace with the Native Americans and African Americans instead of discriminating people which little did they know would have a long lasting effect in those races hundreds of years later.
Conquistadors came over to get all the gold they possibly could. The Spanish were cruel and took advantage of the Native Americans who were living there. Not only did the Spanish want the gold but they also wanted the land. The Native Americans were enslaved by the Spaniards and were forced to mine for gold. The Spaniards gave the Natives extremely high gold quotas to meet. Most were unable to do so and because of that they were punished. Natives would have both of their hands cut off(Document 1). The other reason was so that the Spaniards wouldn’t have a problem with resistance from them. The Native Americans were majorly taken advantage of for gold.
The African slave lost their humanity from the very moment they boarded the European slave
Toward the end of pre-colonial times in Europe, due to the fall of Constantinople, many European nations felt the need to find an alternate route to the East Indies. The trade of rare goods such as spices, rice, exotic fruits and silk fabrics were much in demand, but came at extreme prices. In the beginning of the ‘Age of Exploration’, Portugal was in the forefront with the early explorers Henry the Navigator, Zarco and Tristao Vaz Teixeira, and Diogo Silves discovering the Madeira Islands, the Azores, and the exploration of Africa respectively, but King John the II of Portugal was unconvinced by Christopher Columbus’s pleas to fund his plan to sail West to the East Indies. Columbus made many demands for self-profit, including ten percent of any riches with which he returned, and even an ‘Admiralty’. Subsequently, Columbus took his plans to Queen Isabella of Spain. Spain acquiesced, and Columbus set off on his fateful journey. The Roman Catholic Church was very interested in expanding the Christian faith during this time and applied its influence on the monarchy. Religion also played a large personal role as Columbus truly believed that God spoke to him, and guided his hand. Additionally, at this time in Europe, land and food were at a premium. The monarchs of the era were fully aware that the acquisition of more land, slave labor and possible natural resources would greatly increase their power, prestige and subsequent wealth. After learning of Columbus’ successful return and the Treaty of Tordesillas (which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal), King Henry VII of England threw his hat into the ring and sent John Cabot sailing from Bristol on an attempt to find a shorter route to the ‘Indies’. Not to be left out in ...
The introduction nearly killed the entire population. Diseases like the smallpox, measles, chickenpox, influenza, and many others have helped to the extinction of almost half of the languages known today. When Europeans settled in the Native American land, the quickly tried to acculturate them by taking their land, fighting them for land, and later using reservations to almost incarcerate them for the outside world because they did not want to live like the white man. Native Americans did not like the way they were treated. Every generation that passes, there will be fewer and fewer Native Americans around the Americas.
Most times the cause of this fighting was that Europeans were taking over land that was not rightfully theirs. The Natives often lost these battles because their weapons and tactics were not as advanced as the Europeans. Therefore, the large number of deaths in battles caused a change in the Native’s population. To add, when the Europeans first arrived in the Americas they established a new economic system called the encomienda system. The encomienda system was a system of forced labor in which Native Americans worked on Spanish-owned estates.
The Europeans invaded America with every intention of occupying the land, the bountiful natural resources as well as the complete domination of the native people. The Europeans desire for the land created an explosive situation for the native peoples as they witnessed their land and right to freedom being stripped from them. They often found themselves having to choose sides of which to pledge their allegiance to. The Europeans depended upon Indian allies to secure the land and their dominance as well as trade relations with the Indians. The Indians were in competition with one another for European trade causing conflict among the different tribes altering the relationships where friends became enemies and vice versa (Calloway, 2012, p. 163). These relationships often became embittered and broke into bloody brawls where it involved, "Indian warriors fighting on both sides, alongside the European forces as well as against European forces invad...
Black lives in America have been devalued from the moment the first shipment of black slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619. They were seen as nothing more than an lucrative animal to help aid in the production of various crops, such as tobacco, rice, and cotton. The Europeans were careful in the breaking of the black slaves, as they did not want a repeat of the Native American enslavement. European settlers found it difficult to enslave natives as they had a better understanding of the land and would often escape from the plantation. The African slaves however were stripped of everything they had ever known and were hauled to a new distant world.
Since Americans believed that they had the supreme right over all lands, they took extreme measures to have possession of such. The fact that God had ‘blessed’ the europeans with the exploration of the new world granted them the right to claim it as theirs. along with this, they were “granted” the right and obligation to spread christianity and white supremacist
Rough Draft Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth century there was a great expansion into the European exploration and colonization of North America. Many Europeans sought to change their lives in the new world. Here, they could start a new life, and live free of the religious persecution occurring in Europe. The British were one of the main European groups who settled and colonized North America.
When Americans think about slavery, they tend to think about "Africans" being brought to the New World against their will. Which upon their arrival were sold, the same as livestock, as permanent property to the white landowners. They may visualize in their minds a person of color shackled, chained, beaten, and forced to labor under the control of their white master. Their picture is that of chattel slavery; black and white. Americans have come to the assumption that slavery was imposed on people of one color or race. However, the Africans were not the only people force to endure the harsh and unjust enslavement by the white society. The Native Americans, as well as indentured servants were used as slaves in the New World. When slavery began in the New World, the color of a person's skin was of little significance. Slaves were white, red, and black. What mattered most was a labor force.
Another benefit to having the Africans as slaves was because they were immune to most European diseases. They had no one to help them escape or fight against their mistreatment, no friends in the Americas, no allies, and no knowledge of how America’s layout looked liked or even where America was to escape to their homes in Africa, they were the perfect type for being slaves. The appeal of having these people live on their land to care for their farms was to keep an eye on their investments. The slaves would reproduce with each other and the children were held hostage, or born into
The Columbian exchange brought new animals, foods , and diseases to different countries. The Columbian exchange helped start new careers and bring new things to different parts of the world opening up new discoveries and alliances. The only thing that the Europeans brought to that was original, was slavery. Slavery was brought to America from the Europeans, when they tried to use the natives but it did not work very well so they used the Africans. The Native Americans were no longer slaves but still treated like a lower class and were killed raped and pushed off their
Europeans are one of the groups that have been racialized during the colonial times. Since the Europeans strived for power and expansion to gain wealth for their motherland, they voyaged around to look for new places to control or get resources from. During their explorations, the Europeans also encountered other groups that were also racialized for a long period of time. When the Europeans migrated to the colonies they were racially different from other groups. When the Europeans arrived in North America, many saw them as a power hungry group and that they were always wanting more even though they were rich and had a vast technological advancement such as traveling on immense ships and use of guns. Since the Europeans strived for power and wealth, they tried to look for a source of cheap, reliable, and co...
European exploration brought many new ideas and practices to the world. Europeans exploration discoveries brought negative and positive impacts to the society they were building. The explorations was a success for many countries, but it also was a loss for a lot of Native Americans people. The exploration started a new mankind, it gave countries and people items they never had. The discovery of new world was a big impacts from the European exploration. Countries were now fighting over lands and the resources that were on the land. Slavery and the Columbian change were also big impacts from the exploration. The world changed because of these three big impacts of the European explorations. There
The First "Europeans" reached the Western Hemisphere in the late 15th century. Upon arrival they encountered a rich and diverse culture that had already been inhabited for thousands of years. The Europeans were completely unprepared for the people they stumbled upon. They couldn't understand cultures that were so different and exotic from their own. The discovery of the existence of anything beyond their previous experience could threaten the stability of their entire religious and social structure. Seeing the Indians as savages they made them over in their own image as quickly as possible. In doing so they overlooked the roots that attached the Indians to their fascinating past. The importance of this past is often overlooked. Most text or history books begin the story of the Americas from the first European settlement and disregard the 30,000 years of separate, preceding cultural development (Deetz 7).