Colonial History Notes, Part 2Period 1

By Codey Ho

One reason many European countries colonized other lands and peoples is because many European countries were running out of natural resources.

In Europe by the 1500's and on, there was much deforestation and poverty, and the population was becoming too great for the land and government to handle.

By colonizing the American's for example, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish colonists were able to have new lands and opportunities, but in the process millions of native Americans were killed, enslaved, intermarried, or forced to leave their land.

Indeed, the European colonization of the Americas was perhaps the bloodiest and most horrific time in human history.

Besides the genocide of Native Americans, European colonists brought African slaves to the Americas to work, especially after finding out that Native Americans would just die in slavery.

Image in this: men, who you've never seen before, come to your house and your neighbors house and they all have as much weapons as they can carry.

Then they start killing or enslaving you, your family, and your neighbors.

And you and your family and your neighbors fight back but are crushed by men's superior weapons.

And soon, you and most of your family and your neighbors are gone—killed, enslaved, intermarried, or forced to live somewhere else.

This is what colonialism is: it is death, it is slavery; it is the end of one group and the expansion of another group.