3 Oct 2022

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Historical Developments that led Europeans to Colonize the Americas

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Introduction 

The history of North American discovery and colonization spans thousands of years and includes a wide cluster of European forces. It started with the Vikings' short stretch in Newfoundland around 1000 CE proceeding through England's colonization of the Atlantic coast in the seventeenth century, which established the United States of America. The hundreds of years following the European invasion would see the end of this exertion, as Americans pushed westbound over the mainland. The age of present-day colonialism started around 1500, after the European disclosures of an ocean course around Africa's southern coast (1488) and America (1492). With these developments, ocean power moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and to the developing country conditions of Spain, Portugal, the Dutch Republic, France, and England. By revelation, success, and settlement, these countries extended and colonized all through the world, spreading European establishments and culture. The European “discovery” of the New World in 1492 was not a random event. Instead, it was the result of much larger world-historical processes that were underway long before 1492, and the cause of processes that continued long after

Christopher Columbus, supported by Spain, made four voyages to the Americas starting in 1492. As a result, the contact among Europe and the Americas created what is known as the Columbian Exchange involving of products and culture between the Eastern and Western halves of the globe. Portugal and Spain, having propelled the purported age of Discovery toward the end of the fifteenth century, made a case for the vast majority of what is today Central and South America. Spain supported a significant exploration done by Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in 1492. Spain prompted broad European colonization of the Americas. The Europeans brought Old World infections which are thought to have caused disastrous diseases and terrific deaths of the local population (Crosby, 1991: 171) . Columbus came and started cruising procedures and communication that made it conceivable to report his voyages effectively and to spread the expression throughout Europe. It was likewise a period of developing strict, royal and financial contentions that prompted a challenge for the foundation of colonies. 

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The contact between the Old and New Worlds created the Columbian Exchange, named after Columbus. It included the exchange of merchandise that were unique to a particular region. For example, Westerners brought cows, steeds, and sheep to the New World. They obtained tobacco, potatoes, and bananas from the New World. There was also worldwide exchange in products relating to the sugarcane and cotton harvests of the Americas, and the gold and silver that was brought from the Americas ( Horn, 2012: 200) . This was not exclusively the case in Europe but common in other parts of the Old World. A significant part of the place that is known for the Americas was uncultivated, and Western forces were determined to utilize it. Simultaneously, ancestral West African rulers were eager to exchange their detainees of war, and even people from their clans as slaves toward the West. The West started buying slaves in large numbers of slaves and sending them to the Americas. This slavery was one of a kind in world history because only black Africans were enslaved. As a result, a racial segment went into Western slavery which had not existed in other societies. 

The Spanish were the primary Europeans to utilize enslaved Africans in the New World on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola. The disturbing death rate experienced by the indigenous population had pushed the principal regal Spanish laws. As a result, the first enslaved Africans landed in Hispaniola in 1501. Expanding penetration into the Americas by the Portuguese increased demand for labor in Brazil, especially in terms of cultivation and mining ( Meinig, 1978: 36) . Slave-based economies immediately spread to the Caribbean and the southern part of what is today the United States of America. There, Dutch dealers brought the first enslaved Africans in 1619. These zones all built up a greedy interest for slaves. 

Historical Developments Stem from the Opening of the New World 

After 1492, the motivations for European relocation to the Americas focused on gold, glory, and religion. Gold refers to the longing to get regular assets like gold and sugar from the New World. European colonizers likewise wanted to spread Christianity to the New World. Glory refers to the longing for European colonizers to build their country's status as a force to be reckoned with and increase military quality through colonization ( Thornton, 1992: 27) . European colonization of the Americas was made considerably simpler through a few innovative developments like compasses, astrolabes, and caravels. It influenced financial advancement by making it feasible for huge scope trade plans between the Old World and the New World to create. 

Social trades and exchange systems expanded in the New World. Introductory contact between Native Americans and European colonizers started a procedure of social and natural trades between the Old World and the New known as the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange caused population development in Europe by bringing new produces from the Americas. Colonization distressed ecosystems, acquiring new life forms like pigs, while totally killing others like beavers. Gold, silver, and hides pulled in European exploration, colonization, and rivalry in the New World. Competitions between European countries were frequently established in strict or political wrangles occurring in Europe, yet these pressures happened in the performance center of the New World ( Morgan, 2005) . The Spanish lost their fortress in North America as the French, Dutch, and British started to explore and colonize the Northeast. 

The British and other northern European countries were newbies to the supreme challenge. Subsequently, their entrance into the Americas which started around 1600, was directed towards the Caribbean islands and the coastline of North America. Before it turned into the New World, the Western Hemisphere was immensely more populous and advanced than has been suspected. European colonization of the Americas prompted the rise of new societies and civic establishments. The change of American societies through colonization is apparent in engineering, religion, gastronomy, expressions of the human experience and especially languages ( Frey & Wood, 2000) . The colonial period kept going around three centuries from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. The United States gained independence from Great Britain in 1776, while Canada formed a republic in 1867 and gained freedom in 1931. Others countries such as Cuba and Puerto Rico remained attached to their European parent state until the end of the nineteenth century. Smaller regions such as Guyana acquired independence in the mid-twentieth century, while some Caribbean islands and French Guiana remain as parts of European nations to this day. 

Conclusion 

The European discovery of the New World in 1492 was influenced by historical developments that leaned towards the quest to conquer the territories. While Western history regularly points out that Europeans were the most developed pioneers of the world, developing evidence proposes extensive transoceanic travel had been in progress sometime before the European Age of Discovery. In the fifteenth century, Europe looked to grow exchange courses to discover new sources of riches and carry Christianity toward the East and other discovered territories. This European Age of Discovery saw the ascent of colonial domains on a worldwide scale, constructing a business plan that associated Europe, Asia, Africa, and the New World. 

References 

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Crosby, A. W. (October 01, 1991). Infectious Disease and the Demography of the Atlantic Peoples.  Journal of World History, 2,  2, 119-133. 

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Frey, S. R. & Wood, B.(2000).  Come shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830 . United States: The University of North Carolina Press. 

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Horn, J. (2012).  Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake . Michigan: ProQuest. 

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Meinig, D. W. (1978).  The continuous shaping of America: A prospectus for geographers and historians . Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association. 

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Morgan, J. L. (January 01, 2005). Male travelers, female bodies, and the gendering of racial ideology, 1500-1700.  Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History,  54-66. 

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Thornton, J. K. (1992).  Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic world, 1400-1680 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

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