Compare And Contrast The European Encounter With The Americas

Q1: Defend or refute one of the following statements: The European encounter with the Americas can be viewed as a disaster and a tragedy. Or The European encounter with the Americas can be seen as inevitable development in the history of humanity with long-run positive results. The European encounter with the Americas has more of a negative affect than a positive affect. After Columbus had came back from America with gold, many monarchs and countries got excited by the gold and sought formal confirmation of ownership of these new lands. As the Europeans met the Indians, they treated them harshly and used them as slaves. The Indian population decreased quickly due to diseases and overwork from the Europeans. Due to the decrease in labor,
It took many years for the African Americans to receive the same liberties as the white men. The Europeans sacrificed many lives to supply their labor needs and their mother country. Spain was one of the first countries to explore the Americas. They were in search of enormous riches that led them to conquering much of South America and North America. To conquer the Americas the Spanish monarchs used their powerful army, led by independent Spanish adventurers known as conquistadores. As conquistadores confined their attentions to the Caribbean islands, the European diseases they unwittingly carried with them devastated the local Indian populations, who had no immunities against such diseases. After about 1510 the conquistadores turned their attention the America mainland. In 1519, Hernando Cortes led his dramatic expedition against the Aztecs of Mexico. They won enormous riches due to the fact that the Indians at first mistook him for a god. Also the Spaniards had firearms, armor, horses, and diseases. Due to this, Cortes destroyed the Aztec empire. As Spanish had began to colonize they administered its new holdings as an
A company owned the entire colony, which means all members shared the profits regardless of how much or little they worked. This created a lack of incentive in the people. Many settlers were gentlemen, who considered themselves too good to work at growing the food the colony needed to survive. The settlers had come to the Americas with the expectation of finding gold or other quick and easy riches rather than providing for their survival. Due to this belief, the Europeans used slaves to farm and do housework. As New England’s population grew, local Indian tribes felt threatened and conflict resulted. As the Native Americans were prone to European diseases, the labor demand increased. The Europeans discovered that African Americans were stronger and immune to their diseases. Although many landowners were afraid of possibly mutinous white servants, blank slaves outnumber white servants among the plantation colonies. After 1700, more slaves were imported than in the past. By 1750, blacks accounted for nearly half of the Virginian population. Some of the earliest black slaves gained their freedom and some became slaveholders themselves. Eventually, slave codes were created to clear up issues on slave ownership. Slave codes made it so that slaves and their children would remain slaves to their masters for life, unless their master let them free voluntarily. Some laws made teaching slaves to read a crime, and not even