What Role Did Religion Play In American Colonization Essay

In this essay I will be discussing the role that religion played in the American colonization process. When the Europeans explored to America, their religious beliefs were major influences on how they approached the natives, treated the land, and fulfilled their exploration.
Let's begin with why the Europeans felt that the Native Americans were savage and barbaric. Thousands of years before the Europeans knew of America, the Indians called America home. Many Indian tribes established empires and conducted business with each other, as well as battled one another. During the period c. 150-900, we study about the empire of the Mayans. These people were highly sophisticated in their system of math and astronomy . Their religious practices consisted
Where did they get this mentality? I feel that The Crusades had a lot to do with how they treated the Indians. In 1095, The Crusades was a series of wars conducted by the Catholic Church to rescue the holy land. The Crusades developed and changed the European culture that they knew. These wars helped to weaken the futile system and also developed new technology, such as gun powder, new ships (controlled by wind instead of man power) and the compass. This allowed the Europeans to conduct explorations to find new lands, and also taught them that force can be a useful tool in obtaining what you want. We will see time after time how the Europeans felt they were superior then anyone else that did not live or believe like they did. On many occasions, the Indians were made into slaves and stripped of their rituals and practices. This treatment was going on all around the world. In the Canaries, the Gaunche people were considered as animals. According to a Portugal King, the Gaunches were like animals because they had no writing techniques, no form of money, no metals, and lived with out the contact of other people. Therefore, these natives were treated