Tice Jenkins

2/21/18

Colonization Essay

World History

Conquered, Obtained, Departed

European Colonization is a time period during the 1400s – 1800s, when different European countries traveled to different regions of the world. The reason for this it to adapt and exchange new ideas and cultural practices. The majority of the time the European countries simply took over the region and used/traded the resources. I think and believe that based on the information and evidence, colonization affected different parts of the world by slavery, “bullying” the region, taking their resources by force, and the spread of disease to the new land.

Slavery played a huge part in the time period. It’s absolutely crazy how extreme some countries went on the different regions for slave trade. It wasn’t for the kindness toward the slaves of course, but it was all about the money that was rolling in. The region that affected the most I believe is the Western African region. The Portuguese were the first to come to this region, and later on they made this system that was the “Triangular Slave Trade.” This was a trade system were Africa provided slaves, then North America and Europe brought different goods that the other regions didn’t have. The way the Europeans did the slave trade, they would separate families and pack the boats causing an unhealthy environment. This caused many to die and a lot of revolts against this terrible system. Japan was also influenced by the act of slavery. The Portuguese once again came into the region and decided to benefit only one side of the trading system, which was themselves. The thought of slavery is an act against human rights and the way that the Europeans went about it was truly cruel. No respect was given to the people, they were simply seen as worthless.

The spread of new ideas, inventions, and resources was a huge thing during this time period. A lot of the European countries though, didn’t exactly use this opportunity to benefit both sides of the trade line. The whole reason a European country decided to colonize a region is for their resources. The majority of European countries took this as an advantage for them to mine out all of the resources and leave the area dry. Africa was known as a place with a large amount of resources. This place acted as a magnet bringing many different countries. There were Diamond/Gold rushes for the continent of Africa and European countries took this as an opportunity to dig all the different minerals and leave these different regions of Africa to “rot” in a way. The Berlin Conference was also a huge factor on how the outcome of these different soon to be African countries were to come. They continue to struggle because a lot of the European countries just left them with no stable government causing lots of violence, including civil wars and confusion. European countries taking resources from the region was also very common in the South American/Mexico area. The Spanish took the land for their benefit to mine out all the resources and to leave the land and the people. Leaving them with no choice to figure how to develop with non existing resources. There was a lot of silver in this region and that’s what it was known for. This left a great impact, leaving the people in the different regions not being able to develop economically because there weren’t any stable resources they could use.

The most impactful effect of colonization I believe is the diseases that European countries brought to the new areas. With the amount of medical technology they had fighting disease and surviving them was very rare. With the technology we have today, obviously that’s a lot different and the survival rate from the different diseases is a lot higher than back then.The Caribbean was greatly affected by this due to the slave trade from the continent of Africa. With the unsanitary transportation methods, this brought many different kinds of sickness’ to the region that would soon spread throughout the North/South America. The diseases were not just from Africa, but also came from the Europeans as they were migrating to the North American land to live freely. Australia also witnessed the same thing due to the fact that the British colonized the area by bringing the European diseases to a land that has never experienced this type of sickness. The common diseases or sickness’ were, smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, influenza, chicken pox, measles, and more. With this impactful effect it brought a lot of death due to the lack of medical technology.

All the negative points are truly depressing and how the Europeans went the route they went in treating the people of different regions. These are some “positive” points with a twist. The European countries spread the religion of Christianity, although that phrase sounds great, the way they did it was not appealing. The European countries forced the faith upon the people of the different regions through violence and more. As Christians we understand and know that forcing the Christian faith upon someone is not what the bible commands us to do. People would also argue the fact that spreading the new ideas and cultures allowed our world to develop quicker economically. Though that seems like a valid argument, the colonizers did not act upon the situation the right way. As I stated before they took the resources they needed that benefited them and left some regions with no stable government. Till this day many countries in Africa still struggle economically. For example, Rwanda in Africa had a civil war back in the 1994, having a genocide due to the European countries, Belgium and Germany. The reason for the genocide is the fact that there was not a stable government.  A common factor of both of these “positive” influences come to an outcome of violence. That’s why colonization overall had a negative affect.

In conclusion, I believe that colonization brought a negative effect on the different regions of the world. Through slavery, the way they took their resources, and the spread of disease to the new lands. The way the Europeans dealt with the situation is what lead me to state that colonization brought a negative effect.

 

Works Cited

 

Alcott, Washington. “Revealing Histories: Remembering Slavery.” The underdevelopment of

Africa by Europe | Revealing Histories,

revealinghistories.org.uk/africa-the-arrival-of-europeans-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/articles/the-underdevelopment-of-africa-by-europe.html.

 

Malone, Cory. “Diseases.” The Columbian Exchange,

public.gettysburg.edu/~tshannon/hist106web/site19/index.html.

 

Pringle, Heather. “How Europeans brought sickness to the New World.” Science | AAAS, 4 June

2015, www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/06/how-europeans-brought-sickness-new-world.

 

PowerPoint Presentations