Colonial Violence
During the Age of Exploration, Europeans explored Asia, Africa and the Americas. The western European states became nationally unified and centralized become able to invest and fund explorations. These Europeans usually were very eager to set up fortified trading posts and strategic ports with the intent of benefitting their own pockets. Most of these encounters began with amazement that ended in horror. The native people where naive to the intent of the European explorers that were there to find Wealth, Glory and to spread Christianity. The reasons why European encounters with natives in the Americas and in Africa turned violent was due to Europeans thirst for wealth, feelings of superiority and their desire for expansion …show more content…
Bartolome de Las Casas point this out in his brief account of devastation of the Indies. He wrote “Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time.” (E.W.C 9.16 pg.442) In this quote he means that they would make them pay tribute, took their natural resources, and enslaved them. The reason why he was there was to build his own wealth but upon discovery of how cruel his countrymen treated the natives he gave up on that aspiration. Soon after the colonialists started to robbing them and taking the women and their children that finally …show more content…
The colonialist of the Americas misinterpreted the natives’ lack of weapons and tools as not having intelligence but this is not true. The natives’ thrived before the Europeans came and Columbus states that the islands were thickly peopled. The indigenous people understood each other, had their own beliefs in religion and an organized hierarchy. Columbus knew this also and wrote “Nor are they slow or stupid but very clear understanding” (E.W.C 9.12 pg.432). In Dutch colony at Table Bay in South Africa, the Boers used their Calvinists tenets to justify setting up system of stratification separating the races. In Benin they had a very complex government which consisted of a King and three Chief Ministers was described by John Barbot in his account “A Description of Benin”.(E.W.C 9.10 pg.425). The complex government shows that they were no different in their superiority. “The king of Benin is absolute; his will being a
During the Age of Exploration, Europeans explored Asia, Africa and the Americas. The western European states became nationally unified and centralized become able to invest and fund explorations. These Europeans usually were very eager to set up fortified trading posts and strategic ports with the intent of benefitting their own pockets. Most of these encounters began with amazement that ended in horror. The native people where naive to the intent of the European explorers that were there to find Wealth, Glory and to spread Christianity. The reasons why European encounters with natives in the Americas and in Africa turned violent was due to Europeans thirst for wealth, feelings of superiority and their desire for expansion …show more content…
Bartolome de Las Casas point this out in his brief account of devastation of the Indies. He wrote “Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time.” (E.W.C 9.16 pg.442) In this quote he means that they would make them pay tribute, took their natural resources, and enslaved them. The reason why he was there was to build his own wealth but upon discovery of how cruel his countrymen treated the natives he gave up on that aspiration. Soon after the colonialists started to robbing them and taking the women and their children that finally …show more content…
The colonialist of the Americas misinterpreted the natives’ lack of weapons and tools as not having intelligence but this is not true. The natives’ thrived before the Europeans came and Columbus states that the islands were thickly peopled. The indigenous people understood each other, had their own beliefs in religion and an organized hierarchy. Columbus knew this also and wrote “Nor are they slow or stupid but very clear understanding” (E.W.C 9.12 pg.432). In Dutch colony at Table Bay in South Africa, the Boers used their Calvinists tenets to justify setting up system of stratification separating the races. In Benin they had a very complex government which consisted of a King and three Chief Ministers was described by John Barbot in his account “A Description of Benin”.(E.W.C 9.10 pg.425). The complex government shows that they were no different in their superiority. “The king of Benin is absolute; his will being a