Throughout history, the role of the domineering global force has shifted position on a regular basis. This usually occurs at the intersection of advancement within a society and changes in governance. The Early Modern Era, which is also known as The Age of Enlightenment, saw Europe 's dramatic rise to power starting at the end of the Middle Ages and up until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, although this dominance has largely continued to last all the way until present times. Europe 's rise to power had a very large, primarily negative effect on different peoples all throughout the world, and much of the Europe 's justification for their imperialism was the type of language and ideas synonymous with The Enlightenment.
The rise of …show more content…
A little more than a century after the period when the likes of Columbus and Cortés first crossed the ocean to colonize the western hemisphere, British people looking to escape disagreeable religious restrictions in England would come to North America as pilgrims to live there free of said religious strife. While there was some amicable interaction between the native population and the pilgrims, the natives eventually were killed by disease and violence from the pilgrims who saw the natives as less human. As the colonies grew, slavery of Africans became a more and more popular source of labor in what ultimately would become the United States. So not only did the European conquest of the Americas consist of genocide against the native people, but also chattel slavery en masse of Africans to build the new country the Europeans had taken by force. On top of that, as if being taken from your homeland and forced into unpaid hard labor wasn 't a terrible enough fate, slaves in the United States were subject to constant abuse and sexual violence. While there were those who realized slavery was wrong from the beginning such as Thomas Jefferson. Sadly they were a minority and many weren 't powerful enough to be able to affect change, or worse like in Jefferson 's case where he knew it was wrong but was simply too cowardly to do anything about it. Jefferson, a supposedly enlightened man, would …show more content…
China banned the drug and threatened a penalty of death to those who attempted to bring it in. In 1839, Commissioner Lin Zexu of the Qing Dynasty wrote a letter of warning to Queen Victoria on behalf of the Chinese government. This was a very strongly worded letter, with such lines as “Let us ask? Where is your conscience? I have heard that the smoking of opium is very strictly forbidden by your country; that is because the harm caused by opium is clearly understood.”(CH) showing that China was well aware that the British were knowingly sell them a dangerous and addictive product which is highly immoral. The letter further proceeds to denote how China is much less dependent on the trade relationship than England, as well as an appeal to the benevolence of the Queen. The part of the letter warning of the consequences of bringing opium to China, “...the penalty is fixed at decapitation or strangulation.”(CH) was a very stern warning to the British. However, this was not enough to deter the British who believed they had the right to sell opium, and the Opium Wars ensued. This resulted in the Nanjing Treaty, England being given more port cities, being paid damages from the war, and most notably Hong Kong. Thanks to all of this, China lost much
The rise of …show more content…
A little more than a century after the period when the likes of Columbus and Cortés first crossed the ocean to colonize the western hemisphere, British people looking to escape disagreeable religious restrictions in England would come to North America as pilgrims to live there free of said religious strife. While there was some amicable interaction between the native population and the pilgrims, the natives eventually were killed by disease and violence from the pilgrims who saw the natives as less human. As the colonies grew, slavery of Africans became a more and more popular source of labor in what ultimately would become the United States. So not only did the European conquest of the Americas consist of genocide against the native people, but also chattel slavery en masse of Africans to build the new country the Europeans had taken by force. On top of that, as if being taken from your homeland and forced into unpaid hard labor wasn 't a terrible enough fate, slaves in the United States were subject to constant abuse and sexual violence. While there were those who realized slavery was wrong from the beginning such as Thomas Jefferson. Sadly they were a minority and many weren 't powerful enough to be able to affect change, or worse like in Jefferson 's case where he knew it was wrong but was simply too cowardly to do anything about it. Jefferson, a supposedly enlightened man, would …show more content…
China banned the drug and threatened a penalty of death to those who attempted to bring it in. In 1839, Commissioner Lin Zexu of the Qing Dynasty wrote a letter of warning to Queen Victoria on behalf of the Chinese government. This was a very strongly worded letter, with such lines as “Let us ask? Where is your conscience? I have heard that the smoking of opium is very strictly forbidden by your country; that is because the harm caused by opium is clearly understood.”(CH) showing that China was well aware that the British were knowingly sell them a dangerous and addictive product which is highly immoral. The letter further proceeds to denote how China is much less dependent on the trade relationship than England, as well as an appeal to the benevolence of the Queen. The part of the letter warning of the consequences of bringing opium to China, “...the penalty is fixed at decapitation or strangulation.”(CH) was a very stern warning to the British. However, this was not enough to deter the British who believed they had the right to sell opium, and the Opium Wars ensued. This resulted in the Nanjing Treaty, England being given more port cities, being paid damages from the war, and most notably Hong Kong. Thanks to all of this, China lost much