The expansion of European empires or “voyages of discovery,” in the modern era, led to wealth, strength in government, and cultural sophistication. The expansion was based on three main desires, the spread of Christianity, opportunity for profit through colonization, and glorification for the lower class as well as the upper class. The Europeans took advantage of trade networks and capital investments to support their expeditions, which helped to improve the economy (Pavlac, pp. 189-190). However, in their quest for superiority and riches, the Europeans depleted the native populations, through brutal killings and disease. This spurred one of the most important side effects of the “voyages of discovery”, the slavery of Indian and African
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But, their methods of colonization were anything but Christian like. In Bartoleme de Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies written in 1542, he describes some of the treatment of the Indians by the Spanish Christians who came to the Indies during their “Voyages of discovery.” Bartoleme, a Spanish priest, writes that the Isle of Hispaniola was perhaps one of the most densely populated places in the world. The people although, poor, were the most humble, patient, and peaceable in all of humanity, which makes the atrocities against them by the Spaniards more despicable, but also made it much easier to perpetrate (Bartoleme, …show more content…
However, there was little done to convert the Indians to Christianity as they rarely received any of the sacraments. The Europeans also brought with them germs. The natives, never having been exposed to these same germs, did not have immunities against them and many of them died of diseases. The killings and disease caused depopulation of the natives, creating the problem of not enough slaves to work the mines and produce food for the Europeans. To solve the labor problem, he Portuguese entered into a slave trade of Africans to the Americas. This began century’s long enslavement and harsh labor forced upon the Africans brought to the Americas to work the plantations of the European masters. Thus, the white skinned Europeans began to think of the brown and black skinned Indian and African people as inferior to them and a new worldview of white superiority was developed, called Eurocentrism (Pavlac, pp.
But, their methods of colonization were anything but Christian like. In Bartoleme de Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies written in 1542, he describes some of the treatment of the Indians by the Spanish Christians who came to the Indies during their “Voyages of discovery.” Bartoleme, a Spanish priest, writes that the Isle of Hispaniola was perhaps one of the most densely populated places in the world. The people although, poor, were the most humble, patient, and peaceable in all of humanity, which makes the atrocities against them by the Spaniards more despicable, but also made it much easier to perpetrate (Bartoleme, …show more content…
However, there was little done to convert the Indians to Christianity as they rarely received any of the sacraments. The Europeans also brought with them germs. The natives, never having been exposed to these same germs, did not have immunities against them and many of them died of diseases. The killings and disease caused depopulation of the natives, creating the problem of not enough slaves to work the mines and produce food for the Europeans. To solve the labor problem, he Portuguese entered into a slave trade of Africans to the Americas. This began century’s long enslavement and harsh labor forced upon the Africans brought to the Americas to work the plantations of the European masters. Thus, the white skinned Europeans began to think of the brown and black skinned Indian and African people as inferior to them and a new worldview of white superiority was developed, called Eurocentrism (Pavlac, pp.