A Nation's Beginning

Before the settlers, the Natives had a culture of their own. They had their own set of beliefs and throughout time, it expanded with the arrival of the settlers. This process of expantion ocurred due to the blending of their culture and the settlers’. Trade existed way before the arrival of these individuals to foreign lands. Trading of foods and goods between people living in nearby lands took place before colonization.

                The Natives adapted rapidly to any environment they were in. They adapted quickly because no matter what was in their way, they had a kinship network. Nowadays is more known as a clan. A kinship network is were every single person being blood related or by marriage, is taken into account as part of the family.

                Native Americans had a very particular way of seeing the land. According to them, the land belonged to no one and could not belong to someone either. They had this belief of people being able to share the land in certain way with authorization of others. This particular way of viewing land caused the Native Americans to have violent disagreements with Europeans. They clashed because they didn’t shared the same views of land use.

                One of the mayor impacts the Europeans had with the Natives was the transmission of certain diseases. These diseases were fatal to them because they had absolutely no immunity towards them. Smallpox and measles were among the diseases that were transmitted to the Native Americans. The Europeans were clueless about being the ones causing the decline in the Native American population. Instead, they believed that it was a sign from God meaning that they were meant to conquer their lands. Conquering those lands was of much importance to the Europeans for three reasons. They needed the land, for trading, and to Christianize the Native Americans.

                Europeans in order to work more efficiently turned to West Africa looking for slaves. Both of these countries had low interaction. Every now and then they traded African godos in Exchange for gold until they realized that they could take advantage of trading the West Africans themselves. Slavery was seen as an opportunity of jobs to the West Africans. The term of slavery was nothing new to the Africans because it already existed in their country before the Europeans tok part of the slave trade. The only difference was that in Africa, slavery was because of lineage and to the Europeans it was because African people were seen as inferior.

                After the clash among the Europeans, Africans and Americans, the Spanish were on the top of the list for invading the Americas. The conquistadores abolished much of the culture they found in the Americas. They invaded those lands for glory, God, and wealth. However, all they really cared was the wealth. They didn’t destroyed completely the Native American culture, instead they used the encomienda system. This system made the Natives work for the Spanish in farms, ranches, or mines in order for them to blend with their societies.

                The Spanish had numerous colonies by the 1550s. The colonies are areas settled by immigrants who continue to be the subjects of their parent country. People in the colonies were representatives of their country in other lands.

                The Native Americans were usually disorganized in matters of showing resistance towards the conquerors. However, in New Mexico the Pueblo people revolted against the Spanish and expelled them in the Revolt of 1680.

                The English speaking people formed a body of colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America by the late 1600s and early 1700s. These colonies played an important role because of two reasons, they were suppliers of foods and goods and they were avid buyers of English goods. These acivities fitted perfectly with a new European theory called mercantilism which supposedly made a nation’s wealth and power increase.

                The economy and the politics of the colonists served the interests of Great Britain very well.  The British realized that the most salutary, or beneficial, policy was to neglect their colonies. Thus, later historians would call British colonial policy the salutary neglect during the early 1700s.

                There were many controversies between many countries in the epoch of colonization. In the end the side who had more power won but, there were a variety of resistances involved from each side so in the end, every one won. They all won because after a long period of fighting and clashes, they all went to separate ways and thanks to that, the world is what it is nowadays.