One reason many European countries colonized other

lands and peoples is because many European countries

were running out of natural resources.

In Europe by the 1500's and on, there was much

deforestation and poverty, and the population was

becoming too great for the land and government to

handle.

By colonizing the Americas, for example, English, French,

Portuguese, and Spanish colonists were able to have

new lands and opportunities, but in the process millions

of Native Americans were killed, enslaved, intermarried,

or forced to leave their land.

Indeed, the European colonization of the Americas was

perhaps the bloodiest and most horrific time in human

history.

Besides the genocide of Native Americans, European

colonists brought Africans slaves to the Americas to work

, especially after finding out that Native Americans would

just die in slavery.

Imagine this: men who you've never seen before, come to

your house and your neighbors house and they all have

as much weapons as they can carry.

Then they start killing or enslaving you, your family, and

your neighbors.

And you and your family and your neighbors fight back but

are crushed by the men's superior weapons.

And soon, you and most of your family and your neighbors

are gone--killed, enslaved, intermarried, or forced to live

somewhere else.

This is what colonialism is: it is death, it is slavery; it is the

end of one group and the expansion of another group.