The record of European expansion contains pages as grim as any in history. The African slave trade—begun by the Africans and the Arabs and turned into a profitable seaborne enterprise by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English—is a series of horrors, from the rounding up of the slaves by local chieftains in Africa, through their transportation across the Atlantic, to their sale in the Indies.
American settlers virtually exterminated the native population east of the Mississippi. There were, of course,
exceptions to this bloody rule. In New England missionaries like John Eliot (1604-1690) did set up little bands of “praying Indians,” and in Pennsylvania relations between the Quakers and Native Americans were excellent. Yet the European diseases, which could not be controlled, together with alcohol, did more to exterminate the Native Americans than did fire and sword.
Seen in terms of economics, however, the expansion of Europe in early modern times was more complex than simple “exploitation” and “plundering.” There was, in dealing with the native populations, much giving of “gifts” of nominal value in exchange for land and goods of great value. The almost universally applied mercantilist policy kept money and manufacturing in the home country. It relegated the colonies to producing raw materials—a role that tended to keep colonies of settlement relatively primitive and economically dependent.
