<em>In the late 1400s, several developments in Europe paved the way for European exploration in the Americas. As Europeans moved beyond exploration and into colonization of the Americas, they brought changes to virtually every aspect of the land and its people.</em>
After European explorers reached the New World, their efforts to colonize the Americas had dramatic impacts of life lived there.When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worst. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture. Today, European culture has almost entirely replaced indigenous lifeways.
One of the most significant impacts of European colonization of the Americas was the sheer reduction in cultural diversity. In North, Central, and South America, the Europeans regarded the Native peoples as being essentially all the same, despite a wide variety of linguistic dialects, religious practices, social hierarchies, customs, and subsistence practices. It is estimated that thousands of indigenous American languages have been replaced by English, Spanish, and Portuguese through the legacy of colonialism. Language and religion often went hand in hand in the process of cultural conversion, and perhaps as many distinct religious...
Not only that but the Europeans brought diseases which included smallpox, influenza, measles, and chicken pox. But they also brought technologies, ideas, plants, and animals that were new to America and would transform peoples' lives: guns, iron tools, and weapons; Christianity and Roman law; sugarcane and wheat; horses and cattle.
As Europeans moved beyond exploration and into colonization of the Americas, they brought changes to virtually every aspect of the land and its people, from trade and hunting to warfare and personal property. European goods, ideas, and diseases shaped the changing continent.
