The Middle Ages were drawing to a close. Europe, which had recently survived the plague and the Hundred Years War, was gradually recovering. An amazing fact is that the continent's catastrophic population decline has benefited him: a noticeable reduction in the peasantry gave the survivors the opportunity not only to expand their land plots, but also to get more rights. This was, to some extent, the first social experiment that showed that the aristocracy is much more in need of "rabble" than vice versa.
Many peasants, having abandoned or sold their plots, took up crafts or business - as a result, after 2-3 generations, a fairly significant "third estate" appeared in almost all of Europe, in fact, it became the foundation on which the future bourgeoisie will be built in the future - the basis capitalist world order.
However, business is an occupation that does not tolerate stagnation. The markets of Europe were quickly divided up, and it became necessary to expand the spheres of influence of large associations of merchants. Around the same time, new ship designs appeared, competently combining straight and oblique sails. This made it possible to significantly secure travel by sea, speed up them, and, accordingly, significantly reduce the cost. After these events, the era of great geographical discoveries simply could not but come. The first in this business were the Portuguese and the Spaniards. The opening of new routes to India gave a sudden but very important result that changed the fate of the then world - Columbus discovered America. And so, the bearers of the "light of civilization" began to conquer new lands …
No one had any illusions about the fate of the people living there. As soon as the Europeans realized what riches the new continent was hiding, and that the level of development of the natives of both Americas lagged behind Europe by about two millennia, their fate was sealed. In less than half a century, all major pockets of resistance were suppressed, a huge number of people were killed or sold into slavery, the survivors either huddled in forests and jungle, or worked for new owners for cheap food and rum of bad cleaning.
At the same time, the Europeans felt so unpunished that they did not even set themselves any global goals either for the “cultivation” of the local population, or for its total purge. Everything was determined by the need for territories - when the need arose, the piece of land needed by the "white people" was banally taken from the indigenous population, and it was either exterminated or expelled.
This was the case in South America. In the North, the situation was somewhat different. A more severe climate, the absence of such a number of fresh water sources that were in the South and a slightly inconvenient location shifted the processes of its colonization by about two hundred years. However, when it became clear that North America was not inferior to South America in terms of wealth, the process of implanting "European civilization" began there as well.
And, in spite of milder morals, the "northern" colonialists, mainly representatives of the new nation - the people of the United States, acted in similar ways as their Spanish predecessors. Trying to give at least the appearance of a "civilized" approach to the problem, they concluded agreements with local tribes, according to which they ceded their lands to them, for the same benefits of civilization: weapons, household items, provisions. Another slight difference was in drinking - instead of rum, the northerners sold whiskey to the Indians, the raw materials for which grew splendidly in the New World.
Naturally, none of the new owners thought to fulfill these agreements: there was always any convenient reason to accuse the Indians of violating these agreements and take what the "white people" wanted in the simplest and most natural way for them - by force.
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At the end of the 18th century, the situation escalated to the limit and a leader appeared among the Indians who did not want to put up with this state of affairs. His name was Tekumse. As the leader of one of the tribes, he began to pursue his own policy, founded the Indian Confederation, which, as best it could, resisted the actions of the then US authorities.
This was by no means the "blinkered" Indian, as they are portrayed in most films and literary works. Despite his savage origin, he was a man of completely European views and methods. He wanted his people to be treated as equals by white people, and he did everything for this. In addition, he held the rank of British brigadier general - an almost unprecedented event at the time. The British government has never given such titles (and the privileges due to them) to anyone just like that.
However, the leader did not understand that for the whites he would always remain just an ordinary Indian, whose life price was determined only by the profitability of the business that would develop on his former land. Vilely assassinated in 1813 by Colonel Johnson, Tekumseh cursed the "white leaders" before his death, saying that none of the American presidents elected in multiples of 20 years would live to see the end of their term. And although this is just a legend, already seven American presidents have exactly fulfilled the destiny destined for them by the great leader.
After the death of the legendary leader, the Indians did not have a single personality that in the slightest degree reached him. In addition, the increasingly strengthening power of the United States led to the fact that this state significantly expanded its possessions to the south and west, and most of the Indians were either exterminated or quietly sat on reservations - the pitiful remnants of the lands that once belonged to them. The era of the conquest of the New World is over, the era of its development has begun.
What was the number of victims of this continental genocide, which lasted almost 500 years? Many scientists give different estimates. The Americans themselves believe that their approximate number can be estimated in the range from 46 to 100 million people. Both world wars took fewer people in the 20th century! In the history of mankind, the conquest of the Western Hemisphere will be an indelible bloody stain that perfectly demonstrates the dark sides of human nature. We can only hope that in the future the ideas of humanism will prevail over the animal instincts of man and this will never happen again.