Such encounters, whatever you call them, have usually been disastrous for the native peoples. This includes the Spanish and other Europeans in the Americas; the British in Tasmania; and various Europeans, most notably the Belgians, in Africa.
The Spanish in the New World: Starting when Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1493, the native people on that island had nearly vanished* in the space of only 30 years—from being exposed to European diseases, being enslaved, etc.
During the conquests of Peru and Mexico by the Spanish, the Spanish conquerors displayed cunning, cruelty, and deceit. These traits, plus again the diseases that Europeans brought, again resulted in massive deaths of the native peoples.
In Bolivia the Spanish conquerors wanted to mine silver from the mountain known as Cerro de Potosi or Cerro Rico, near the town of Potosi. A huge amount of silver (along with other metals) was extracted from this mine over 500 years, at enormous human cost. For one thing, working at the the mountain's 14,000 foot altitude was at or beyond the limit of human capacities. Also,
The Spanish called the mountain Cerro Rico, or Rich Mountain, for the silver they extracted from the mountain. Some 3 million Quechua Indians were put to work here over the years. Hundreds of thousands died, casualties of cave-ins, or killed by overwork, hunger and disease [http://www.npr.org/2012/09/25/161752820/bolivias-cerro-rico-the-mountain-that-eats-men].
Metals are still being extracted from this mountain and miners use coca leaves to help them endure the mining conditions.
United States: In what is now the United States the Indians were treated very, very badly. This tragic and even disgusting history is very long and can't easily be summed up here. I'll give only a few examples that stand out in my mind.
In New England the English settlers before long came to make war on the native peoples are wiped out several tribes in very short order.
In California, the Spanish friars who operated the missions enslaved the surrounding Indians, forcing them to get up very early and pray for an hour and then work in the fields for a very long day.
In the Southeastern United States, the lands of the Cherokee and several other tribes were coveted by the white Americans. President Andrew Jackson ordered the Cherokee to migrate to what is now Oklahoma. The Supreme Court ruled that Jackson could not do this but he simply defied the Court and did it anyway. The Cherokee marched on foot through winter weather and many died of starvation, exhaustion, and so forth.
But once there—Oklahoma was designated "Indian Territory" and the promise was made that this was to be the Indians' in perpetuity. However, in 1893 Oklahoma was opened up to settlement by white settlers and the Indians were dispossessed of much of their territory.
In much of the second half of the nineteenth century, once the US Army was done fighting the Civil War, it moved on to the task of "pacifying" the Indians, which generally meant slaughtering all the inhabitants of Indian villages, including women and children. The Indians already were weakened by white man's diseases, against which they had no resistance, and hunger due to the buffalo, or bison, which was a main food source for Plains Indian tribes, having been wiped out.
Indian children were often taken away from their families and sent to special Indian schools, where they were punished for speaking their own language. (Canada generally was no better than the US and similarly suppressed native languages and cultures.)
In Hawaii, as in other Pacific islands, an idyllic place, even a paradise, was unfortunately subjected to the influence of Christian missionaries who proceeded to get the women to cover their breasts and in other ways did their best to destroy the culture and the happiness of the native people.
Tasmania: In Tasmania, to subdue and control the native population, the ruling British mutilated and hung many natives and eventually wiped them out.
Africa: King Leopold of Belgium permitted or even ordered unimaginable cruelty and atrocities to be committed against the natives.
So actions which today would be called crimes against humanity occurred on several continents—everywhere that Europeans came in contact with native peoples. As I said, this list is far from complete; the true story would be much longer and even sadder.
And I do not even include all the instances where missionaries suppressed and destroyed native cultures, languages, and religions.
Africa also suffered from its people being captured and shipped to the West to be slaves. But slavery was not entirely the result of the efforts of Europeans--there were Arab slave traders, and some Africans enslaved their fellow Africans--but it always relied on Europeans as one component of the slave trade.
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* Recently there's been evidence that the Taino—one of the native peoples who inhabited Caribbean islands before Columbus' landing—have not disappeared. There are a goodly number of people today who claim Taino descent and/or some degree of Taino blood.
Updated April 26 and June 6, 2013.
Copyright © 2013 by Richard Stein
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