How Religion Affected the Settlement of the New World.

How Religion Affected the Settlement of the New World

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Date The discovery of the new world was an accidental eventuality that was motivated by the search of wealth and had no connection with the intellectual curiosity . The whole business originated from Portuguese who in 16th century had a monopoly of the spice trade around the African continent . At the same time (Peter H , 1992 ) the Spaniards had already started thinking of how they could have a take in this monopoly by looking for a

Western route that would take them to the eastern regions It is in this wake of monopoly search in the East that propelled Christopher Columbus to convince the queen of Spain , Isabella that he would get this route given that chance . Christopher Columbus thought he was already I the East but fortunately or unfortunately he landed in America or what is called the new world . He thought he was already in India . In the New world , he discovered that land was fertile and thus suitable for farming thus it was easy to convince his people to occupy this region . Many people came to settle in the new world because of various reasons for example , religion . The main focus of this will be on what5 way did religion contribute to the settlement in the world

One of the factors that made people risk going to Americas was the fact that in Europe , religion took the back seat . It was not being given the due respect it deserved thus priests and other religious leaders were determined to go and establish their religions in this newly found world that was believed to be free form polarization by the religious in Europe

There was also this issue of the Native Americans being considered as beasts or half human and for these reasons , the indigenous Americans were dehumanized . The trend continued up to 1550s when it reached its peak . This made the council of theologian to convene so that they could discuss whether it was in accordance with the law for the king to stage war on the natives before they could be converted to be believers . The heart of their discussion was on whether it was justified to forcefully Christianize them . For this reason , Christian leaders felt obliged to go to the new world and defend the Indians who were depicted as idolatrous devil worshippers

There was this issue of availability of cheap land in the new found land . The thought of getting new and fertile land was itself a motivating factor to the Europeans . This was enough to make them risk to this land which they had never seen before . Also to those who were victims of persecution were highly motivated by the very thought hat they would be able to develop themselves by the work of their hands These people moved and they successfully curved their niches . They lived together and cooperated for a period of about 150 years until the time of...