The European Perspective
   Through many years have we honored and revered the great explorers and colonizers of old, ones who paved the way for the American way and every other country that blossomed forth from the so-called "New World".  This is not how it should be, I believe.  What have we done as good, really?  Take the land from native people?  Pilfer all of the natural resources we can?  Destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of forest to make way for our pollution-ridden cities and roads?  This was almost too far and I think we could have done better to ease the harm.

   For one, our need to constantly build more and more led us to using the Native Americans as slaves until they died of diseases like smallpox or simply from overworking.  This problem led to a certain Catholic priest to give the idea of using the disease-immune race of Africans as slaves.  Our greed overtook us and we followed his idea, first taking few, but then taking them, living, breathing people, by the boatload, packing as tightly as possible for as much profit to be made as possible.  Once they arrived (in the West Indies, usually) we used despicable practices of selling slaves to prospective buyers, who then transported the slaves to South America or other islands (North America happened later).  This was completely uncalled for.

   Secondly, after tiring of the Natives whose lands we continued to take from them, we forced them out of their homes in the Southeastern US as part of our greed.  They traveled from their lush land to the harsh deserts in the Midwest.  Numerous lives of Natives were lost on that many-mile trail which we all remember today; it stands for the suffering which we have yet to even reconcile for.  So what if we just gained a few hundred-thousand acres of land?  That is not worth even half the amount of Natives who died during this journey (which took years).  Once more, this was unnecessary.
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Thoughts on what I have?  I plan on writing another reason and a summary.

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Resident KMFDM addict and BRUTE! fanboy.

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In class I have been given an assignment to write an editorial on the view of colonization of the Native Americans or Europeans, I have chosen that of the European and already written a fair bit of the paper and I would like some thought on what I have so far.

The European Perspective
  Through many years have we honored and revered the great explorers and colonizers of old, ones who paved the way for the American way and every other country that blossomed forth from the so-called "New World". This is not how it should be, I believe. What have we done as good, really? Take the land from native people? Pilfer all of the natural resources we can? Destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of forest to make way for our pollution-ridden cities and roads? This was almost too far and I think we could have done better to ease the harm.

  For one, our need to constantly build more and more led us to using the Native Americans as slaves until they died of diseases like smallpox or simply from overworking. This problem led to a certain Catholic priest to give the idea of using the disease-immune race of Africans as slaves. Our greed overtook us and we followed his idea, first taking few, but then taking them, living, breathing people, by the boatload, packing as tightly as possible for as much profit to be made as possible. Once they arrived (in the West Indies, usually) we used despicable practices of selling slaves to prospective buyers, who then transported the slaves to South America or other islands (North America happened later). This was completely uncalled for.

  Secondly, after tiring of the Natives whose lands we continued to take from them, we forced them out of their homes in the Southeastern US as part of our greed. They traveled from their lush land to the harsh deserts in the Midwest. Numerous lives of Natives were lost on that many-mile trail which we all remember today; it stands for the suffering which we have yet to even reconcile for. So what if we just gained a few hundred-thousand acres of land? That is not worth even half the amount of Natives who died during this journey (which took years). Once more, this was unnecessary.
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Thoughts on what I have? I plan on writing another reason and a summary.

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How the hell is that a European perspective? If they had felt that way, then they never would have colonised the land to begin with.

Because certaintly, the Europeans for the most part must have seen their colonization as a good thing, as they continued to do it for about 400 years or so. Generally, they had no qualms about sending over millions of Africans, enslaving and 'converting' the Native Americans, and eventually claiming all of this land to themsleves.

I'm sure a few must have realized in the course of events on what must actually be happening, but chances are most that realized the evils of colonization (and it's not an entirely bad thing in and of itself. just the way they decided to go about it was) either could do nothing about it, or were making a ton of money off of it, and weren't going to do a thing to stop it.

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Everybody look at you 'cause you're sailing on a  FAILBOAT.

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I'm assuming that this is a "modern" interpretation of how Eurpeans might feel about the colonization.  

Because certaintly, the Europeans for the most part must have seen their colonization as a good thing, as they continued to do it for about 400 years or so. Generally, they had no qualms about sending over millions of Africans, enslaving and 'converting' the Native Americans, and eventually claiming all of this land to themsleves.

I'm sure a few must have realized in the course of events on what must actually be happening, but chances are most that realized the evils of colonization (and it's not an entirely bad thing in and of itself. just the way they decided to go about it was) either could do nothing about it, or were making a ton of money off of it, and weren't going to do a thing to stop it.

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+1, I like the reasoning in this post.