History

Institutional Affiliation Goes Here Abstract
This paper explores some of the reasons the Europeans had to expand into other territories, particularly China, and the American Indies. The paper also contains an example from the British Raj and highlights the fact that at the end of the day, economic and political gains took precedence over religious preaching in all expansion decisions. The Motive of European Expansion
Europeans have had different and varied reasons for expanding into other continents and countries throughout the ages. What we called imperialism and colonialism in the later centuries was no different from conquests of the ancient ages. One civilization, either attacks or forcibly infiltrates into other geographical regions and captures their resources by the virtue of a superior technology, stronger military or a robust economic power   and this has been going on since the beginning of civilization, each civilization does it to the weaker one by a combination of these strengths. Same can be considered the case with the European civilization collectively. Although Europe was not very cohesive, it did manage to develop at astounding rates after the invention of the printing press, leaving other civilizations of the period far behind. This became apparent centuries later, especially from 14th to 19th centuries, when Europe literally expanded in tho whole world. This was largely due to the extremely high disparity between the military, economic, and technological disparity between Europe and the rest of the world.

All the countries that were attacked by the Europeans had their own identities and established cultures. However, most of these were not Christians. The much-hyped and announced reason for attacking these countries was given to the European public as  civilizing  the natives, and making them  Christians . This might very well be the case, however, this did not stop the Europeans from exploiting the native lands and people to the most brutal extents that we can imagine. For example, Indian subcontinent had a rich and ancient culture where people from different ethnicities, races and religions lived together in harmony and relative peace for centuries. After the advent of the British, this region suffered from some of the worst famines of all time (Davis, 2000). This was due to the attitudes of the British Raj of India, who were incompetent and only worried about their personal greed that they could satisfy from the region.

Ostensibly, the reason for expanding into India was spice trade, and after that greed and economic benefit took the first priority. Similarly, expanding into China was ostensibly the  civilization of the heathen Chinee  however, this was not the sole purpose. China was the hub of the lucrative opium trade for the British and there was a large amount of profit to be made from this. Trade and government control is easier if the people you are trying to subjugate learn the culture of the invaders and become their virtual agents, however, this was not feasible in China due to its large population.

China had a rich and firmly rooted culture and traditions. This was a culture historically known for ancient technological advancements and a large cohesive population. Hence, China never became a western colony due to its sheer size (Spence, 1980), and Hong Kong, which was substantially smaller, became a colony.

The natives of the American Indies were not as lucky as the Chinese. They were raped, tortured, killed, humiliated and robbed by their invaders (Casas, 1974). Similar to the other cases, Europeans, particularly Spaniards invaded these areas and wreaked havoc of disastrous proportions. The Spanish entered these lands to spread Christianity to the heathen tribes of these regions, but the real benefit for the Spaniards was the stake in the lucrative slave trade, as this region had the potential of becoming the hub of slave trade. Furthermore, this was the gateway to Americas and a strong strategic trade route, hence a good place to conquer and hold for the Spaniards.

The Europeans had a vicious race to expand their territories to other continents and regions in between 14th to 19th centuries, this was largely due to economic and territorial greed of the Europeans. These countries may be civilized now but have been committing some of the worst atrocities of all time during the previous few centuries for economic, political and religious gains.