Encroachment of Europeans (College Board AP® US History)

Land Ownership & Need for Labor

Land Ownership

• The European philosophy of land ownership was based on the overcrowding in Europe, where most lands were already in use and few new lands existed

  • Europeans believed:

    • that land was a natural resource that could be owned and controlled by a single individual

    • that land represented wealth

• The Indigenous philosophy of land was based on the infinite amount of land not used in the Americas

  • Indigenous people saw land as a gift from their gods and an asset to be used by all people
    

Need for Labor

• Europeans forced Indigenous peoples to work in mines and the fields of plantations 

• As the population of Indigenous peoples began to decline, Europeans used enslaved Africans as a new source of forced labor 

• African enslavement was part of colonial life in Central South America, and North America