Negative Effects Of Colonialis Essay Research Paper

Negative Effects Of Colonialis Essay, Research Paper

The Negative Effects of Colonization

When Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic, looking for a new route to the East, he found a New World. In this New World he found a new and strange people. The landscape was different, the climate was different and the natural resources were different. After returning back to Spain and reporting this New World, the European colonialism was started. People from many of the European nations came to what would be called the Americas and laid their claim to the land. Each country bringing their views and cultures and establishing it in the area that they claimed. This colonialism continued throughout history into the 20th century. Africa and Southeast Asia were colonized, by the U.S. and various other European nations, and used as battlegrounds for the U.S. and the Soviet Union to fight their cold war. These wars resulted in the deaths of many soldiers but even more African and Asian people, whose homes were displaced and country torn apart. The affects of this colonialism can still be seen thought these countries in today s times. Robert A. Heinlein, C.S. Lewis and Ray Bradbury deal with the issue of colonialism in the books, The Puppet Masters, Out of the Silent Planet and The Martian Chronicles, respectively. Each of these stories deal with colonization of earth and of other worlds and the affects that colonization has on the inhabitants of the worlds. The Puppet Masters, Out of the Silent Planet, and The Martian Chronicles, deal with the negative affects of colonialism on the population that is colonized as well as the negative affect on the population that colonizes.

In Heinlein s The Puppet Masters, a race of creatures, that survive by entering another body and living off of it, come to earth from the planet Titan. These creatures wanted to colonize earth and used its natural resources, people, much like the early colonialist of the Americas, who wanted Tobacco and sugar. The Titans started their colonization slowly by observing the humans and sending small numbers of Titans to earth initially to scout the humans. We have studied you and we know your ways. (101) This is like the early expeditions to America when small groups of people arrived. The Titans also have an arrogance that the Europeans settles had. When the old man asked Sam with the Titan on his back what planet they were from, and he replied, All planets are ours. This attitude is the same as the early settlers who believed that the land they claimed belonged to them despite the fact there were already people living there. The Titans seem to believe that they have a right to go to any planet and call it there own. Sort of a manifest destiny of the development of the West in North America. The Titans also had some missionary type values. The Europeans felt that the Indians were heathens and that they should be converted to Christianity. They felt that is was their duty to convert the savages and bring peace and order to their lives. When the Old Man asked the Titan possessed Sam why they were here, he replied, To bring you peace and contentment-and the joy of of surrender. (101) The Titans believed that humans were savage and wanted war. If the Titans converted the humans, they would have peace and would no longer have the desire for war. This colonization by the Titans seemed like and invasion from the point of view of the humans, much like the Indians would have thought of the Europeans coming to America.

Bradbury s The Martians Chronicles shows the history from beginning to end of colonization. It starts out the same as most colonization with a small expedition that fails which leads to another with more men, which fails and this continues for four expeditions. The last one succeeds and that leads to the start of the colonization of Mars. Spender, a member of the last expedition, wanted to stop the colonization of Mars because he knew the negative effects that it would cause.

When I was a kid my folks took me to visit Mexico City. I ll always remember the way my father acted-loud and big. And my mother didn t like the people because they were dark and didn t wash enough. And my sister wouldn t talk to most of them. And I can see my mother and my father acting the same way here. (64)

This attitude toward is common with colonialist who look down on people for now having the same technologies or way of life. Spender goes on to say, Do you remember what happened to Mexico when Cortez and his very fine good friends arrived from Spain? A whole civilization destroyed. Spender realizes that colonization is so bad, that he is willing to kill his own crewmembers to keep man from coming to Mars. As the settlers from earth moved in, the Martians were moved farther away from their cities and into hiding in the woods. This parallels what happens to the Indians when the Europeans arrived and the Indians on the East Coast were driven farther west. The Martians were also killed off by disease the same as the Indians. The Indian population was decimated by disease. That is another affect of colonization, no resistance to diseases. After the Martians have gone away and it is just the settlers, life on Mars becomes similar to life on earth. The ways and attitudes of the earthlings were brought to Mars just like they were when the Europeans came to America.

In Lewis Out of the Silent Plan