Negative Effects of Colonization Essay Sample

Colonization has had, in my opinion, a negative impact on indigenous peoples’ lives, culture, identities, and rights because of how colonization has exploited their lands when arriving. They also negatively impacted them by how they forced their beliefs/customs to them, spread unjust systems, interfered with their rights, and helped stereotype race. Indigenous people had to go through so much suffering because of the colonizers invading their land causing a long-lasting negative impact on aspects of themself.

To start off, when colonizers came to places like Africa and America they were aiming to exploit the land which negatively impacted indigenous people by how they were overusing the resources of the land. In the article Scramble for Africa, it states “Africa represented an open market to Britain, Germany, France, and other European countries. The demand for raw materials such as copper, rubber, cocoa, tea, gold, and diamonds had increased in Europe” as soon as Europeans realized there was new land they saw how much they could profit without thinking how negatively it was going to impact the indigenous people already living in these so-called unclaimed lands. All of the exploitation they did to land by stealing its resources and taking control/ exploiting the people of the land caused native people to become extremely poor as shown in the All African Conference document “Whereas all African peoples everywhere strongly deplore the economic exploitation of African peoples by imperialist countries thus reducing Africans to poverty in the midst of plenty.” Indigenous people were overall negatively affected by the exploitation of the land from colonizers.

Adding on when Europeans came to new lands they not only came with money in mind they came with the idea of god and their own customs which were forced into the indigenous population when they took over. In Letter to the Senate, the representative of the Cherokee describes how they had to learn and adapt to the colonizer’s religion, language, and teachings “We have learned your religion also. We have read your Sacred books. Hundreds of our people have embraced their doctrines, practiced the virtues they teach, cherished the hopes they awaken, and rejoiced in the consolations which they afford. To the spirit of your institutions,  and your religion, which has been imbibed by our community.” Letter to the Senate shows how much indigenous people had to have their culture and identities have had to change because of colonization as well as how they could not be themselves because of how they would be persecuted which was shown later on in the letter “We have experienced atrocious sufferings, being persecuted for religious beliefs.” In the Speech of Congo “Natives in these newly colonized nations were expected to learn the language of the colonizer and adopt many of their practices. Local indigenous spiritual practices were dismissed as false and “witchcraft” by Christian missionaries.” Colonization was negatively impacting indigenous peoples’ culture, identity, and beliefs making them think that what they were doing was wrong and to change their practices, They were also forced to learn the European language which contributes even further to how negatively their culture, identity, beliefs were impacted by colonization. 

Contributing to the negative impact of colonization on indigenous people would be that the unjust systems/laws colonizers made when settling in were very biased. In the letter to the senate, you can see how biased the government system was to colonizers. ”We have not forgotten that the law was never the same for the white and the black, that it was lenient to the ones and cruel and inhuman to others.” European white light-skinned people were in power, the government system was in their favor and unjust. Indigenous, native people to the land had to be careful because of how easily they could be punished. Also if they were punished they would have a high chance of getting a harsh cruel punishment compared to white, light-skinned Europeans. This form of government went on for years meaning that indegenous, native people were not accepted for their identity and culture for a long time, they instead had to be cautious about their culture and their identities were used to represent what they could not do unless they were white. 

Along with the lines of unjust government, colonization was heavily interfering in human rights and those that were supposed to belong to the native people of the land. Even though many countries now have rights for everyone that used to not be the case due to colonialism. The Letter to the Senate shows this when the representative of the Cheeroke said “We are despoiled of our private possessions, the  indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility  for legal self-defence.” Showing how the Cherokee had very little legal defense, they were barely able to express any freedom due to being ruled by the people who had colonized them and their land.  Indegenous people should have had the same rights and be able to express them like everyone else but they could not because it was no longer their land. In the  Colonization had negatively impacted them by how limited they were and could not even express legal rights like those who had colonized them,

Likewise, that was not the only negative impact colonization had on indigenous peoples culture, identity, lives, and rights; the introduction of racism/influence of racism caused indegenous people to suffer for years. Racism did not have to be introduced but it did and it caused a lot of negativity to indigenous people, changing their identity and lives as well as being a huge influence to past impacts in history. In the Speech of Congo” We have not forgotten that in the cities the mansions were  for the whites and the tumbledown huts for the blacks; that a  black was not admitted to the cinemas, restaurants and shops  set aside for Europeans'' Racism defined their identity as lower to white people. It mocked idengenous peoples' culture and identity and as seen in Speech of Congo by how “Morning, noon and night we were subjected to jeers, insults  and blows because we were ‘Negroes'. Who will ever forget  that the black was addressed as ‘tu', not because he was a  friend, but because the polite ‘vous’ was reserved for the  white man?” racism had had a long lasting impact and memory to the people of congo and their identity.

Consequently even in the present the impact of colonization is shown to have influenced the stereotype of race. Scramble for Africa shows how colonizers referred to african people “Africans were dehumanized, regarded as uncivilized, savage and brutal” which can be seen to influence stereotypes through the article Dirt Biking “Black riders can start to feel stereotyped when they get lumped together with gang members, violence, and drugs in cities’ schemes to curb dirt bikes. Kelly once heard a woman describe bikers as “active terrorists.” 

All of these things colonization has done to these indigenous people not only affect them at the time but also impact them in the future. All of these complications did not have to happen but they did. Thanks to that indigenous cultures, people have been negatively affected.

In conclusion, the exploitation of many lands, forced beliefs, the spread of unjust systems, interfered with rights, and stereotyped race show how much of a negative impact colonization has had.