American History: A Survey 10/e   Alan Brinkley
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Summary

Before European explorers arrived in the Americas, Native Americans had developed their own forms of social organizations,
which differed from one another in their levels of achievement. Europeans, concerned first with exploiting the New World and
its peoples, regarded the natives as savages and set out to destroy their societies and replace them with a variation of European
culture. Helped in this by the biological disaster brought on by smallpox and other diseases, the Europeans were able to
conquer the tribes and civilizations and impose on the Indians a number of different colonial systems. To help make up for the
Indians' labor lost through conquest and epidemic, Europeans brought in African slaves, who added to the cultural diversity of
America. Conflicts in the old world spilled over into the New as different nations got into the race for colonies. By the end of the
sixteenth century, the age of discovery was all but over, and the great era of colonization, especially English colonization, was
about to begin.

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