Evaluate the Portuguese, Spanish, English, French

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Evaluate the Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, and Dutch explorations of the New World in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. What role did geography play in determining the routes of the explorers and in their initial settlements? What the goals of the explorers? How did they handle initial contacts with the Native Americans? In what ways were the European powers similar and how did they differ?
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Europeans colonized North and South America, Australia, Asia and most of Africa. The Spanish and the Portugeuse were the first colonies to colonize the western hemisphere of America. Indonesia was colonised by the Dutch in the sixteenth century while the British established colonies in North America and India in the seventeenth centuries. Colonialism was seen as a search for resources and raw materials and new markets and fields for investment.
The Portuguese used the Indian ocean route to explore the Atlantic coast of Africa. The Spanish colonists sailed to the west by crossing the Atlantic to establish colonies in the Indies. A treaty had to be signed between the Portuguese and the spanish to avoid conflicts between the two colonies. The portuguese reached India in the sixteenth century by sailing around Africa. In 1512, they sailed eastwards to land in China a year later. The French, English and the Dutch later entered the race of exploration after learning from the Spanish and Portuguese. These latter colonists used the north route to sail into the Pacific Ocean and later settle and establish colonies around South America.
The ultimate goals of the explorers were search for raw materials and slavery in the explored regions. They also had vast interests in the control of gold and silver in these regions. Territories captured in America were used for profitable agricultural practices apart from gold and silver. These territories were used to grow cash crops such as coffee and sugar and tobacco which provided huge profits.
The European colonies had superior weapons which they used against the native American Indians to capture their territories. They brought in diseases such as measles and small pox which were used to wipe out large numbers of native Indians making it easier to defeat them. The European powers were similar in the sense that they built colonies in the captured territories which had distinct social, religious, political and economic styles. They had well developed military and governmental capabilities. They used ships as a means of transport to sail through the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Slavery was one of the priorities for the preceding colonies. The English were more inclined to make fortunes in the slave trade while they were pirating the Spanish. They were competing with the Dutch to conquer slaves. The Dutch had taken away fortunes from the Portuguese and the English had seized part of the Dutch`s fortunes(Al...