Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "What Happened After Christopher Columbus Discovered The Americas" video.

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  3.  @foggy561  Yes and no. I think USA is most accuratly called a country of "settlers" and not a country of "immigrants" or "conquerors & invaders" as some people proclaim. The reason why I think so is that not many people lived in USA when the Europeans arrived. Population numbers was low to begin with, and then they fell even more as diseases that came from the Spanish (and others) to america and killed off the native population. So much of Americas land therefore laid empety and unused, and the European settlers from England elsewhere took it and no one was really upset about it. I therefore think we cannot say USA was a country of immigrants. It wasn't like Europeans asked for green cards and visas at the borders of Dakota or Sioux territory and wanted to apply for citizenship in native American communities. Nor were they illegal immigrants that came to their land to do low wage jobs without paying taxes. And calling the whites invaders and conquerors are not correct either as most Europeans just settled large plots of uninhabiteted lands. Some conquests did of course occur, however that was more a thing of the 1800s. I will not deny the war and imperialism aspect. However all I saying is that this aspect was of a secondary importance - at least to begin with when Europeans came to america in the 1600s and 1700s. I am also not saying it was right for Europeans to just come in and build settlements on another countries territories. Sure would it probably not bother Swedes much if millions of immigrants invaded the almost completly uninhabited Lapland province and built towns and villages there and created and extracted economic value from that area. But that does not make this settlement legally and morally right to make without Swedens permission.
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  6.  @marlonalexis3080  It was an empire built on royal marriages between Aragon and Castile, and later on did they inherit Burgundy, and gained Portugal through royal marriage and became allied with the Habsburg Austrians. So it was not an empire mainly built on economic and military superiority. But rather more on skillful medieval style diplomacy with royal marriages. The country never built a succesful economic model. Indeed, as a medieval country it had much knights and this warrior class had contempt for hard work. They rather wanted to live off resource extraction instead.. using slaves on plantations and working people to death in silver mines. And then was a few tonnes of silver shipped to China each year, or used for trading spices and other goods in India, and the indian ocean and pacific. This economic model worked well to make Spain rich for some time. But later on would the silver mines not produce as much silver as before... and the global demand for Spanish exports sunk as markets became saturated with all the big flows of gold and silver. And the overextended Spanish empire constantly failed to balance its expenses with incomes and went bankrupt after fighting Dutch, Turks, English, Swedes, Germans, Italians, Portugease, French, Native americans, north african berbers and so on. So even if Spain managed to construct Europes first standing army, with superior capabilities on the battlefield... would other countries soon learn to build better armies themselves. And as the Spanish empire started to fall apart, did money become scarce and it was no longer possible for Spain to maintain troop quality, which only made Spains problems worse. Now it no longer was just the Dutch that wanted independence from Spain, but also Italy and Portugal. And the local rulers in America wanted more power for themselves and their Spanish motherlands expense. And the list of foreign enemies of Spain was long, and it was mostly Spains own arrogance, hubris and extreme religious intolerance that was at fault for those many wars. Spain should have choosen diplomatic solutions to further its interests than trying to use its powerful military as a solution to every problem. When it did that, then did the enemies soon to became too many to handle.
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