Quote:
Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
That's what we did, how exactly did we end up owning a country we just 'laid eyes on' and then took from the locals who had been here for at least 10,000 years before our sorry theiving arses showed up looking to take #### we didnt have any claim too
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The biggest concession I can give the colonialists is that the continent was wide open and it was just too easy to pass on. Even the highest population estimate of 60 million is effectively 6 million as 90% of the natives coming into contact with settlers would soon die from disease, which also make the remaining 10% much more vulnerable. Repopulating a land an ocean away where the native people have a tendency to be extremely adapt guerrilla warriors would have been impossible without the populations being cleared away by disease, from the settlers perspective it would have mostly looked like open land ripe for the taking. It's hard to expect more out of people in the 1600s.