With them, the Europeans brought diseases such as malaria, cholera, and smallpox, which the Indians had no natural immunity from. The total death toll from these diseases among Indians ranges from 25-50 percent. The death toll from battles with the European colonists is approximately ten percent. While Europeans poured into North and South America, the Indians were driven west, displaced and forced from their native lands onto unfamiliar and inhospitable lands. In recent history, the Indians are gaining rights and new land owed to them by the government, but Indian reserves are often far from traditional land, and they are still not included in most government policy-making which affects them. Of 10 million Indians that inhabited the area north of Mexico, barely two million are left.
In Australia, the story is the same. Aboriginals that once inhabited most of northern and eastern Australia were pushed into the interior by British settlers. As the settlers arrived, they stole Aboriginal land and denied them any rights in the new European-style society. Natives were forced to either live in poverty and be assimilated in the British colony, or live off what little land they had left. Most moved to the settlements and live in poverty to this day, while some have managed to live a traditional life in the Australian interior.
Africa has a complex history, and only necessities will be explained. It is the continent believed to be the origin of modern man. For millions of years people have lived all over the continent and various cultures have evolved. The Portuguese first set up colonies in western Africa in the 15th century as bases for raw mineral export. The Dutch, British, and French colonized the continent in the following centuries, having disastrous effect on the aboriginals they encountered. Millions of Africans from northwestern Africa were traded as slaves to other countries and colonies.
