The modern day united states is in existence today because of the colonization done by the five nations of france, englan, the Netherlands, spain, and Portugal. These five countries began expanding out of their respective mother countries as early as the late fifteenth century, and continued to claim land and set up colonies as late as the mid seventeenth century. These countries had different motives and methods of colonization as well as different relationships with the Amerindians.

             The earliest colonization of the Americas was in 1492 when the Spanish first landed in the west indies. Soon after that they began exploring and colonizing the main land present day United States. The Spanish had three motives for wanting to colonize that Americas: gold, God, and glory. They also had rather effectives ways of doing this. In the 16th century, roughly one hundred thousand Spanish immigrants, most of whom were former soldiers, began coming over to the Americas. .

             These immigrants had several ways of colonizing the Americas. Immigrants either set up large estates, importing sheep, cattle, and other live stock; or set up large sugar and tobacco plantations, or set up mining companies. These Spanish colonies were the model of the mother country benefiting from it"s colonies. One half of all gold and silver went back to Spain, and Spain discouraged the colonies from starting their own industries. What this did was cause the Spanish colonies to rely on the imports of the mother country.

             The Spanish saw the Amerindians as exploitable. The Spanish took advantage of the Amerindians by making them pay homage to Spain, work for minimal wages, and by using them as slaves. As a result of these poor working conditions, as well as cross the cross breeding of Spanish men with Indian women, the Indian population began to die out. The death of many Amerindians also had to do largely with the fact that the Spaniards brought small pox and miesals over to the Americas.