What was a major consequence of European colonization of South America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
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Answer:
Although the Norse had explored and colonized northeastern North America c. 1000 CE, the later and more well-known wave of European colonization of the Americas took place in the Americas between about 1492 CE and 1800 CE, during the Age of Exploration.[1][2][3][4] During this period of time, several European empires—primarily Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and the Netherlands—began to explore and claim the natural resources and human capital of the Americas,[1][2][3][4] resulting in the displacement, disestablishment, enslavement, and genocide of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas,[1][2][3][4] and the establishment of several settler-colonial states.[1][2][3][4][5] Some formerly European settler colonies—including New Mexico, Alaska, the Prairies/northern Great Plains, and the "Northwest Territories" in North America; the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Yucatán Peninsula, and the Darién Gap in Central America; and the northwest Amazon, the central Andes, and the Guianas in South America—remain relatively rural, sparsely populated and Indigenous into the 21st century, however several settler-colonial states, including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and the United States grew into settler-colonial empires in their own right.[6] Russia began colonizing the Pacific Northwest in the mid-18th century, seeking pelts for the fur trade. Many of the social structures—including religions,[7][8] political boundaries, and linguae francae—which predominate the Western Hemisphere in the 21st century are the descendants of the structures which were established during this period.