Transcription
So colonization is just another word for stealing people's lands, stealing people's minds, uh, stripping people of culture, and forcing people to take on certain customs and beliefs. And it's something that has been happening for a good amount of time in, um, human civilization. And what I want to do is go over kind of some of the history of colonization and kind of get into the mindset of the people and kind of see how this thing functions as a concept and how it functions in, in an, as an activity.
And so what we're going to do is go into an article by National Geographics and kind of break down the article that, that they have on colonization so we can get understanding. And it kind of puts things in perspective, the history of what has happened and how things are kind of unfolded into today so you can kind of see where your place is at in history. But it's important to understand colonization because it does pinpoint, point to many people where they ended up and how they ended up and how they took on certain mindsets and cultures and customs, right? So it's very important to understand the, the concept of colonization. So let's go into this article by the National Geographics and, um, let's kind of give a breakdown of what colonization is and how it functions.
Colonialism is defined as control by one power over a dependent area or people. It occurs when one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people. And this is one way that it is very effective. When you can replace somebody's values and their cultural system and then you can replace it with yours, this is kind of the colonizing mindset. You can come in, it's, it's basically replacing an old program with a new program. When we replace the program that we know how it functions and you place it in the minds of people, now we can get a better understanding on how you work, how you function, because you have the program from our, uh, creation. So you're swapping it into another people's minds.
By 1914, a large majority of the world's nations had been colonized by Europeans at some point, point. So most people have been colonized by Europeans at some point. Europeans, you can look at it different ways, right? You can look at it through different lenses. The Europeans, they're seeing an opportunity. And I can't say, and I'm not saying all Europeans, we're seeing the colonial Europeans, the ruling class of the Europeans, they're seeing opportunities. And what they understand is, what we'll come to understand, that anybody from any of the other nations, if they see those same opportunities, they're going to take advantage of it. So the Europeans, what they're doing is, they're trying to get to those, take advantage and exploit first. That's kind of like the mindset of these people. And we'll see as we keep going through, um, this article that, that's, that is an important aspect of colonizing. That it's almost like you're almost in a state of terror, scared that somebody's going to rise up and be able to take you over. So they're trying to get places and colonize as fast as they can in order to inject that program that they have into other people, exploit lands, take resources, and put themselves in a higher position of power. The more power, resources, and money, and, and influence you have, the more you can keep people at bay, and you don't have to worry as much about people rising up and taking you over, right? So this is kind of the mindset of a, of a colonizer.
Japan, Korea, and Thailand are the only other nations never to have been colonized by Europeans. The concept of colonialism is closely linked to that of imperialism, which is the policy or ethos of using power and influence to control another nation or people. That underlines colonialism. In antiquity, colonialism was practiced by empires such as ancient Greece, ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, and Phoenicia. So these are some of the major colonizers in antiquity, the ancient times. Also, you have Genghis Khan also with the Mongols. So you have, and you also have many more other people who colonize. So when you start to put it in perspective, what you start to see is that people from Africa, people from the Middle East, from Asia, from Europe, people from all over the world have this tendency to colonize other people and to go and take other people's lands and want to exploit the other people that's there. So it's not just a, a European thing, it's a human thing. It's a human characteristic and a trait. It's just that the Europeans developed an ability to do it better than everybody else. And they had, since they come a little bit later, some of these European nations, especially the British, they come a little bit later. They had all these other people to learn from because they're, they are studying the way people colonized in the past and they're learning from that and then they're enhancing it. Especially when they have more, uh, weapons, better military, they have better strategies. They can take it and they can say, we're going to go and we can do it better. And that's what they're doing. And so like I said, this is a human trait. This could be in anyone. Egypt did it, right? Those are the Africans, the Middle Easterns, the Phoenicians, they did it. Genghis Khan, the Asians, they did it. Could be anybody who does, who does this. Understand this is a human trait and it manifests itself in a form of greed. And on a lower level, you can see like taking over and wanting to go dominate places. You can see this in like gang activity on a small level, where neighborhoods want to go and and take over certain territories of other neighborhoods. They'll go in and want to rob someone's house. This is on a small level, this many type of, of, of colonization taking place. But when you have more power, if those small gangs and stuff, as they, if they get more power, then they're liable to do some atrocious things as well.
These civilizations all extended their borders into surrounding and non-continuous areas from about 1550 BC onward and established colonies that use the physical and population resources of the people they conquered to increase their own power. Is to increase their own power. The more people you can get under your rule and, and especially with a certain program and a way of thinking, then you increase your power. Power is just the ability to do something, to get something done. I want you guys to build this thing here, okay? I have the power. I can use all these people to go and build that. That's power. I want these buildings built. I want a railroad here. I want farms here. I want, um, um, city buildings here. I want all this to happen here. That's a person who has a lot of power to do stuff. Colonization, they're trying to get power to be able to do stuff, to control. It's almost like playing chess or playing a game in, in a lot of their minds. How can I get this done? Colonizing is one way.
In ancient Greece, for example, city-states often established colonies in search of both extra living space and economic gain. They want extra space to live and they want more money. More money for what? To have more power. Power to do, to do things, to get things done, done. What do we want done? After consulting an oracle, members of the city-state would send a select group of its inhabitants to establish a new colony. After consulting an oracle. This is going to be key right here. I want everyone to listen closely to this because this is going to connect to many lessons that we do in other times. After consulting the oracle. Now, who's the oracle? Oracle, late 14th century, a message from a god expressed by divine inspiration through a priest or priestess in answer to a human inquiry, usually respecting some future event. This is somebody who's acting on behalf of God in this instance. When you understand how this really works, the oracle is going to tell them what they want to hear anyways because the oracle's on the same, on the same page. They go and they consult the oracle. The oracle is going to say, and God said, the oracle is going to be the one saying it, but he's going to say, and God said, you got to understand people have done this throughout all civilizations. This is the Greek society we're talking about right now. They go to the oracle, find out what God said. Who's really the oracle? Who's going to just give them a pass to do what it is they need to do? And we're going to find out more as we keep reading, it'll become more, even more clear. So they go and consult the oracle and then after that, when the oracle tells them what they already want to hear, gives them the pass and the blessings, then they go off and go, um, get inhabitants and go off and set off to go find new colonies, right? This is, they've, they've been giving per, given permission to go and do the deed that they want to do. What's the deed they want to do? Steal lands, steal mines, extract resources, get power. Who do they need permission from? The oracle is going to get permission from the being that they made, that they, that they have created, whatever being it is that they're dealing with. And it's going to say, you go do this.
All cultures have done it. To seal the association between colony and city, its founding members would light a fire with a flame taken from the original city's central hearth and engage in other rituals, laying claim to the new location. And this is the ritual that kind of just says that, okay, now it's official. It has been, it has been consecrated and it is now officially ours.
During what is now the Age of Discovery, founding a new colony depended on another ritual: gaining the sponsorship of a wealthy patron, usually a monarch, and embarking on large ships to search for unseeded land. A new ritual is being sponsored by somebody who's wealthy. The wealthy person buys into the idea, finances it. You go off and get and do the discoveries. Whatever you find, that wealthy person or whoever the sponsors are, they have stake in that as well. They're not just doing it, uh, just to do it, right? They're trying to get power too.
Beginning in the 15th century, Portugal began looking for new trade routes and searching for civilizations outside of Europe. In 1415, Portuguese explorers conquered Ceuta, a coastal town in North Africa, kicking off an empire that would last until 1999. Soon, the Portuguese had conquered and populated islands like Madeira and Cape Verde, and their rival nation, Spain, decided to try exploration too. So Spain is seeing the Portuguese have some success. And many of these people are in fear too of who else is going to come up and be able to out-compete them. They're terrified that somebody else might come up and then colonize them. So while they're colonizing and they're colonizers, they still don't want somebody else to be able to have too much power over them because this is a dog-eat-dog world too in this colonizing game. Anybody can get caught in the fire in here.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus began looking for a western route to India and China. Instead, he landed in the Bahamas, kicking off the Spanish Empire. Spanish and Portugal soon became locked in competition for new territories and took over indigenous lands in the Americas, India, Africa, and Asia, competing against each other for resources, lands, and people. Who can go out and go get the most? Who's going to get there first? Who's going to establish themselves first? Who's going to get the best parts of certain lands in certain areas? Who's going to take over certain people? They got the power at this point, and greed is running through their veins.
The rest of Western Europe swiftly followed. England, the Netherlands, France, and Germany quickly began their own empire-building overseas, fighting Spain and Portugal for the right to lands they have already colonized. See here, they go. Now they start fighting against each other because it's a dog-eat-dog world. All these people start jumping into this thing. Oh snaps, you guys are going over there getting land and people? We can't be left behind. We know what happens if, if Spain or Portugal gets too powerful, they might come after us. We can't let that happen. We got to go over here and get some of this and set ourselves up too. And in the midst of that, they got bickering and fighting amongst each other. Wars, that's wars and things that have, that break out, and they're trying to fight to see who can get what. Greed taking over, running through the veins, the fuel of the fire. And like I said, you can see this manifest in many different ways. Greed is not something that's just applicable to people who are in power. It's applicable to, you can see it in all throughout the workings of life. Greed, somebody has too much stuff and wants to keep getting more. You can see it develop in children, right? You can see it in teenagers. You can see it in small businesses. You can see this character of greed all over the place. But the difference is that people in smaller positions of power cannot exercise that form of greed in the way someone who has a lot of power can. Like I said, the street thug can only do so much with his greed. Go rob homes, steal cars. Sure, that does damaging things to people, but nothing on the scale as if you take that same thug and give it, you can look at Haiti for an example. Haiti's starting to get wild over there. They've been getting wild. The thugs are getting gaining more and more power. The rebels are gaining more and more power over there, and they're doing some wild and wicked things, taking over Haiti and turning that thing into a terrorist pit, man. They've done some wild things over there. Greed is taking over. You can see the people who come through and loot some of the stores and tear up all the stores and and strip the stores of of many of its merchandise. That's greed on a smaller level. When it moves on up into people with power, greed takes on a different form.
Stealing people's lands and stealing people's minds. Often the colonies were wrested from the hands of their indigenous inhabitants by relatively small parties of European men who lay claim after short skirmishes or by intimidating locals with their vessels, weapons, and trade items. And this is when you have power of military and weaponry. Is that it doesn't take nothing but a small amount of people who have big weapons to take over a lot of people, right? One gun at that time can deal with however many natives on the land, right? Especially if they're shooting with bows and dealing with spears and someone has a long-range shot where they can shoot somebody from, you know, um, many yards away, and you don't have to be close. That's a different form of power. And you only need a certain amount of people to be able to take over large populations of people. For example, Columbus's crew for his famous 1492 voyage consisted of just 90 men, 39 of whom he left behind to build settlement in what is now Haiti.
Among the allures of colonialism was the chance to recruit and often enslave indigenous people to benefit a colonial power. In Brazil, for example, explorers called bandeirantes embarked on expeditions in search of native people to capture and enslave for Portuguese established plantations and mines. And, and they're able to do this one way is by just turning people against each other. And in many cases, the people were already in skirmishes against each other to begin with. So now, if I can give somebody, it's just strategy. If I can give somebody something, maybe some weapons, or maybe, um, some, some alcohol, or, or, or some type of goods, and then you can go and fight against the other people, I can keep you on my side and have you doing all the dirty work, right? That's why it's important to elevate the thinking so you can catch people when they're doing this type of stuff because these guys got masterful strategies, masterful strategies.
And slavers from throughout Europe participated in the Atlantic slave trade, dealing and kidnapped Central and West Africans and forcing them to perform labor that enriched their empires overseas. Starting in the 1880s, European nations also began taking over African nations, racing to coveted natural resources and establishing colonies they would hold until an international period of decolonization that lasted from around 1914 to 1975 and challenged European rule. By far the most successful colonizer was the British Empire, which at its height, soon after World War I, would boast territories in every time zone in the world. The sun never set on England's political and economic ambitions, which it carried out with the help of British colonial governments. Despite the growth of European colonies and the Western Hemisphere, most colonized countries gained independence during the 18th and 19th century, beginning with the American Revolution in 1776 and the Haitian Revolution in 1781. However, the Eastern Hemisphere continued to tempt European Colonial Powers.
So this is what's important to understand right now is that when someone is oppressed or when someone is oppressing someone, what they have to understand is the opposite reaction is always in effect, right? This is when we get into the, the, the, the principle of polarity. Well, all things have their, they're, they're opposites. When you oppress, it automatically plants the seed of resistance. You can't have oppression without some form of resistance. You try to tie people down and hold them down, there's always going to be small groups within there, if even if it's not the large population, there's always small groups of people plotting to get out of there. They're plotting to come up against you. And so eventually, if you have enough people plotting and enough people resisting, it may be more beneficial for colonizers to back off and get, and, and allow the people to have independence, or the people have fought so hard that it's just like the colonizers can't hold them off. Off for, uh, the Haitian revolution, for example, they're fighting to the death, like, we're not having this, right? But there's always opposition. Anytime you bring something out, always. And when you understand that, it helps you get a clear understanding on why there is always, they say, two sides to every story. We're just talking about polarity. You put something, something else, there's always resistance against it. You oppress someone, always resist, right? And so this is the example that we're seeing here.
So by the 18th and 19th century, most of the colonized places gained their independence. And eventually, you have no choice but to give somebody independence because the, no one stays in rulership forever. We're talking about the, the law of rhythm. All things have their, their, their tie-ups and downs. Rulership down to being at the bottom. Nobody rules forever. Everyone has their turns. And so this is just a universal law. And you can see it throughout history. Nobody's ruling forever. Nobody will continue to rule forever. So eventually, people who are oppressed or enslaved will gain freedom.
Colonial Powers justify their requests by claiming they had a legal and religious obligation to control the land and culture of indigenous peoples. So this is a very important part to understand is that religion, especially in the newer colonial era, religion always played a central part in colonizing and taking the minds of people. Why? Because it works very well. It works. It works very well. One of the most powerful tools that someone could use is religion. And we're going to, let's, let's just keep reading so we can see exactly how it's implemented into the colonizing strategy because it's part of a broader strategy to bring in religion. Conquering nations cast their role as civilizing barbaric or savage nations and argued that they were acting in the best interests of those whose lands and peoples they exploited. This is how they can justify it. One way, we're taking on the stance as we're going in there and we're, we are civilizing these barbaric people. They need us to go in and civilize them. They don't have anything. They're lost. They need help, and they need our help, right? This is one way of justifying going in and taking lands and stealing minds.
Historically, church leaders both encouraged and participated in the takeover and exploitation of foreign lands and labor, most often in the name of Christian conversion. And I understand who has said church leaders. And I've talked about this in, and other videos, that the church leaders, when they grab, let me see this right here, when they grab this here, the church leaders understand this as a tool. Their consciousness and their awareness is not locked in between these pages. They understand this as a tool. So the church leaders participated as well. Now, they use this to get other people locked and programmed in here, but them themselves, they themselves are outside of this. So they can bring this and they use this as a way to justify. So the church leaders, not the regular church people, it's talking about the church leaders who understand how to use this and what it could be used for. And one of the reasons or one of the ways it can be used is to subjugate and, and, and colonize people, people.
In the 15th century, Catholic Popes laid out a religious justification for colonization, issuing a series of papal bulls, now known as the Doctrine of Discovery, that asserted that colonization was necessary to save souls and seize lands for the growth of the church. Now, understand that it said Catholic Popes. Remember what the ancient Greeks did? They used the oracles. But this time, we're using the Catholic Popes because the Catholic Pope is going to tell you what, and God said, the Catholic Pope is going to give you the justification, and it's going to say it came from God. It was revealed to me from God that we're supposed to come over and do what? Save the souls of those people. And while we go over doing that, we take a few lands and grab a few things over there too. You know, we can do that too because that was ordained for us as well. We can go over there and build our houses there, but we go over over there and save the souls. That's what we're going to go do. So that's why they, you hear the slogan that they had, you know, that the sword in one hand and they had the Bible in another because this is a powerful tool. It's a powerful tool. It can enslave and it can liberate too, right? It's just like any other tool. You can use the hammer to build a house, or you can use the hammer to go upside somebody's head. It's a tool, right? In our case, we use the hammer to build a house. We don't colonize and we don't go upside people's heads. That's not what that's not what we, uh, stand for. But you understand that it's a tool, right? And so they're using the Catholic Pope, who's the leader, to justify going in and colonizing. And it's important to always understand this because it puts religion in its proper perspective on how it has been used as a powerful tool to oppress people and to colonize people. Powerful tool, man. It's a very powerful tool.
Christian missionaries were among the first to make inroads into new lands, inspired by the belief that they must convert as many indigenous people to Christianity as possible. They imported both religious and cultural customs and a paternalistic attitude toward the colonies' native inhabitants. Now, you'll see that they're the first to go in there with some type of burning desire to go and convert as many people as possible. And you can still see, at least this aspect is still an obvious characteristic of many people in the Christian world is that they have this need and it's feel this need to go and force as many people as they can into the Christian doctrine or into into this worldview into here. So they still have that. They still show aspects of that today. You'll see people all the time doing that. You have to believe, you have to believe in God, you have to believe in, in, in, in this. Who else does it? The people in, um, who use the Quran as well, they do it as well. They call them proselytizing religions. Christianity is a, is a major one. And so it's Islam, two major proselytizing religions which have it within the fabric of the religion to go and convert people. Go and do it, which makes it a powerful tool to be used. The, you got to remember the people who are colonizing, the ones who were looking at it like this, looking at it and seeing the world as being on top of it and seeing how it's maneuvering, they're seeing, okay, this Christian religion thing is taken off. How can we use this? That's the question that they're asking. How can we use this in order to serve a certain purpose? How can we use it? And then from there, when you ask those questions, you can find the answers on how you can use it. One of the ways they use it, get the Pope on board. The Pope and God says he gives the legitimacy of it. Then they go out and they go and possess the land and go and possess the mines. That's just how it goes.
So the article goes in a little bit more and it goes in and it completes the, the, um, the narrative on the colonial expansion. And it basically just gives a, um, an argument on how in some cases it was beneficial and in other cases it's, uh, detrimental. Anytime you have something, it's always going to be a positive and it's going to be a negative in there as well, always, right? That's just the part of the world that we live in. And so what's important to take away from articles like this is you have to be able to read between the lines and be able to see like exactly what's taking place, what has happened, and more importantly, why it has happened in certain ways so you can see where you fit in into this, the society as a whole. From there, you can be able to make, you'll be able to make decisions on how you want to operate within the society. Many people, when even understanding the history and being oppressed, many people just decide to just stay where they are, and that's okay. They can do that. That's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that. You know, people can make the choices that they want to make. While other people, when they begin to understand the history and what has taken place, some may have reactions of being very angry and and vengeful and stuff like that. And you, and it makes you want to get up and go take things out on people. And the problem with doing that is that it never gets anything done and it can't undo what has already been done. So what we do is, what we do is we look at the history and we learn from the history, and then we find avenues on which way we can use things to our advantage and then how we can make sure things don't happen again. And, and so putting ourselves and looking back and seeing that many people over here in the Americas are victims of colonization and have been the subjects of colonization. When that happens, it places most many of the people at the bottom rung of the ladder. And that's what it has done, especially over here in the United States of America. People labeled as black, placed them all the way at the bottom of the ladder. And then what happens is, you begin to think from that bottom rung of the ladder. That begins to be where you think from that position. And when you think from that position only, it's hard to raise yourself up the ladder. And so when you, when you eventually raise yourself up the ladder and then you try to extend helping hands to people who are down at the bottom of the ladder of their awareness, is what we're referring to, they don't, they may not understand it because that is another, that's a world that's foreign to them. And so people will look at you like you're doing something wrong and you're trying to harm them when in fact you may be trying to help them. But the only people that you can help are the people that are actively looking to help themselves. That's it. No one else can be helped.
And so when I began to understand a lot of these things, especially with colonizing, this was a very important piece for me to understand, the colonizing and how it happened because it was a, it gave me the opportunity to understand that if people can colonize and trade customs for other customs and swap things for other things and put different programs in other people's minds, that means the people who's been programmed have the ability to do the same thing with themselves, to unprogram and to take on different programs. And so the colonizing thing was a very, very important piece for me to understand and as far as walking into the free world. So this is why I want to bring this out and to just kind of give a little backdrop on colonizing so you can see it for yourself and then you can decide on what you want to do with the information.