European colonial expansion occurred in the mid-nineteenth century, when the extraordinary technological superiority of Europe, its production capacity and the enormous growth of the population led industrial economies to seek new areas of investment and business. and the era of imperialism began.
The reasons for the colonial expansion were several. The political reasons, due to the rivalry between nation-states to extend their territory; social ones due to a demographic increase and the rise of cities, economic ones due to the development of new markets with raw materials and colonial products; and the cultural motives of ideology due to a superiority of races by intelligence and industriousness, together with artistic causes.
This movement had a great affection on the dominated peoples both in the economy, in which infrastructures were created to give way to the raw and agricultural materials that were destined for the metropolis and many lands passed to the colonizers and certain traditional crops, which ensured the subsistence of indigenous families, were abandoned to impose large plantations of products that benefited the metropolis (coffee, cocoa, cotton, fruits) and a monetary economy was imposed in which the natives had to work in the plantations and to survive they had to buy food. And talking about the society, the new rhythms of work disorganized the tribal life and the old system of social hierarchies and certain ethnic units were divided or united artificially, which broke down and forced the the coexistence of confronted groups.
The Europeans used certain indigenous groups to recruit their army and their officials.
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