European settlement patterns were influenced by geographic conditions such as access to water for trade, harbors, natural protection, arable land, natural resources, and adequate growing season and rainfall. Europeans were also influnced by Native Americans who had created pathways, developed farming techniques, located natural resources, created open space for farming and hunting, and in many cases served to help the colonists survive. Analyze the relationship between colony and mother country under the mercantile system. Powerful European nations competed to establish colonies in the Americas that would harvest valuable resources and ship them back to the mother country. In return, the mother country protected her colonies and provided thm with finished products manufactured from those natural resources.
Colonies wer subordinate to the mother country.
This economic relationship was known as mercantilism and it generally benefitted the mother country more than the colonies. Instructional Focus Statements Latin American colonists first used Native Americans as slave labor in mines and on plantations. When they began dying in large numbers of European diseaases, Spanish colonists resorted to importing Africans to the New World as slaves. Colonists whoe could not afford passage to the North American colonies often signed agreements, or indentures, committing them to work for a number of years in exchange for the cost of their voyage. At the end of their indenture, they were not only free but were often given some land and tools.