Right around the year 1500 by Christian reckoning technology enabled Europeans to cross the Atlantic where they found a Native population lacking gunpowder & the technology to make weapons from iron. Driven by a lust for gold & precious metals, and later on things suchg as furs, but not initially, these Europeans subjucated (raped & killed) the Natives and seized their lands. Spanish explorers landed in the Caribbean and then moved on to conquer what is now Mexico, Central America and South America.

The British first unsuccessfully attempted to colonize the region of the Carolinas, and then more successfully Virginia. Initially the British wanted wealth - - - Gold & precious stones, when those items failed to materialize they realized that by getting Europe hooked on nicotine via tobacco they could make a good profit by harvesting tobacco. Much to lazy to do this task on their own, they soon imported ***** slaves from Africa, and expaned their exploitation of the soil by expanding into rice & indigo and much much later cotton harvesting. Further north in what is now Massachusetts a group called The Puriatns settled in an effort to build a new world for themselves, one in which they could practive their religious beliefs and gain greater wealth then they could if they had stayed in England which was becoming over crowded and its soil exhaunsted by impractical farming methods. Colonizing America benefited Britain in many ways and not all of those ways were realized easilly or at all until long after // \\ from the Southern colonies they received tobacco (weed) and in time rice & indigo and pine