Colonisation has been defined as "a political and
economic process by which one nation assumes it has the right to
take-over the land, resources, and people of another nation. It can
be achieved through military invasion, rapid immigration, or the
use of imperial devices such as treaties and proclamations of
discovery or annexation." Since Christopher Columbus first stumbled
upon the Americas in 1492 it has been all of these things. And it
has always had as its prime motivation a cultural imperative to
dominate, a will to dispossess, which has caused suffering and pain
to indigenous peoples around the world.