European Imperialism Based on Environmental Factors

The success of European imperialism and colonization was primarily based on their acquired knowledge of three lessons: how to sail, which locations could thrive biologically, and which native peoples could be conquered.

First, learning how to sail in the open seas helped Europeans tie together the seams of Pangea and establish successful colonies in foreign lands. During the Middle Ages, European imperialism efforts first gained the knowledge that safe and efficient sailing was a necessary piece of knowledge because of failed or subpar colonization efforts that resulted from a lack of sailing knowledge. Take for example, the Norse of the early Middle Ages who established colonies in Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland. As Crosby points out about the Norse and their sailing in Ecological Imperialism, "Shipwrecks were, of course, common," and "the sagas are full of tales of helpless drifting" (Crosby 55). Knowledge about sailing in the open sea was simply not good enough at this time; and therefore, the Norse limited themselves in their ability to provide for and sustain their own colonies, much less explore in search of new ones. One can see the same thing when recognizing the weaknesses of non-European colonies. For example, the Guanches of the Canaries were fatally weak in "their ignorance of how to cross a short distance of ocean." (103). The Europeans had this ability, but they could still learn such a lesson of necessity for a native people that they actually defeated. Clearly, the Europeans needed to profit from their subsidiaries for overall success and making round trips easily and frequently was the only feasible solution. Knowing how to sail in the open sea was perhaps the most crucial skill that help the Europeans dominate the globe in later years. This is easily evidenced by the successful colonization of the Americas following Columbus' first successful round trip across the Atlantic in 1493 (127). The improvements came in many forms, mainly with the discovery of the natural compass by the Crusaders in 1218 (57) and with improved knowledge of the wind patterns in the Atlantic which led to knowledge of the rest of the oceans. The discovery of wind patterns across the Atlantic was the stepping stone knowledge that led Europe to create successful Neo-Europes.
Another important lesson the Europeans learned was how to select locations that would thrive with European biological life. The necessity of the Europeans to learn such a lesson stemmed from the need of foreign lands to be transformed into Neo-Europes, or locations similar to the Homelands. They learned this lesson first from the establishment of a colony in Greenland by the Norse, where "grain would barely grow" (Crosby 51). Even in Iceland, which was marginally successful, Crosby pokes fun at the fact that "there were as many trees as there were priests (implying that neither were in great quantity" (68). Yet another example of the need for successful biological locations is shown in the fact that most of the successful colonies of the Americas were along the same latitude as that of their European homelands. This touches closely on the point that successful European colonies had European plants and animals in the them, because the European plants and animals were are to conquer the native plants in both the Americas as well as the Australian frontiers. Firmly establishing the need for colonies to resemble their homelands in a biological manner, was a key point in the European imperialistic struggle.

Finally and perhaps the most crucial lesson that the Europeans learned in order to succeed in their imperialist efforts was the knowledge of which locations had native peoples that could be conquered. The primary example of the Europeans learning this lesson through failure was the Crusading efforts to conquer the Middle Eastern Holy Land. There were simply too many Muslims in the land to be conquered. A success of the Europeans, conquering the Canaries, also illustrated this point, because there were simply not enough Guanches to fight off the Europeans and their disease. Moreover, the Guanches taught the Europeans that conquering an isolated native people would be their best chance for success, because they could use their disease to quickly eliminate mass amounts of natives. This is seen with the European success in America with the use of smallpox against the native Indians who were an isolated people and were generally un-united and had small numbers. In the end, the Europeans succeeded in their imperialism mainly because they began to conquer natives that were isolated, unified, and succeptible to their disease. which allowed them to be easily conquered.

Overall, the success of the Europeans can be attributed to many factors, but mainly the lessons of learning how to sail in the open seas (mainly the Atlantic), selecting ideal biological locations, and selecting locations with isolated natives that could be conquered with the help of disease, ultimately helped the European to succeed. Perhaps the best example to demonstrate a failure of all three in order to learn these lessons is found in the colonization of Greenland. The Norse had little if any ability to maintain steady connection to the colony due to poor open sea sailing techniques and knowledge. Moreover, the Norse settled in a place where the cold whether virtually ensured no crops or cash crops could yield anything useful. The combination of these two along with the Europeans taking on the role as the "isolated" ultimately led to the extermination of the colony due to disease, just as had happened to the enemies of Europe. These lessons didn't just come from one place or many successes, yet stemmed from many places spanning the unexplored Middle Age globe and many failures and defeats. The price of successful European colonies was essentially the failure of many colonies beforehand.