<P> The historical phenomenon of colonization in the modern era centres on the British Empire, but the term colonialism is normally used with reference to discontiguous overseas empires rather than contiguous land - based empires, European or otherwise . European colonisation during the 15th to 19th centuries resulted in the spread of Christianity to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Australia and the Philippines . </P> <P> Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492 . Subsequently, the major sea powers in Europe sent expeditions to the New World to build trade networks and colonies and to convert the native peoples to Christianity . Pope Alexander VI divided newly discovered lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal along a north - south meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa). The division was never accepted by the rulers of England or France . (See also the Treaty of Tordesillas, which followed the papal decree .) </P> <P> What is now called Latin America, a designation first used in the late 19th century, was claimed by Spain and Portugal . The Western Hemisphere, the New World, was divided between the two Iberian powers by the Treaty of Tordesillas in what until the late 16th - century, was an area that could be called "Ibero - America ." Spain called its overseas empire there "The Indies," with Portugal calling its territory in South America Brazil, after the dyewood found there . Spain concentrated building its empire where there were large indigenous populations, "Indians," who could be compelled to work and large deposits of precious metals, mainly silver . Both New Spain (colonial Mexico) and Peru fit those criteria and the Spanish crown established viceroyalties to rule those two large areas . As Spanish settlements and the economy grew in size and complexity, the Spanish established viceroyalties in the eighteenth century during administrative reforms Rio de la Plata (southeastern South America) and New Granada (northern South America). </P> <P> Initially, Portuguese settlements (Brazil) in the coastal northeast were of lesser importance in the larger Portuguese overseas empire, where lucrative commerce and small settlements devoted to trade were established in coastal Africa, India and China . With sparse indigenous populations that could not be coerced to work and no known deposits of precious metals, Portugal sought a high - value, low - bulk export product and found it in sugarcane . Black African slave labour from Portugal's West African possessions was imported to do the grueling agricultural work . As the wealth of the Ibero - America increased, some Western European powers (Dutch, French, British, Danish) sought to duplicate the model in areas that the Iberians had not settled in numbers . They seized Caribbean islands from the Spanish and transferred the model of sugar production on plantations with slave labour and settled in northern areas of North America in what are now the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and Canada . </P>

Processes like growth of national movement can be precisely dated