Therein lies a key difference between premodern and modern practices. For millennia, conquerors have bled resources from far-off places and sent the bounty home. Europeans in South America followed this playbook, taking what they could—including the labor of the locals—but steering no new course in world history. It is the land-devouring settlers in North America who had transformative impact on both sides of the colonial divide, in Europe as well as its colonies.
