Getting land
The right of a nation or people to govern itself.
What is Sovereignty?
A policy or system in which a powerful country controls and benefits from other territories or nations through conquest, trade, or influence.
What is Imperialism?
The ancestral and contemporary geographic area a First Nation or Indigenous people identifies as their own, based on long-term use, occupation, and connection.
What is Traditional Territory?
This period from the 1400s to 1600s saw European explorers travel across the world by sea to find new trade routes and lands.
What is the Age of Exploration?
The false idea that land was “empty” and could be claimed by European powers because no one “owned” it according to European law.
What is Terra Nullius?
The process of one nation taking control of another region, establishing settlements, and often exploiting resources and people.
What is Colonization?
This term means an agreement between nations — often used between Indigenous peoples and European governments to share or divide land and rights.
What is a Treaty?
The exchange of goods, crops, animals, people, and diseases between the Old World (Europe, Africa, Asia) and the New World (the Americas).
What is the Columbian Exchange?
A group of countries or territories controlled by one ruler or government, often built through conquest or colonization.
What is an Empire?
A country or region under the full or partial political control of another country.
What is a Colony?
A deadly disease brought by Europeans to the Americas that devastated many Indigenous communities.
What is Smallpox?