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.