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Those in Europe wanted to find gold in the Americas to gain wealth for their nations. They started doing this after Christopher Columbus' discovery of the Americas in 1492.
Many more European nations come to the Americas and force the Native people to find them gold. One example is when Columbus forced the natives on Hispaniola to find him gold, or else they would be killed.
When the Europeans found out that there was little to no gold that the natives knew existed, they started killing the natives and stealing all of the gold they had. This was especially true when Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incan empire, and when Hernando Cortes conquered the Aztecs. The instances gave Spain a wealth of gold, but other nations still needed a way to gain gold, and therefore become powerful.
Most European nations were not able to acquire gold from the Americas, so they utilized the natural resources of the Americas. Europeans harvested things like cotton, tobacco, corn, and potatoes.
Europeans sold the goods they brought from America back to Europe , and sold them on the European market. They also refined raw materials like cotton into cloth, and sold these on the market as well. This caused many nations to gain extreme wealth, and therefore political power.