The article states that "Europe was massively enriched by the genocides in the Americas".<p>On the whole, I think this is untrue. For European countries that had colonies, as often as not the colonies had a negative effect on their economies. If you look at European states today, ones that didn't have colonies (e.g. Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Greece) are just as prosperous on the whole as ones that did (e.g. UK, France, Spain), or the ones that were owned by other European countries (e.g. Ireland, Finland, Slovenia).<p>Spain in particular suffered a good deal of long-term economic harm from its colonies as the importation of gold crowded out the real economy.<p>Germany and Italy had short-lived colonial empires that didn't run at a profit.<p>Probably the British did gain overall from their colonies, but much of their American colonies were lost in the 1770s. Jamaica OTOH made the fortunes of many wealthy British families.