Probably money, but that doesn't exclude the obvious racism it created. In Denmark, we had Africans in cages displayed in the Tivoli amusement park in central Copenhagen, so people could look at the spectacle that was the black person (https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2017-03-31-de-sendte-bud-efte..., in Danish).

While this was not the intent of our colonization and slavery-business, it inevitably caused it, imo. Or, the racism caused the success of colonialism, because it justified it.

> Probably money, but that doesn't exclude the obvious racism it created.

This! In history, a lot of racism has been created to justify wars, economical exploitation, slavery, creating political scapegoats and so on.

Demonizing an enemy is the most basic method to polarize people. This type of "psyops" was extremely common during WW2.

People often don't really want to look at the root of racial, ethnic, political discrimination because it has to do with economic and political power.

Sixty years ago, Belgium set up a live display of people from Congo for the 1958 world fair.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/649600217/where-human-zoos-on...

Money was the main reason for American plantation slavery, too.

Something else, presumably, although their justifications usually involved racism of a far more explicit and direct variety than is commonly found today in the US. It's not very difficult to find quotes by rather recent leaders such as Churchill that would be unthinkable by a British (or American) politician today.

Well they certainly used racism as an excuse to justify their colonial ambitions. They were conquering for the same reasons any country conquers: money, land, prestige.