This chapter reconstructs European expansion as an ideological and institutional project—rather than a purely exploratory one—built on religious legitimation, mercantilist ambition, capitalist transformation, and state violence. It foregrounds the theological scaffolding of conquest, including Papal Bulls such as Inter Caetera (1493) and the Doctrine of Discovery, and shows how missionary infrastructures operated as tools of conversion and economic integration (e.g., Jesuit reducciones; residential schools as later analogues). Economically, the chapter links colonial extraction to the emergence of global capitalism: silver from Zacatecas and Potosí, coerced labour systems, and the rise of joint-stock companies and early finance. It contrasts Marxist accounts of “primitive accumulation” with neoclassical narratives that naturalize markets and obscure coercion. Through comparative examples (including the Philippines’ polo y servicios), it demonstrates how Indigenous peoples were subordinated and incorporated into imperial political economies.