What arguments might Europeans use to justify their colonization of the New World?

They used the colonies to expand there reach as a world power. Most of the European countries used there colonies to provide resources for there own development. If your asking how they justified it from a moral standpoint, they had no one but each other to answer to so they did not justify the creation of colonies and most would not have cared to anyway. But the final answer would be they created colonies to expand there power. Colonial expansion has shaped the world into the form we have now.

this ^^^ is wrong... although i do not know the right answer i am aware that europeans DID have other countries to answer to. they invaded Africa and parts of china to colonize they did colonize there to obviously expand and gain power.... and FYI they werent the only country to be colonizing on Africa and china at the time everyone was trying to "get a piece of the pie".......

-Dalton, 15 California

i just needed to know the answer but i found it