Extractivism began at the point of contact between the colonizer and the colonized. This initial encounter contained within it the terms of exploitation to be deployed as the colonizers explored and "discovered" new resources. Consider the Spanish Requerimiento of 1513, a document read by conquistadors to newly found subjects, who were abruptly informed that their lands belonged not to them but in reality to the spiritual leader of the explorers, someone called the pope, successor to Saint Peter and leader of the Catholic Church: Of all these nations God our Lord gave charge to one man, called St.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 299