The Martian Chronicles

In his science fiction novel The Martian Chronicles, author Ray Bradbury tells the story of the colonization of Mars. Like in the colonization of America, this process began with the sending of expeditions funded by the government of the mother country. However, in the book, there is apparently only one country interested in colonizing Mars, America, but several European countries had desires relating to America. Another similarity between the two processes relates to the spread of disease. Diseases carried by Europeans wreaked havoc on the Native American populations, and chicken pox almost entirely wiped out the Martians. Another similar trend was the nature of early settler towns. In both the New World and Mars, mining towns were important to the new settlers. Finally, people leaving for Mars and the New World had similar push and pull factors. Black people in America, in the book, wanted to leave so that they could start new lives as equals, and Europeans wanted to leave in order to have religious freedom.