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Effects Of The Columbian Exchange

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The Columbian Exchange is often looked at and thought of for all of the good things it brought, like the exchange of animals, plants, and food between the Old World and the New World. But the Columbian Exchange also included the transfer of diseases between Europe and the Americas. Old World diseases were transferred European sailors to Native Americans. The diseases played at least as big of role in defeating the Native Americans as advanced weaponry did (Craig). In the first 20 years after the first encounter, wherever the Europeans went, large numbers of Native Americans died. The most deadly disease was smallpox, killing millions of people. Bubonic plague, typhoid, typhus, influenza, measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, malaria …show more content…

The Americas didn’t have much to contribute animal wise, the turkey was the only animal sent to be raised in Europe. Now, Americans support a diet consisting of more animal protein than anywhere else in the world.
Besides the diseases and livestock brought to the Americas from Europe, Europeans also brought along new plants, including; grapes, peaches, oranges, melons, bananas, onions, radishes and a lot of green vegetables. In addition to these plants, Europeans also introduced cereal crops. With the introduction of wheat, Americans could not only feed themselves, but also export large amounts of grains throughout the world.
Although the Americas didn’t contribute much to the animal side of the exchange, they did however contribute a lot when it came to plants. Some of the plants were maize, tomatoes, sweet peppers, potatoes, tobacco, sweet potatoes, and squash. Maize and potatoes had the greatest impact to the Europeans, and the plants introduced from the Americas eventually changed the European diet. Both maize and potatoes grew rapidly, which supplied food rapidly and steadily. Maize soon became a staple in Africa as well.
As time went on new farming methods came about, Jethro Tull advocated the tilling of soil and mechanized planting. The switch from a three course rotation to a four course rotation. There were also new modes of land ownership and land clearing, such as enclosure vs. the open-field system

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