European Colonization : Christopher Columbus And Native Americans Essay

In the article “1491” by Charles Mann , Mann also talks about the most devastating impact from the contact between Europeans and Americans came from the spread of biological agents like smallpox, smallpox had the most effect on the Americas’ native populations there population could of been destroyed stated in the article that “Dobyns estimated that in the first 130 years of contact about 95 percent of the people in the Americas died—the worst demographic calamity in recorded history.” This shows just how serious smallpox was on people considering that they had no immunity to these diseases and because of this it was able to cause a major loss of population and of the people who lived they were still heavily affected by it. Mann also states “It is well known that Native Americans had no experience with many European diseases and were therefore immunologically unprepared—"virgin soil," in

Though warfare and attacks on entire villages took a definite toll on the populations of Native Americans, disease was by far the biggest killer. We’ve all heard the stories of smallpox infected blankets being given to the Native Americans, and other such atrocities, but I was simply dumbfounded at the actual numbers of dead due to Old World diseases being introduced to the New World, North America. While it has been somewhat difficult for scholars to determine the exact count of Indians who died from disease, they have fairly accurate estimates.

Columbus, Spanish settlers, and English settlers directly impacted the Native Americans and Africans. First, Columbus impacted the Native Americans he met when he travelled back and forth to the Indies, between the times 1492 and 1504. Columbus travelled to the Indies to find and govern land, and to also make money. Doing so, Columbus severely punished Indians for not hitting harsh quotas of gold, he sold them into slavery, and he, his crew, and other Spanish settlers unintentionally brought infectious diseases. Because of this, the Native Americans suffered forced labor and great casualties, thus extremely altering their lifestyles. Second, English settlers began to affect the Native Americans when they arrived to Virginia in 1607. When the

From the very first interaction, the social and political relations between the Native Americans and the Europeans had begun with much tension. Many Europeans came to the Americas with the intention of discovery. However, when it became apparent that these new lands were inhibited the motives changed, and then the natives were colonized, abused, and in many cases killed. From then and throughout the impending periods of time, the relations between the natives and the Europeans had a few points of mutual peacefulness, but were overall negative.

Samuel Eliot Morison- A Harvard historian, most distinguished writer on Columbus, the author of a multivolume biography Christopher Columbus, Mariner, and was himself a sailor, retraced Columbus 's route across the Atlantic and tells about the enslavement and the mass genocide of the natives

During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.

During the sixteenth century European pilgrims migrated across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in North America. North America had just been introduced to the Western Civilization. The America’s were home to the indigenous people, that were made up of several tribes that were called Indians by the early settlers. Together the Indians and settlers began to thrive. Growth and development in the new world was made possible by the abundant amount of natural resources.

The fascination with Native Americans has been a constant with outsiders since explorers first “discovered” the New World. The biggest surge in this fascination came in the mid-19th century when the Indian Wars were starting to come to an end and the belief that Native Americans were disappearing, walking into the sunset never to be seen again. This led to an increase in the collecting of anything Native American, from artifacts to stories to portraits. The inevitable outcome of this was that Native Americans, who were never considered very highly to begin with, where now moved into a category of scientific interest to be study. This scientific interest in Native Americans is what many museums and other institutions based their collections and exhibits on and is one of the issues that many Native Americans have with how both their people and their culture were, and to some extent still are, represented in these places.

In the 1500s, the Conquistadors came to the new world from Europe. After the Conquistadors came and conquered the new world many Native Americans fell ill with the diseases brought from Europe. After the Europeans entered the new world an estimated 15 to 20 million Native Americans died (doc 5). A majority of these deaths were due to the introduction of smallpox from Europe to the new world (doc 5). This is because the majority of the Native American population did not have the immunity to these diseases as the

Many Native American’s died due to diseases, but the one who survived obtained many great things from the Columbian Exchange. The number of indians before the diseases of the New World killed most of the native population is disputed (Document 3). Though, it is known that a great fraction of them did die, but it was not from labor (Document 6). It is actually from diseases such as Measles and Smallpox. Since Indians had no immunity against these diseases they spread quickly, often devastating populations before conquistadors got to the villages (Document 7). The explorers unintendedly spread these silent killers throughout the New World because they were naive to the idea of contagion and cleanliness.

Disease and Medicine along with war and religion were three ways American history has changed. When the colonists came over from Europe they unknowingly changed the world forever in ways they couldn't have imagined. These effects were present to both Native Americans and Europeans. Some of these changes made life easier for both Native Americans and Europeans but some made relations worse too. And some effects wouldn't show up until it was too late.

However, as people had never imagined, the close communication brought disasters in the American continent. Unknown diseases, such as smallpox, from Europe killed most of the native without immunity. For example, a modern analysis states that the result of smallpox epidemic “proceeded to kill nearly half of the Aztecs, including Emperor Cuitlahuac… By 1618, Mexico’s initial population of about 20 million had plummeted to about 1.6 million.” (Doc 8) The declining native population changed the American demographical pattern to a large extent, pushing the indigenous people to extinction. Moreover, the conditions of African slaves reveals the misanthrope of the merciless European colonists. For example, John Barbor eyewitnessed the terrible slave trade where “they are put into a booth or prison, marked on the breast with a red-hot iron, imprinting the mark of the French, English, or Dutch companies.” (Doc 9) The catastropy of American and African people greatly transformed the political pattern in the “New World.” In Twelve Years a Slave, in the nineteenth century, 300 years later, in the U.S., almost all of the Indians settlers were expeled and excluded from the white society. The slaves in American society were suffering the terrible atrocities. However, given the “expensive” price, the American continent became a cultural hodgepodge with the intermingle ethnic

Regarding the article, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress, Dr. Howard Zinn argues that there is another perspective to consider as to Christopher Columbus’ adventures. Dr. Howard Zinn’s position is that history books have omissions of slavery, death and innocent bloodshed that accompanied the adventures of Christopher Columbus. In the following statements Dr. Howard Zinn describes his perspective; “The writer began the history, five hundred years ago, of the European invasion of the Indian Settlement in the Americas. That beginning, when you read Las Casas- even if his figures are exaggerations (were there 3 million Indians to begin with, as he says or 250,000, as modern historians calculate) is conquest, slavery, and death. When

The unexpected encounter between the Europeans and the Natives had the huge impact on the technology, economic, and population of the Natives. I think that the encounter between the Europeans and the natives had a negative and positive impacts in different ways. Because of the encounter between them Americans built a strong economy and it increased the population in the New World. This helped America because it helped the people to farm and increase their trading between the other countries.

Historians estimate that as much as 95 percent of the Native American population died within a year of Columbus’s initial contact with the New World, and while there were certainly European acts of genocide against the Native Americans that added to