The Columbian Exchange had a major effect on people residing in the United States. Disease was the number one cause of death amongst the other tragedies that came with the Columbian Exchange such as violence, culture, trade, and people that had followed Columbus. Many Native Americans died from diseases that were brought from Europe. The Europeans who had brought the diseases over did not seem to have done it intentionally. The Europeans were just in search of the New World. Native Americans lived free from the terrible diseases that destroyed populations in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Therefore, when Europeans came to America no one knew how to treat the diseases or how to handle them. Native Americans lacked the ability to fight off bacteria
Microbes, (diseases) were a definite negative in terms of the Columbian Exchange. A majority of the native people had once response to the arrival of Europeans and that was “death”. It is estimate that more than 50% and as high as 90 % . Some people
The columbian exchange was the most helpful for the europeans (especially spain) because they gained new valuable supplies like gold and new crops that increased popluation tremedously. It also created money-based stimulation. Population increase led to establishing homes and having complete control over areas. Africa no longer had a hold on gold, their population staggered, communities became ghost towns and the Columbian Exchange marked the rise of the slave trade. The Americas got deadly diseases, and new orders enforced on them etc.
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
The Colombian exchange did not transfer only good things. Many diseases such as small pox, measles, mumps, and malaria were brought over to the New World from the Old World, and killed millions of natives (Document F). Hernando de Soto explored the Mississippi Valley in the early 1500s where he found large, thriving cities connected by networks of trade. When Rene-Robert de La Salle followed de Soto’s path in the 1680s, those cities had vanished because of disease (Document C). Not only was disease a negatve effect of European exploration but the natives became enslaved and were treated very poorly. Spaniards cut off the hands of Native Americans for not collecting enough gold for them that day, proving Spaniards were very harsh towards the natives (Document A). Not only that, but the first thing Columbus thought when he said the natives, was that they would make great servants (Document
The Columbian Exchange involved the transfer of physical goods, animals, slaves, and disease between the New and Old Worlds. Some of these transfers would lead to vast improvements for those who received them, while others would wreak utter devastation upon their societies. Both the New World and the Old World would need to adapt to the ever changing reality that existed for them. One of the most devastating effects of the Columbian Exchange was the exposure of Old World diseases on the Native Americans.
The Columbian Exchange that occurred in the Western Hemisphere subjected America to extensive changes that would fundamentally change the people that lived there, the people that would come to live there, and the land itself. In fact, the America that we know today has been shaped by the events that took place hundreds of years ago during the Columbian Exchange. As European people brought their culture and values to the Americas, it started to combine and mix with the cultures and values already established there, changing both Europeans and Indians in admittedly small, but significant ways. While this can be considered a positive point of the Columbian Exchange, in its entirety, the Columbian Exchange could be considered a disaster, especially for the natives that lived in America before the Europeans came to claim it. Not only did Indians suffer at the hands of European diseases that we completely foreign to them, killing off millions and changing the Indian demographic forever, but the world that they grew to be so familiar with changed around them.
The term Columbian exchange refers to a lot of different things. You had the exchange of diseases, food crops, ideas, animals, and plants. Between the old world and having the Americans follow Columbus in 1492 in the Caribbean. The Columbian exchange mainly benefited the people in Europe and its colonies when it made things kind of bad for the Native Americans. The Columbian exchange explains why the Indian nations went downhill and the European colonies did a lot after Columbus and the new world. The Columbian exchange also talks about how the European nations became the wealthiest and most powerful places in the world during that time. The Columbian exchange lets you know why a lot of Africans were sold into slavery on the far side to fields dealings with sugar,
During the Columbian exchange, the African and American populations were constantly changing, decreasing and increasing due to different factors. New foods from the Americas helped enrich the diets of the African people who lived in a very nonagricultural society. This caused a demographic change as African population rose due to a nutritious diet. A factor that caused a major decrease in the African population was the moving of native people. The African people were being sold as slaves causing the decrease in population. At this same time, the native people of America were being displaced just like the African people. Although the African people were being moved to different continents, the Native American people were being displaced from
The spread of Europeans into the Western Hemisphere was an advancement because of the exchange of culture, goods, and technology yet it was also a step backwards for human civilizations because of the loss of Native American and African lives and culture as well as an increase in the slave trade.
After Columbus' 'discovery' of America in 1492, an began exchange between the 'Old World', the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, and the 'New World', the continents of what today is North America and South America. Historian Alfred Crosby called this exchange the 'Columbian Exchange'. The spread of new foods and animals benefited both the Old and New worlds, although the exchange of disease devastated the New World. Historians estimate that as many as 100 million people died as a result of the spread of diseases such as Small Pox and Influenza. This exchange changed world history and created the world that we live in today.
That had to be the worst thing ever to have to deal with. Some of the diseases were: small pox, measles, chicken pox, malaria, influenza and cholera, along with others. The ending result and the ultimate result of the whole Columbian Exchange was negative because of the spread of the diseases to the Indians and European, it created a lot of things and introduced new pests to the New World. The disease did not only spread to the Europeans to the natives, but the natives passed syphilis to the Europeans. Almost 90% of the Indians died due to the disease between 1492 and 1650. The disease did the stop the Europeans from trying their best to get make it to the New World. They could not avoid getting sick but it did not and could not stop them from invading Europeans. Clearly, imported disease had the most ruinous influence on the lives of Indians. Cooperative labor was required for hunting and gathering, and native groups faced extinction if disease caused a shortage of labor. Besides goods, disease and other things, the Columbian exchange was also apart of slavery. When slavery came most of the Native Americans has been killed off by the diseases that they has caught. The Europeans had now brought slaves in to work for them on the land. When you think of slaves you think of the south, but only 5% of the slaves brought to the New World started importing slaves in the 1620’s and it didn’t end until the Civil War. It is still true that slavery has existed long
Culture wasn’t the only thing that the Europeans brought over to the Americas. Along with their customs and rules, came the diseases that the Native American’s have never been exposed to. The Europeans brought many communicable diseases such as small pox and measles which were transmitted to the Native Americans through trade goods or someone infected with them. This quickly annihilated most of the Native American population.
One of the major effects of the Columbian exchange was the decimation of the Native American population. Crosby attributes this to many factors, the conquest of the Europeans, the cultural vacuum created by European attempts to Christianize the Amerindians, and the introduction of new and lethal micro-organisms into the ecosystem. More commonly
The first effect of European and Native contact is the spread of diseases. Since the Native Americans had been isolated for centuries, they did not have immunity to European and eventually African diseases.
An enormous number of Native Americans passed on from European diseases, particularly smallpox, to which they had no