The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of plants, animals, human populations, diseases, cultures, and ideas throughout the world. The new worlds that had been discovered were a part of this Columbian Exchange, and were exposed to many new and foreign goods as well as people. The Americas, or New World, were faced with harsh treatment from Columbus and his crew, along with the rampant spread of new diseases that took a large toll on the Native populations. The Indies were also subject to these same factors. So, was the Columbian exchange an overall positive event for the Americas? While not justifying the cruelty of the Portuguese and Spaniards towards the Native Americans and Indians, I do believe that the Columbian Exchange was a positive event. The documents that I have read can be separated into three groups, including a group of people who believed the exchange to be negative, those who believed the Columbian Exchange to be positive, and those who described the effects of the Columbian Exchange on the New and Old worlds as neutral. An account of events that occurred during the Columbian Exchange that I would have liked to read, would have been one coming from a Native American.
Although I believe that the Columbian Exchange was an overall positive event, many historians and witnesses believe that it also had many negative effects on the Native populations. So while the Portuguese and Spanish did treat the Native populations with cruelty and force, the effects on the New World were positive in the long run according to some sources. For example, Bartolome de las Casas writes that at the hands of the Spaniards “ The Indians suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world whom they could turn to for help.” ( Doc 2). Bartolome de las Casas also writes about the Native American children, saying that “ As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months.”( Doc 4). Both of these accounts of the events happening in the New world came from the Priest Bartolome de las Casas, who reported back to the king and queen of
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.
Imagine being in a ship, under the deck, with no way to get out. The ship reeks of feces and sickness. You can only move a short way to go to the bathroom, the bathroom being a bucket. Wouldn’t you also give up on life altogether? This was the fate of every slave on the slave trade ships. Many tried to stop eating and stop living, but were whipped for doing so. It was a disgusting scene that caused so many deaths and a lot of darkness. This was a part of the Columbian exchange. If it weren’t for this exchange then the slave trade wouldn’t have started and become so huge.The Columbian exchange is detrimental because diseases spread quickly, the slave trade started, and many people died due to it.
Beginning after columbus discovery in 1492, the exchange lasted throughout the years of expansion and discovery. Exchanging plants, animals, diseases and more transformed European and Native American ways of life. The Columbian Exchange had both positive and negative aspects. For the Natives, who thrived in the Americas before the Europeans arrived, the effect was negative. Entire populations were wiped out by warfare and European diseases like smallpox which took many lives away. While the Columbian Exchange hindered the development of society in the Americas, it also aided the development in Europe.
The Columbian Exchange, derived from the voyages of Columbus to the Americas, was a chapter in history that connected the Old World to the New World by exchanging crops, culture, and technology. The Columbian Exchange in the Western Hemisphere resulted in extensive demographic, social, economic, and environmental changes. The arrival of Europeans to Native American land produced an intense mixture of culture and population fluctuation. Not only did this exchange affect the social aspect between the two nations, it changed the way people engaged in trade and proprietary interests, which would lead to a massive destruction and transformation of the environment.
Although Columbus's revelation of the New World to the Old World caused deadly diseases to both hemispheres, a loss of preservation of native American culture in the New World, and the unhealthy effect of tobacco in the Old World, it made an overall positive impact in lasting terms by the introduction of religion and horses and cattle in the New World and the new agriculture advancements and alpacas. The Eastern-Western hemisphere encounter was obviously positive in the Western hemisphere because of the fact that most of us here would have never been born, but the introduction of religions made a lasting impact. Most Europeans were religious and wanted to share their faith with the natives. Some people also came to escape religious
The trade of biological and cultural aspects defines The Columbian Exchange, also called the Great Biological Exchange, for the first time Europeans decided to connect with the Western Hemisphere. This was important because the Europeans actually gained more by taking advantage of the Indians; animals, plants, and diseases, these transactions marked a whole new beginning in the history of America. Two isolated parties explored their differences, and by that, they enriched their biological and cultural lives.
Columbian Exchange- The Columbian Exchange was a way exchanging new resources between the new world and the old world. This impacted Europeans and Native Americans positively with the new materials now available, like technology, plants, and animals. There were some negative effects from these exchanges too, such as diseases. Made it easier to interact with other cultures.
The Columbian Exchange was an overall positive event for the New World. As people discovered new lands, they also discovered new plants and animals which they took back to their own countries. At the same time, explorers introduced plants and animals from the places they had sailed from. This was the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange were the exchanges of goods, ideas, disease, etc. between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres..
After Columbus made his journey to the New World in 1492, the Europeans brought a different culture to the people of the New World and took many new ideas back to the Old one, this was the time period known as the Columbian Exchange. Most of what the Europeans took from the Exchange was good, but some of what they brought was devastating to the people in the New World. Although, this time period was very brutal for the Native Americans, the Columbian Exchange resulted in the transmitting of new technologies, an increase in remedies and cures for diseases, and a growth in resources such as food that helped to improve life.
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
The exchange between Europe and the New World, also known as the Columbian Exchange, had many positive and negative outcomes. When the Europeans came across the New World, they brought many new discoveries to the people of the New World; some amazing and some disastrous. In reverse, when the Europeans arrived at the New World, the natives (also known as the Indians) had many things that had yet to be discovered by the people of the Old World.
The Columbian Exchange refers to the time period in which the Native Americans of North America traded plants, animals, livestock, diseases, and new modernized technology with the Europeans. Not only were these things spread between the two nations, but the word was spread that North America was a new place for world to come and make their own. The early days of colonizing America was not successful for most of the countries wanting a part of it. These countries included England, Spain, and Portugal. The reasons behind them not finding prosperity in this land was because it was unchartered and no one knew what the land contained. The people struggled with adapting different and untried farming methods. Most of the exploring that was done brought many issues between the Native Americans and the new coming country. Provided that the Natives didn’t want new settlers on their land, and the settlers didn’t want any issues with claiming this new land as their own.
When you are sitting in a fancy restaurant in Texas, tasting a delicious steak with a nice cup of coffee, do you know that before 1492, American people don’t even know what is beef and coffee. Nowadays, people’s diet is abundant. People in every part of the world can taste the food originated in other side of the world. This is due to one of the most significant ecological events in human history called the Columbian Exchange. According to Nunn Nathan and Qian Nancy, “the Columbian Exchange refers to the exchange of diseases, ideas, food crops, and populations between the New World and the Old World following the voyage to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492” (Nathan and Nancy, 2010). It was so spectacular that has left both positive and negative impacts in each side of the world.
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
Imagine you and your family are living in the Americas during the fifteenth century. You live an average life, until one day everything changes. Europeans come to the Americas bringing disease, slaves and weapons. They kill 85-90% of your native people; your family and friends. This is what the Columbian Exchange was like for the indigenous people of the Americas. The Columbian Exchange was detrimental because it spread diseases, it brought the slave trade to the Americas, and killed many native people.