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Negative Effects Of The Columbian Exchange

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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

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