The Columbian Exchange Into The New World

The Columbian Exchange, beginning in 1492 with Christopher Columbus’s first voyage, was a global trading standoff between the Old World and the New World. Plants, animals, and diseases were being traded fervently between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The global and social changes made during this exchange would leave a lasting impression on the Americas in the years that followed.

The Columbian Exchange is all about the trade that happen between the Old World and the New World. The Columbian Exchange brought new systems, and philosophies. In those times the Old World was referring to the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. The New World was referring to what is today the American Continent. It all started when Christopher Columbus gathers money for his voyage to find new land towards the west in 1492 the discovery of America. When Columbus discovers the New World all types of barter and exchange started to happen between Europe, Africa, and North America. Christopher Columbus brought horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats from the Old World to the New World. The natural environment of this four continents had differences

The Columbian exchange is an interchange of plants, ideas, diseases and many more things traded between the New World and the Old World during the 15th and 16th century. It all began in 1492 after Christopher Columbus went on his voyage and discovered the New World. After discovering the New World many milestones in history began to form. Following in his steps of his new discovery came some of the Europeans. Since the Colombian exchange began, many things have been brought to America and many things have been sent over in the directions. The Old World has brought over many supplies as in sugar, coffee, horses and smallpox. The Americas brought to them corn, cocoa beans, and tomatoes in their exchange. Not only did the old and the new world bring great things to each other, they also brought diseases and a decrease in the population of the new world. Instead of the old world taking in the new world’s culture, it was reversed. The new world had taken in the old world’s way of lifestyle.

The Columbian Exchange was perhaps one of the first environmentally detrimental event in American history. This exchange refers to the trade of food, goods, and disease between the Old World, referring to the eastern hemisphere, and the New World, referring to the Americas. The New World had many things to contribute such as potatoes, maize, tomatoes, and chili peppers, which shaped the culinary of both Europe and Asia (Nun 163). Additionally, Europe introduced domesticated animals such as horses, cattle, cats, and dogs to the Americas.

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

Until the sixteenth century, the experts in that period of time believed that it was impossible to sail west across from the Atlantic to Asia. By his adventure, Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator, proved that they were wrong. However, based on the theory that the earth was a sphere, he thought that he could reach the East Indies by sailing west. He calculated the distance from Portugal to Asia was shorter than to Congo. In fact, the real distance from Portugal to Japan was much further, over ten thousand miles. With his erroneous estimate, he planned a scheme to prove he was right. After several unsuccessful lobbying in Portugal, Spain, even in England and France, eventually, in 1492, he won financing for his journey from Spanish monarchs,

- A political and economic policy adapted by most European monarchs. A mercantile system exist when the government controlled all economic activities to strengthen national power.

When the European travelers came to America they brought over may diseases including small pox, influenza, measles, and Scarlett fever. The Native Americans had never been exposed to these diseases before consequently they did not have antibodies to fight of these diseases which meant that many people would die from the exposure to the various diseases. The introduction of these diseases created a high death toll in the Native American population, killing more than half of the original population.

The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of food and crops, disease, ideas and people that involved Africa, the Americans and Europe. Explorers had found a new world which is commonly known as North America today. People wanted to travel to the New World to start fresh and be given freedom and rights that they did not receive in their present countries. It also helped discover new foods and revolutionary materials. The Columbian Exchange transformed the standards of living and had positive and negative effects on both the natives and the explorers.

Christopher Columbus changed the Old World in 1492 by accidently sailing to a new land, which was thought to be India but was actually the Americas. He soon found that the goods in the New World were not found in the Old World, and that the New World didn’t have certain goods like the Old World did. People started to exchange goods from the New World to the Old World, and the Old World to the New World. This process was called the Columbian Exchange, and it continued to happen for centuries. When the term, “When Worlds Collide”, is used, it means the exchanging of goods through the Columbian Exchange between the peoples of the New and Old Worlds.

The Columbian exchange is a time period where the new and old world meet. Native americans and europeans trade out livestock, crops and new forms of technology. They both

As the Spaniards arrived in America, Europeans immediately contracted syphilis from the Indians. Meanwhile, “The Europeans, for their part, gave the Indians measles and smallpox.” (Document B). Chaos arose and population declined, killing off many Native Americans. The outrageous, smallpox outbreak stuck all around Latin America. According to Alfred Crosby, the author of “The Columbian Exchange”, “…the communicability of smallpox and the other eruptive fevers…that any Indian who received the news of the Spaniards could also have easily received the infection.” (Document C). Similarly to the bubonic plague in the old world, the smallpox and measles were the “black death” in the new

While trade and exchange between the two worlds was essential to the existence of both Europeans and the Native Americans, it was the unforeseen circumstances and unseen biology that inevitably doomed the population of the Native American tribes. What was a source of commerce and trade was also a source of “misunderstanding and mistrust”. (1)

In the modern world history, 1492 is the year starting expansion of the Europe. Columbus’s voyage was the discovery by Portuguese navigators of a sea route. It began the chain of developments that would have vast outcomes for the New World. Transforming as the provisions for both eastern and western colonization, it helped introducing the “Atlantic slave trade, spread diseases” that was mortifying influence on the Indians populations. And that contributed the inauguration of European explorers to encounter the Western Hemisphere.

About 100 years ago, George McJunkin discovered large ancient Bison bones with man-made arrow heads in them. This is evidence that humans that humans have been in North America for at least 10,000 years. About 6,000 years ago, humans began to make pottery. This was a sign of settlement. Around this time people began to use agriculture as a food source. In the 1490s, the first Europeans arrived to North America. At this time, Europe was not a great place to live. Europe was in the Dark Ages. This is when the Bubonic Plague happened. After the Reconquista, at the end of the 1400s, Christopher Columbus wanted to sail to west Asia, so he proposed a plan to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. They accepted his plan, and Columbus set sail in 1492. In October, he spotted an island and claimed procession for Spain, even though there were people already there. Shortly after this, The Columbian Exchange began to take place. This was the exchange of things between new and old worlds. The Europeans brought many diseases to the New World, which caused epidemics to race throughout the Indian population.