The Positive Effects Of The Columbian Exchange

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 Columbian Exchange had benefits to both new world and old world, but it was not equally beneficial for both worlds as one benefit more. Because of the exchange millions of Native Americans were killed and forced to work for labor; the Columbian was not worth 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 the Columbian Exchange brought many good things to America such as food and transportation, The Columbian Exchange was an Overall Negative event because it killed millions of people because of slavery,war,disease, and overwork.

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.

Columbus has always been portrayed as an enlightened, peaceful explorer who “discovered” a new world, and became friends with the native people. Howard Zinn’s view on Columbus’s encounter with the natives is an entirely different perspective. Zinn describes Columbus as a man who is willing to torture and kill others to be able to accomplish what he wants; in this case he wanted to obtain gold and other resources to take back with him to Spain.

Throughout recorded human history, authors, leaders, and researchers, have documented the past from many different perspectives, and viewpoints. Not every historian has the same stance on a certain issue, therefore, differences in point of view occur in almost every writing. In the textbook The American Pageant, A People’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart, and Michael Allen, and Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, the reader can see many different perspectives throughout each reading. The infamous explorer known as Christopher Columbus, has been documented in many different ways. Depending on the reading, Columbus has be called everything from a “[...]symbol of the new age of hope”, to an inhuman tyrant who captured Indians and turned them into slaves.

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.

One negative outcome of the Columbian Exchange was that both the Europeans and the Indians shared diseases with the other world that hadn't been discovered yet in that world. When the Europeans voyaged to the New World, they spread infectious diseases with the Indians such as measles, smallpox, and influenza. The Indians had prior to the Europeans arrival been separated from the rest of the world, so they had never been exposed to these diseases. The Indians also transferred diseases to the Europeans. These diseases included syphilis. Both the Indians and the Europeans dispersed several life threatening diseases to each other that didn't exist prior to the Columbian Exchange.

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.

“When Christopher Columbus sailed he sailed with three ships and found the Indians. “According to Document A Christopher” Columbus was brave, and he was bright “. “This shows that he was a very intelligent and tough man. “Additionally, according to Document B “ In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean”. “This shows that He had three ships and left from Spain”. “Therefore, the authors point of view was that Christopher Columbus was a very joyful and apparently a nice man to the people as the document tells us. During the time this source was created Christopher Columbus has set sail and met the Indians. According to Document C “ The spaniards forced their indian slaves to work without rest and gave them little food. The men died

Now, in our present society, people are rethinking the goodness of Columbus and the actual impact that he had on our world. People feel that the killing of the American Indians was “unethical and morally wrong,” says Janet Mckay in an article from TIME magazine (“Columbus Day in Cali” TIME MAGAZINE Oct. 15, 1995, pg. 17). When Columbus made the Voyage to the Americas it was a different time, a different way of life. People thought differently than we do today. In 1492 there were many internal conflicts in many countries. Fighting was a thing that was normal.

Dr. Zinn references numerous accounts of innocent bloodshed, cruelty and the enslavement of Indians by Columbus and his soldiers from De Las Casa’s books prior to Columbus’ return to Spain. Dr. Zinn records the following statements from De Las Casa book in which he says; "Endless testimonies ... prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives. But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then.... The admiral, it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians...." To please