Consequences of the Columbian Exchange Essay
The Columbian Exchange, named after Christopher Columbus, was the trading of new foods, plants, animals, and diseases between the Old and New World in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. While the Columbian Exchange is often applauded for its exchange of goods between the Old and New World, the unintentional exchange of diseases from the Old to New World, as well as New to Old World, quickly ravaged the populations of Europeans and Native Americans.
The disease that devastated the New World in the Americas the most was smallpox. Symptoms of the disease include high fever and vomiting, with skin lesions appearing after three to four days. Smallpox killed off as much as ninety percent of the native
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 one of the greatest exchanges in foods, animals, plants and diseases between Europe and the Americas. In 1492 Christopher Columbus came to America. He saw things he had never seen before so then he decided to take some of them with him to Europe. He started trading routes to initiated an interchange of plants between Eastern and Western, as a result it doubled the resources of the food crop on both sides.
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.
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
It is estimated that 60% to 90% of Native American tribes had died from new diseases brought from the Columbian Exchange from the Europeans. Numerous diseases such as the infamous smallpox were introduced to the Native Americans and were degrading to the population as the Europeans grew a type of immunity from the diseases unlike the Native Americans. Conflict between the Spanish and the Native Americans brought war which encourages diseases to spread through hand to hand combat. Cultures and tribes were on the brink of extinction, as European expansionism and imperialism succeeded in claiming land that was formerly the Native Americans. The mass genocide and epidemic of various diseases towards the Native Americans reach to new heights due to the Columbian Exchange as Europeans militants strived for land and gold at the cost of the Native American’s
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.
A devastating outbreak of epidemics brought overseas by the Europeans wiped out almost 95 percent of the Native American population. Europeans had already dealt with the Black Death in the 14th century, which killed a third of the European population. Over time, their exposure to smallpox, measles, chicken pox, and other contagious infections eventually led to their resistance to the diseases (20). The Native Americans, however, did not acquire the immunity to the diseases that Europeans had, so their encounter was more detrimental. Although the Columbian Exchange expanded trade and food production rapidly among three continents, it also introduced new diseases to North America and devastated nearly 10 million Native
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.
It should no longer come as any great surprise that Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas--Carthaginians, Vikings, and even St. Brendan may have set foot on the Western Hemisphere long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic. But none of these incidental contacts made the impact that Columbus did. Columbus and company were bound to bring more than the benefits of Christianity and double entry bookkeeping to America. His voyages started the Columbian Exchange, a hemispherical swap of peoples, plants, animals and diseases that transformed not only the world he had discovered but also the one he had left.
People were living in a time with very little medicine to help fight disease that was responsible for the death of many people. Before people from around the world began settling in the New World, disease and sickness was under control. The Native Americans were immune to common sickness that was commonly present since they were born. Being immune to a sickness means your body is already resistant to the infection and has the proper needs to fight the infection. When settlers came from Europe, they were carriers of different diseases and that they are immune to. When they came in contact with the Native Americans, they spread diseases like smallpox, measles, chicken pox, malaria, yellow fever, and influenza. These are strong diseases that the Native Americans were not immune to. Ninety five percent of the Native Americans in North America were killed by these diseases brought over from the Old
The Columbian Exchange started in 1492 and was a network of trade. Native Americans shared ideas, agriculture, firearms, animals, diseases and later slaves. The Columbian exchange is responsible for introducing cattle, horses, chickens, and pigs into America. They also import firearms to the new world. Before such weapons were proposed to Native Americans, they used canes and sharpened sticks as weapons for defense and hunting. Although these may be seen as positive effects of the exchange, it brought lethal diseases to the Native Americans as well. Measles, influenza, and small pox just some of the illnesses that killed the majority of the Native American population. The exchange brought fatal diseases killing the larger part of the populations, therefore leading to a rise in slavery. The Columbian exchange introduced Native Americans to new technology, agriculture and ideas, but also had the negative effect of almost wiping the population
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
The Columbian Exchange is named after Christopher Columbus.He sailed across the ocean trying to find the new world but instead he found America’s. Coming to America’s Columbus saw goods, and food that he never seen in Europe. Astonished by it he wanted to share it with Europe. He want to continue transporting goods so he establish trade routes to the Old world. Bringing squash, sweet potatoes, avocados, peppers, peanuts, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, turkeys, pumpkins, tobacco, pineapples, cocoa beans, beans, and vanilla to Europe, Africa and Asia. “European products that brought about significant changes in New World diets include wheat; meat and meat products such as milk, cheese and eggs; sugar; citrus fruits; onions;
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
The Columbian Exchange was the transatlantic exchange of plants, animals, and ideas that occurred after the first European contact with the Americas. (1) Author and historian Dr. Alfred Crosby is credited with developing the term (3). Rather than an established system, the Columbian Exchange refers to an era in which the Eastern hemisphere and the Western hemisphere exchanged goods and ideas, and cultural influences were explored between the peoples of Europe and the Native American tribes. The exchange began with the arrival of Columbus in 1492 and continued throughout expansion and colonization.