Many people would be surprised that the things they associate with certain countries are not native to those lands. Sugar was not originally grown in the Caribbean and cows are not indigenous to the United States. Before the Age of Exploration, a period lasting for centuries with long-extending effects, Europeans had not truly begun to explore Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Even with the fearless adventures of the Vikings, Polynesians, and Ming Chinese, no extreme, lasting difference was created. Once people began exploring outside of their own worlds, great social, political, and economic change was ushered in with the exchange and alteration of people, plants, animals, technology, diseases, religion, and political systems.
To begin with, the Age of Exploration dealt with the revising of people and how they lived their life, featuring forms of forced labor and mutations of cultural identity. In North America, compulsory labor often came in the form of indentured servitude, where a European would be given passage to the New World in exchange for a specific time period of labor before they were set free. However, people in the English colonies soon decided that lifetime slaves from Africa were a better investment than short term servants and the slave population grew substantially, a situation which would in time lead to great conflict within the United States. Indentured servitude in the West Indies started off strong, but land prices were driven so high that they could no longer afford to buy land once free; sugar plantation owners decided they would rather buy slaves than increase wages to attract European laborers. African slavery in Europe was truly a commodity when the Portuguese first began their explorations. Raiding ...
... middle of paper ...
...mon domesticated animals such as cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep were introduced into the unsuspecting environment. Although these animals totally altered the diet and lifestyle of many people indigenous to the region, not all change was positive. The settlers allowed their animals to run wild, eating the land in which the native people were growing crops and thus leading to a mass famine and starvation in several places newly settled. The animals, with no natural predators in the areas, would multiply their populations rapidly and continue to take over the fragile ecological situation. In addition to this unfortunate occurrence, domesticated animals are credited with the spread of the epidemics that struck down a huge majority of the Native Americans. The Europeans over time had grown immune or at least less susceptible to the germs and diseases that came with the
As we all know from the memorable song, in 1492 Columbus sailed to find the New World, commonly known as the Americas. Many idolize Columbus for his accomplishment in colonizing the Americas and starting the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange is the sharing of plants, animals, diseases, human populations, technology, and ideas between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres as a direct result of Columbus’ arrival to the Americas. However, we often oversee the downfalls of the Columbian Exchange. Some consequences of the exchange are the spread of disease to the Native people and settlers, the destruction of the Native population, and the disappearance of the Natives custom’s, beliefs, and way of life.
The Columbian Exchange impacted Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans in many ways. Some of the major components of this exchange were plants, animals, and diseases. The Native Americans was impacted because they did not have immune systems capable of handling diseases such as; small pox, the plague, and yellow fever. This resulted in the population of Native Americans being cut by at least 90% over the course of a couple hundred years and making it easier for foreigners to come in and take over. The animal that helped the Native Americans was the horse. It helped them expand and explore places other than agricultural plains like mountains. The Europeans brought back tobacco. Tabaco then lead to many deaths because of its health issues involved with the use. They also got introduced to tomatoes which people thought for a long time was not edible. Africans acquired potatoes and maize, which became a main staple in Africa.
In the New World, domestic animals were not common and therefore most meat was hunted and scavenged for, whereas in the Old World domestic animals such as cows, horses, pigs, etc. were very commonplace in villages of the same stature as those in the Americas thus living styles were different with different habits. In addition, the epidemiological imbalance came from the amount of diseases deriving from the old world and its domestic animals compared to the diseases found in the Americas. Overall, the old world, Europe, had many more diseases which transmitted easily. Also, Mann calls the disease imbalance the most important fact in world history because when these diseases were transmitted to the Americas, it dictated the first 150 years of Native American life as so many were
The use of labor came in two forms; indenture servitude and Slavery used on plantations in the south particularly in Virginia. The southern colonies such as Virginia were based on a plantation economy due to factors such as fertile soil and arable land that can be used to grow important crops, the plantations in the south demanded rigorous amounts of labor and required large amounts of time, the plantation owners had to employ laborers in order to grow crops and sell them to make a profit. Labor had become needed on the plantation system and in order to extract cheap labor slaves were brought to the south in order to work on the plantations. The shift from indentured servitude to slavery was an important time as well as the factors that contributed to that shift, this shift affected the future generations of African American descent. The history of colonial settlements involved altercations and many compromises, such as Bacons Rebellion, and slavery one of the most debated topics in the history of the United States of America. The different problems that occurred in the past has molded into what is the United States of America, the reflection in the past provides the vast amount of effort made by the settlers to make a place that was worth living on and worth exploring.
The author starts the chapter by briefly introducing the source in which this chapter is based. He makes the introduction about the essay he wrote for the conference given in at Vanderbilt University. This essay is based about the events and problems both Native Americans and Europeans had to encounter and lived since the discovery of America.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade started out as merchant trading of different materials for slaves. With obtaining a controllable form of labor being their main focus, the Europeans began to move to Africa and take over their land. The natives had to work on the newly stolen land to have a source of income to provide for their families.Soon others Europeans began to look for free labor by scouring the continent of Africa. Because Europeans were not familiar with the environment, Africans were employed to kidnap other Africans for the Transatlantic Slave Trade. After trade routes were established, different economies began to link together, and various items were exchanged across the world. As the Atlantic Slave Trade grew larger, problems began
Christopher Columbus is profoundly known to be the key asset to advance European culture across seas. The Columbian Exchange, colonization, and the growth of slave usage throughout the usage of the Triangular Trade, all conveyed foreign practices to the American Continent while also interrupting, but at the same time joining with the lifestyles of the inhabitants of these lands. A mixture of processes and voyagers transformed America into a “new world”, catching the world by surprise. America would not have developed to the period in existence today, if it was not for this growing period of the “old” and “new” worlds. A global world is in continuation through today as nations continue to share cultural
The Europeans had no idea as to what they unleashed upon the New World when they introduced their domesticated animals. Many of these animals flourished in the new environment beyond the wildest hopes of their European masters. The animals and their diseases "moved through the virgin lands of America faster than did the people who had brought them to the New World." By surpassing their masters, the animals became unstoppable, and their destruction was unfortunately boundless.
The first major event in the foundation and evolution of the United States is of course the discovery of the America continents and the European contact that followed. Without this discovery, the seeds for American expansion as a country and a power on the world stage never would have happened. Another positive of European contact include the introduction of corn, pumpkins, potatoes, papayas, pineapples, tomatoes, avocados, guavas, peanuts, chili peppers, many different types of squashed and beans, and cacao to the world diet. European contact with the New World and the Native Americans also resulted in the discovery, and addition to the world markets, of cotton, rubber trees, and tobacco; all of which would go on to play hugely important roles in American history. European contact has also had a negative impact. Immediately following contact with the Europeans, the population numbers of the Native Americans declined roughly by half. This population drop was caused mostly by deadly epidemics because the Native American lacked natural immunities to diseases carried by the Europeans such as cholera, typhus, measles, diphtheria, and smallpox. While European contact with the New World had a disastrous effect on the indigenous Native Americans, the contact had m...
While the Europeans were traveling to the New World, they often brought domesticated animals with them for sources of food and livestock. When animals and humans are living in close quarters together, it is very likely for exposure to germs to occur. New diseases were brought over by foreigners looking for fame and gold that killed off many of the natives in the new lands. The natives did not stand a chance against these new threats because of a lack of knowledge and supplies to cure themselves. Once the Europeans established diseases as they made land in the New World, their journey had only become easier as their competition were being wiped out from the rapid spread.
Europeans extracted resources from Native areas, even when the surplus was low. Land was taken, certain animal population nearly became extinct due to hunting nearly all of them. Columbus also unloaded horses, cows, pigs, wheat, barley, sugar cane. These animals took over local environments and horse population quickly exploded up. No natural predators were there to keep the population so some animals, like horses, grew like wildfire. Even though he brought non native species to America it’s consequence wasn’t as severe as other things he did. If he were to never come to America we not have these animals or they wouldn’t be introduced in till someone else's next
The Effects of Colonization on the Native Americans Native Americans had inherited the land now called America and eventually their lives were destroyed due to European colonization. When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worse. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture. Native Americans never came in contact with diseases that developed in the Old World because they were separated from Asia, Africa, and Europe when ocean levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age. Diseases like smallpox, measles, pneumonia, influenza, and malaria were unknown to the Native Americans until the Europeans brought these diseases over time to them.
Near the end of the fifteenth century, Europeans started exploring new areas of the world in hopes of finding riches, trade routes, and new lands. Upon discovering the “New World,” Europeans came across native peoples. While the Europeans did learn from the indigenous people, they also tried to change the natives’ ways. This had a negative impact on the natives populations because many died. The overall impact exploration had on native peoples include enslavement, destroyed populations, and forced to change religion.
The Columbian exchange was the exchange of slaves, animals, crops, and resources. The Columbian exchange was not as serene and hygienic as explorers and Native American would have liked it. The first reason the Columbian exchange is a significant impact to the European exploration is crops. The east part of the word was growing wheat, barely, rice, and fruit (1). The west of the world was growing potatoes, tomatoes, and fruits (1). The two worlds would trade crops which each other giving the other something they didn’t have. This was not the only things they trade, livestock was also traded. The west part of the world didn’t have a lot of animals and the animals they had weren’t agriculture animals. The animals that Europe sent were horses, cattle, pigs, and sheep (1).The lifestyle of the Native American change when the horses were introduced into their life. The European didn’t send crops and livestock to the new world, they also sent disease. The Europeans sent disease that were nasty, harmful, and very contagious. The European sent disease such as smallpox, Malaria, Diphtheria, and others (1). These diseases were sent to the new world by the ships, people, and especially the pigs. These diseases killed lots of Native American in the New World and was devastating. The Columbian exchange was a great lift for the Europeans because of trade, but not so good for the Native Americans.
One of the website I found said “european has been the caretakers of domestic animals for thousand of year, and had over time grow immune to the common disease”(Emily Upton) I agree with what this person said because if we look at the native american, they don’t usually be friend with animals other than their pet hunting dog. Native american are hunters and gathering which mean they go where the food go and they don’t stay in one spot which mean they don’t get disease or come to contacts with