Christopher Columbus Negative Effects

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On October 11, 1492 Christopher Columbus landed on the small island of Hispaniola only to encounter the native Arawak Indians and not the Indies that he had been searching for. Columbus was disappointed with the island but he did return to Spain with spices, a small quantity of gold, and Indian slaves. In the years following the arrival of Columbus and many other explorers, the worlds animal, social, plant, and bacterial life experienced a resurgence of growth the world had never seen before, “this process, first studied comprehensively by American historian Alfred Crosby, was called the Columbian Exchange” (McNeill 1). The grand exchange of foods and cultures came with both positive and negative effects for the world. It aided in the production …show more content…

Columbus wanted to establish food and crops in the new world so he brought plants he believed would flourish and sustain their vitality in the newly discovered world of the Americas. He also brought familiar European crops such as “wheat, barley, and rye” (McNeill 3) to the New World. Mediterranean crops like sugar, bananas, and citrus fruits also did well in the new region. Columbus was said to have brought cocoa plants back to Spain from one of his many voyages, but they were ignored for their poor taste because the Spanish did not know how to properly prepare …show more content…

The Spanish and the Indians began to have growing relations as the Spanish taught the Indians the word of God and they converted to Catholicism. The newly Catholic Indian women began marrying the Spanish conquistadors and from that union the Mestizo culture was formed. The Indian women would teach their children the catholic stories while putting the names of their ancestors, and ancient Indian gods in the tales as saints so they would not forget where they came from. The Mestizo culture had a cultural hierarchy based of the color of your skin. The darker your skin the lower class you were and the lighter skinned the more European (white) you are. The Mestizo race evolved over time to turn into the Mexican culture, with Spanish and native influences in their cooking and language that we are familiar with today.

The simultaneous positive and negative impact of the Columbian exchange cannot be denied because of the wide reaching ramification on native populations and Europeans alike. While the Europeans original intent was to advance their own society, they in turn destroyed others by bringing slavery, disease and conflict. It is unfortunate that only one side took the brunt of the negative results and was basically removed from the equation that equals the New

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