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Colonization and Columbian exchange
Colonization and Columbian exchange
The Columbian exchange effects
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The Columbian Exchange had coinciding and deviating impacts on the Americas and Europe in the period 1492-1750. Intermixing of ethnicities due to slavery and the transport of obscure crops and animals, such as maize and pigs, were similar in both places. However, the shift in population of each area was consequently different due to foreign crops and remote epidemics like small pox.
The Americas and Europe were parallel in their new possession of previously inaccessible crops and animals. America gained resources like barley, wheat, and rice from the Old World. Animals such as pigs, cattle, and horses were also brought to the Americas. These new resources provided more food and advances in the lives of the natives like the Incas and Aztecs. From the Americas, Europe now procured crops such as maize, peppers, and peanuts. The Americas and Europe are also comparable in their use of African slaves. Both of these areas imported slaves from Africa to use for specific tasks. The Americas used slaves for astringent agricultural labor such as
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harvesting cotton and sugar. Intermixing of ethnicities was larger in central and South America. Because of this intermixing in North America, a sharply defined racial system was put in place, although periphrastically. African slaves in Europe were placed in household positions like cooks and maids. Racial definition was not as prominent in Europe. The population shift in the Americas and Europe were drastically different, although both experienced a change.
Many Europeans brought diseases like small pox, measles, chicken pox, and influenza to the Americas by means of cattle. Because the natives of the Americas had never been exposed to cattle and other carrier animals, they had not developed immunity and were therefore infected and killed by the diseases. This caused a major plummet in population and also resulted in the need for African slaves, because the natives had previously been enslaved to Europeans living in the New World. Europe, in contrast to the Americas, experienced a large augmentation in population. This is because of the newly imported crops from the Americas. Specific crops were exceptionally important in certain areas of Europe like the potato in Ireland and the tomato in Italy. Because of this upsurge in population, many Europeans moved to the
Americas. As you can see, the Columbian Exchange had many varying and comparable impacts on the Americas and Europe. Demographically, people groups mixed because of African slave trade and population either boomed or hugely deteriorated due to food surplus and disease in both areas. Environmentally, Europe and the Americas were introduced to new crops and animals such as pigs, maize, and wheat. This resulted in some of the aforementioned population increase in Europe.
Columbian Exchange: The Columbian Exchange was an exchange of peoples, animals, diseases, and foods between hemispheres. Foods and diseases from the New World, such as maize, potatoes, and syphilis, were carried to Europe. Food, livestock, and diseases, such as wheat, barley, cattle, horses, smallpox, measles, and influenza, traveled across the Atlantic to the New World. This term is
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.
Cotton, spices, silk, and tea from Asia mingled in European markets with ivory, gold, and palm oil from Africa; furs, fish, and timber from North America; and cotton, sugar, and tobacco from both North and South America. The lucra¬tive trade in enslaved human beings provided cheap labor where it was lacking. The profits accrued in Europe, increasingly in France and Britain as the Portuguese, Spanish, and then Dutch declined in relative power. It was a global network, made possible by the advancing tech¬nology of the colonialists.
Columbian Exchange, which also call the Grand Exchange, is an exchange of animals, crops, pollution (European and African), culture, infectious diseases and ideology between the eastern and western hemisphere in 15th and 16th centuries. Alfred W. Crosby first proposed this concept in his book “ The Columbian Exchange”, which published in 1972.
The Columbian exchange was one of the largest transfer of goods, human population, and etc between the New and Old world. These goods and other things changed the course of both world as we know it. In the Old World, new crops such as corn and potatoes were brought. These crops are able to stand harsh environment and able to grow in short amount of time. To the New World goods such as wheat, onions, and rice were brought. Also, ideas and technology were introduced to New World. However, The things coming from the Old World were contaminated with diseases that nearly wiped out the natives of New World. The people in from the Old World took advantage of the defenseless natives and enslaved them. The natives were forced into cheap and unfair labor.
During the Columbian Exchange many things were traded; Beast of burden, grains, vegetables, fruits, plants, and many diseases. All of these have had a meaningful impact to the ‘new’ and ‘old’ world., but only a few have had a large and substantial effect on the world today. Those few items are corn to the ‘old’ world, horses to the ‘new’ and most importantly death to millions in the ‘new’ world due to smallpox.
“As European adventurers traversed the world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they initiated the “Columbian Exchange” of plants, animals, and diseases.”(P. 26). The Columbian Exchange refers to a period of exchanges between the New and Old Worlds. The exchange of plants, animals, diseases and more modernized technology, beginning after Columbus landing in the Americas in 1492. It lasted through the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Domesticated animals such as cattle, horses, sheep and pigs were introduced to the Americas. The Americas introduced to Europe many new crops such as potatoes, beans, squash, and maize. In time Native people learned to raise European livestock and European and Africans planted American crops. This was the positive effect of the encounter and it was largely responsible for the doubling of the world’s population in the next three hundred years. There were also many negative effects to the “Columbian Exchange” A major consequence was the spread of disease in the New World. Diseases carried by Europeans and Africans devastated the population of the Americas. As Europeans traveled through the Americas epidemics came with them. Typhus, diphtheria, malaria, influenza, cholera, and smallpox killed many of the native people. One example was
The Columbian exchange was the widespread transfer of various products such as animals, plants, and culture between the Americas and Europe. Though most likely unintentional, the byproduct that had the largest impact from this exchange between the old and new world was communicable diseases. Europeans and other immigrants brought a host of diseases with them to America, which killed as much as ninety percent of the native population. Epidemics ravaged both native and nonnative populations of the new world destroying civilizations. The source of these epidemics were due to low resistance, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical knowledge- “more die of the practitioner than of the natural course of the disease (Duffy).” These diseases of the new world posed a serious
Columbian Exchange or the big exchange was a great exchange on a wide range of animals (Horses, Chickens, sheep, swine, Turkey), plants (Wheat, barley, corn, beans, tomatoes), people and culture, infectious diseases, and ideas, technology (Wheeled vehicles, iron tools, metallurgy) all these things happened between Native Americans and from Europe after the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Resulting in communication between the two cultures to initiate a number of crops that have led to the increase in population in both hemispheres, where the explorers returned to Europe loaded with corn, tomatoes, potatoes, which has become one of the main crops in Eurasia with the solutions of the eighteenth century. At the same time, the Europeans crops, cassava and peanuts to Southeast Asia with a tropical climate.
Around the late 1400s, Christopher Columbus a western European explorer accidentally discovered North America, trying to sail to Asia. Native American at this time lived in the North American continent, devoted society that rivaled the Europeans. Both cultures, the “New World”(North America) and the “Old World”(Europe) exchanged goods, which was known as the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian exchange included all varieties of exchanges such as plants, animals, culture, human population(included slaves) and ideas. Documents 1,2,4,5,6 and 8 convey the disaster that occurred after Columbus arrive and cultures traded. The Columbus Exchange both had benefits and negatives that affected both the “New World and “Old World”. The Columbian Exchange overall was a harmful event for the “New World”.
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.
The Columbian Exchange is the exchange of plants, animals, food, and diseases between Europe and the Americas. In 1492, when Christopher Columbus came to America, he saw plants and animals he had never seen before so he took them back with him to Europe. Columbus began the trade routes which had never been established between Europe and the Americas so his voyages initiated the interchange of plants between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, which doubled the food crop resources available to people on both sides of the Atlantic.
Concluding, the significance of the Columbian exchange greatly impacted what we know of life today. The major impacts that have shaped what we know of the world today happened during the Colombian exchange. The major impacts of the Colombian exchange was Christianity that led to the rise of the Catholic Church, new food crops and domesticated animals that improved the Europeans and American living, new military technology such as weapons and horses, slavery of the natives and Africans and diseases that drastically harmed the different ethnic groups. Colombian Exchange between the old world and the new world still holds a drastic impact on the world today. If we didn’t have these influences then the world would be completely changed. Trading still continues today and has made an impact all over the world.
In the 17th century traditionally, regions were self-sufficient in food but as the population grew particularly, in Europe the demand increased thereby, increasing the food prices. Eventually, the Corn Laws were abolished leading to import of cheaper food consequently, increasing the consumption. Thus food products inspite of higher bulk ratio became the most significant item of trade. The Americas with its plantation crops such as sugarcane, cotton, cocoa, coffee and banana became the food basket for the Europe.