The Pros And Cons Of Columbus Explorations

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Introduction
Before prince Henry who was one of the first European explores to explore, nobody in Europe knew anything about the outside world. People had been to the very tip of Africa and had seen a little bit of Asia. But the Americas were unheard of and the only way to get to Asia was a very long trek on land. The European’s were still using Ptolemy’s map, which was written around A.D. that is 1290 years before and are still using it. Around the 1400s lots of discoveries are happening in Europe, Baroque, renaissance and new sciences like math. People are starting to do things differently than they used to. Also the Europeans were having to get all of the imported good from the Muslims, who were bringing spices and silk from Asian countries …show more content…

However, in 1492 Columbus set sail from Spain and discovered islands and territories in the New World. He discovered islands and built posts in various locations in the Caribbean and central America. Unfortunately, Columbus’ explorations soon turned to exploitation. What began as trade soon ended up as conquest. Columbus could not be content with honest bargaining for the various islands’ riches. His greed led him to use force against the people in order to attempt to gain riches. The presence of Columbus and his troops also led to the rapid deaths of up to a million natives due to their exposure to germs that had never been in this region. The cruelty of forced labor could not begin to compare to the terrors of these new diseases. Columbus’ success triggered a huge interest in exploration and conquest of the new world. Desire for gold and other riches drove others to risk the unknown seas in hopes of great gain. This led to a great hunger for more exploration. Soon, in 1520, Hernando Cortes and his troops were laying siege and destruction to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. Although Cortes, his men and their native allies warred against the Aztecs, the most troubling and difficult battle was the one against European germs. Some estimates say that up to fifty percent of the native population died due to the rapid spread of smallpox through the people. More than 25 million Aztecs succumbed to European disease. More than anything else, these unwelcome European “guests” changed the face of the Americas through the unintentional introduction of diseases such as small pox and typhus. The native populations had no natural immunity to these as yet unknown diseases. Therefore, the diseases spread rapidly and the people had no time to discover treatments for them. Similarly, a few years later in 1526, having heard about great

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