Christopher Columbus Impact On Society

At the end of the Middle Ages Spain wanted an easier way to get to India. Christopher Columbus and his crew attempted to make the voyage to India, but ended up in the New World instead (The Americas). Columbus started to explore the New world and learned about the resources and knowledge it had from the Natives. This event is also known as “The Encounter”. The Encounter sparked the interest of not only Spain, but the rest of Europe. Portugal, France and England made their own voyages to the new land and started to claim territory. This new interest and curiosity began a new age, the Age of Exploration. This new age changed European, African and Native American lives forever.

Europe was most definitely positively impacted by the Age of Exploration.

With each new territory a conquistador conquered he would get riches for him and his country. Due to the “Reconquista” in 1492 (the defeat of the last area controlled by Muslims) the Spanish were motivated to be successful. An example of this success is in 1915 when Hernando Cortez conquered the Aztec Kingdom, “They begged him to turn back and gave him magnificent gifts of gold and feathers of many colors. But the gifts only served to increase his curiosity and greed…They took advantage of a ceremony in a temple to attack and kill all Mexican nobility, knowing that they would be unarmed. They burned and destroyed the whole of that magnificent city” (Document 3). Hernando Cortez saw the potential opportunity and riches of the Aztec Kingdom (Modern day Mexico) and seized it with vigor. Although Spain wasn’t the only European country seizing things. Portugal and England were less interested in conquering and were more impacted by slave trade. The Portugeuse and the Dutch were fighting over control of the sugar in Brazil while also having a huge

When Native Americans started to die off the New World lost a lot of labor. The Spanish then got the help of the Portuguese slave traders in 1513. Their idea was to use African slaves to farm their crops. Although, Europeans never went to capture slaves themselves and that's where African kingdoms came into play, “Native Kingdoms like Ashanti, Oyo, and Kongo became profitable middle men in the slave trade and their kings grew richa and magnificent off the tribute, taxes and kickbacks that kept the trade flowing. In return for slaves Africa got the usual trade goods plus some more interesting ones” (Document 7). Africa traded slaves for very profitable goods and their kingdoms became powerful. Local Africans traded whatever slaves they could get their hands on, which in the beginning were criminals, those in debt or adulterers. As time went by and Africans saw just how much success they had with slave trade they started to resort to harmful methods. African coastal kingdoms would purposely start wars to gain slaves. This resulted in innocent Africans getting enslaved. The enslaved Africans would be treated horribly, “slaves would be herded back to the coast in coffles (chained caravans) along trails hundreds of miles long, on journeys that often lasted months…Typically two to four hundred slaves were carried on each ship. They were chained below deck in pairs…” (Document 7). Due to the horrible conditions for the enslaved