Christopher Columbus Impact

In 1942 Christopher Columbus set sail from spain in an effort to find a western root to the East Indies. After ten weeks of sailing he finally found land. He landed on the modern day nations of the Dominican republic and Haiti but he called the island Hispaniola. On the island he found the native population, he called them indians because the thought he had reached asia. The native believed that he was divine.The natives welcomed Columbus and his men onto their island but Columbus was only drive by greed. Columbus sent a letter back to spain over exaggerating the amount of resources on the island. Soon after the message was sent spain started to build their first colony in the new world and Columbus was the governor. Life for the natives got a lot worse as columbus saw them as lower beings. He enslaved them, forcing them to mine for gold with awful living conditions,little to no food, unsanitary water, and he even sent boat fulls of the natives back to spain. Many more spanish ships came introducing many new diseases and animals. Within a short period of time only ten percent of the native population was still alive. This sharp decrease in the native population was due to old world diseases like Smallpox, Measles, Malaria,Yellow fever, Influenza, and Chickenpox. The spanish

His discovery of the “Far East” ushered in a new era, “ The Age of Discovery”. This era had many positive impacts. The introduction of new foods gave the Europeans more nutritious and flavorful foods.One of the only positive impacts for the natives was the new meat food sourced from cows pigs and chickens. The natives were impacted way more in a negative aspect than the European. Eight million natives died from warfare. And entire tribes wiped out by European disease. Over all, contact between the old world and the new world was much more beneficial for the old world, specifically