Christopher Columbus Negative Effects

Did you know that Christopher Columbus's real name was Cristoforo Colombo? Columbus and the Columbian Exchange did more harm than good. The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of goods betwixt the Old World (Europe, Asia, Africa) and the New World (North and South America). Animals, diseases, people, crops, foods, and culture were what was traveled athwart the ocean between the two worlds. In 1492 when Christopher Columbus departed Spain under the control of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, he wanted to find a new route to Asia by traveling west. Columbus voyaged west and in about 2 months he had arrived on land. He believed that this land was Asia, but it was not. What really had occurred was that Columbus arrived in a world which had not

Diseases had a really big impact on the population of the New World but along with that it affected the lives of every individual since there wasn’t enough knowledge of medicine and disease many people died without even knowing that they would die. The natives had never really experienced such a tragedy so they had no natural immunity to any of the diseases. Diseases spread rapidly because of this. Since a huge amount of the population was wiped out, the Europeans had less natives to use for labor and as a result of that there was a big shortage of labor. The second biggest negative impact was that of the slave trade beginning. The lack of natives to work for the Europeans in the New World as well as to ship to the Old World urged the Europeans to look for a new source of “slaves” to do their labor work. They eventually looked towards Africa and the slave trade began. About 12 million slaves were shipped (Page 3). The governments in Africa were weak and the Europeans took control of the massive continent. Beginning in the 1500s, thousands of slaves were being shipped to the New World and Europe. Approximately 500,000 slaves were shipped to North