Effects Of The Columbian Exchange

1542 Words7 Pages

HIS 101-411
J-Term 2015
January 21, 2015
Dr. Víctor M. Macías-González

Part One

1. Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange was a period of biological and cultural interactions between the New and Old Worlds. In that time, there were exchanges of plants, animals, technology and disease between Europeans and Native Americans. The exchange, which lasted throughout the years of discovery and expansion, began after Columbus discovered America in 1492. The Columbian exchanged altered both of these cultures in a plethora of ways. This event had a massive effect on both Native American and Europeans, with a few examples being the improvement of agricultural products, increased mortality rates and education, advancement of ware, etc. This …show more content…

The encomienda, a formal grant written by the Spanish crown, gave conquistadors, and other leaders, who were named encomenderos, the right to use a specific number of Native Americans as labor. The grants differed in sizes. The larger the amount of the grant, the larger the amount of tribute and labor available. The greater the potential wealth and prestige of the assignment. In reality, the native indians were already accustomed to a similar establishment of tributary towns under the Aztec. The encomenderos were supposed to protect and Christianize the Indians granted to them, but they usually only used the system to effectively enslave the Indians and take their lands. Although the original intent of the encomienda was to minimize the abuse of Native Indians, its practices eventually became a form of enslavement. One of the reasons this program was created for was helping the colonies increase their mining productivity in the New World. An encomienda usually involved hundreds of Native Americans, but sometimes there were thousands of Native Americans enslaved to work at a time. With the calamitous decline in the Native American population and the substitution of mining by agriculture, the encomienda system lost its usefulness and was eventually replaced by the hacienda