Essay On The Effects Of European Exploration Of The Americas

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Europeans began exploring the Americas in late 15th century. This had many effects on both the land of the Americas and the Native Americans that inhabited them. Many of the Native American cultures perished with the coming if the Europeans while some survived. A good deal of the Native American cultures that did survive, were very small. The Europeans did not mean to find the Americas, in fact, they were on a voyage to find a new route to Asia and The Indies. There are many effects of the Europeans voyages to the Americas that have effects on today’s society. One reason as to why the Europeans began their exploration is that they wanted to find gold. Columbus saw that some of the Native Americans were wearing little pieces of gold as accessories and the Europeans imagined fields of gold. When the Natives took them to where the gold was, there was very little and the Europeans did not like this. They resorted to violent methods and tried to make the Natives take them to the real gold thinking that they were just hiding it from them. One reason as to why the Europeans began their exploration of the Americas was that they wanted to find a new trade route to Asia. Columbus believed that if he sailed west, he could reach Asia faster than traveling on land or going around Africa. Asia had the spices …show more content…

When the Europeans came over, they brought diseases and wars which caused the Native American populations have a sharp decline. This happened because the diseases were killing off millions of Natives while wars between the Native Americans and Europeans cause more Natives to be killed because the weapons that the Europeans had were more advanced than the Native American weapons. This allowed for Europeans to come to the Americas and colonize without much issue because of the lack of Native Americans that were trying to stop