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Cultural impact of columbian exchange
Culture and economy of columbian exchange
Cultural impact of columbian exchange
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The Columbian Exchange began because Christopher Columbus discovered North America in the search of a sea route to India. He believed he had found India but the rest of the world realized that he had found something more. The race for new land and resources was led by Spain and Portugal and soon after they were followed by the rest of Europe. The Columbian Exchange was born with New World goods such as corn and roosters being sent to Europe and Old world goods like guns and horses being sent to the Americas.
There are both negative and positive attributes of The Columbian Exchange. It lasted during the years of expansion and discovery, but shaped the world as we know it today. This transfer had a direct impact on the cultures of North America and Europe, which introduced unfamiliar animals, diseases, and plants. The Columbian Exchange was a significant ecological event that changed the lives of people on both continents. Horses were introduced to the New World by Spanish Conquistadors.
When Columbus brought together the Old and New World in 1492, it began the Columbian Exchange. They exchanged everything from crops, germs, and animals and it changed the way of life for the Native people of the New World and the Old World forever. Even though the smallpox virus hit the people of the New World so hard they almost got wiped out, the people in the Old World took advantage of it so they got corn and great soil for sugarcane. But how did it all begin?
The exports of trading was primarily; Potatoes, corn tomatoes, fruit and turkey. Grains and livestock which are cows, pigs and horses are primary imports. The long term consequences of the Columbian Exchange are mixed. Which, created
The Columbian Exchange between the new world and the old world significantly change people’s lives. After 1492, Europeans brought in horses to America which changes the nomadic Native American groups’ living from riding on buffalos to horses. This interchange also change the diet of the rest of the world with foods such as corns (maize), potatoes which are major diet for European nowadays. Besides all the animals from old world to the new world, Spanish also brought in the diseases that Native Americans were not immune of, such as smallpox which led to a large amount of Native Americans’ deaths.
The Columbian Exchange The Columbian Exchange was “the transfer of plants, animals, and diseases from the Old World to the New and the New World to the Old (Von Sivers, Desnoyers, & Stow, 2012, p. 618)”. The Columbian Exchange improved and hindered the lives of the Europeans and Native Americans. The Europeans benefited more from the Columbian Exchange then the Native Americans because “the Europeans got a continent endowed with a warm climate in which they could create new and improved versions of their homelands (Von Sivers, Desnoyers, & Stow, 2012, p. 621).”
The term “Columbian Exchange” and the year 1492 are two extremely defining parts of American history and life in general. The Columbian Exchange caused a swapping of crops, animals, religions, and diseases between the Americas and the Old World. This exchange of goods and animals caused a reconnection between the continents that were once joined as one large landmass, Pangaea, many years ago. The discovery of the New World by the Old World causes one to consider why the Old World was so successful and how different the world would be if the roles of discovery were reversed and the New World discovered the Old.
Massive demographic catastrophe occurred wherever Europeans made contact with indigenous Americans. Within his The Columbian Exchange, Alfred Crosby writes: “When the isolation of the New World was broken, when Columbus brought the two halves of the planet together, the American Indian met for the first time his most hideous enemy: not the white man nor his black servant, but the invisible killers which those men brought in their blood and breath” (Crosby, 31). It was common to see a drop of 90 percent or more in native populations after the arrival of the Europeans (Than). European pandemics such as smallpox would severely depopulate or wipe out many natives of the Americas. This idea of the Columbian Exchange, the enormous widespread
Srinivas Chandran Prof. Adam Hill History Midterm October 8, 2015 List A: Question 2 The Columbian exchange became a major factor in the development of the “Old World” and the “New World”. The Columbian exchange started during 1492 between major European powers such as the Spanish and Portuguese and the Native Americans of the Americas. The exchange was started by Christopher Columbus, who is the person who discovered the Americas. The Europeans brought plants, animals and diseases along with them to the “New World” (Americas), plants such as wheat, barley, oats and grapes were brought in by the Europeans.
The Columbian exchange was a sort of bridge between two very different cultures and, as Alfred W. Crosby said, it was very hard to find any crops that the two civilizations (the Old World and the New World, so to speak) shared. Horses, wheat, pigs, sugar cane, rice, and grape vines -- along with many other things -- could only be found in the Old World. Likewise, corn, sweet potatoes, alpaca, peanuts, and tobacco were all from the New World. Some of these things, wheat, rice, and corn in particular, are staples nowadays and we would be in trouble if something happened to one of those things. As Crosby said, “[Wheat] is one of Europe’s greatest gifts to the Americas”.
In the Americas, there were no horses, cattle, sheep, or goats, all animals of Old World origin except for the llama, alpaca, dog, a few fowl, and guinea
During the period of 1450 to 1750, there were a variety of social and economic transformations that were offered due to the new interaction among Western Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. All at glance, the main overview would have to be with the increase of slave trade. Socially, it changed the native population. Economically, the increasing changed the native way of living. Slave trade affected everyones environment, for they were being sent all throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
“Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492” ring a bell? Columbus explored land on the different side of the Atlantic everyone was located on which sparked many voyages to the other side. The biological encounter between the two sides of the Atlantic was known as the Columbian Exchange. The exchange involved food animals and most importantly disease spreading all over from Europe, America, and Spain.
The intended audience of the article “ The Columbian Exchange- a History of Disease, Food and Ideas” are scholars and students. The article has large amount of statistics provided about the amount of production of certain foods in certain countries, the amount of exchange between the old world and the new world and the top consuming countries for various new world foods. The foods discovered also includes their benefits and harms. 2. The author’s main argument is that the new world has several impacts on the old world which includes many pros and cons.
Not only America and England were affected by the Columbian Exchange ; without the Columbian Exchange the foods that currently present in many locations across the world wouldn’t be there. In document 2 it states, “Today some 200 million Africans rely on it as their main source of nutrition. Cacao and rubber, two other South American crops, became important export items in West Africa the 20th century.” Also in document 2 it states, “Indeed, almost everywhere in the world, one or another American food crops caught on, complementing existing crops, or more rarely, replacing them.” These two quotes demonstrate that the Columbian Exchange brought about a massive change in the foods people