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How Did Christopher Columbus Cause The Spread Of America In 1492

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Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of America in 1492 caused a rush of European countries to travel to the New World in search of new land to conquer. The Europeans’ arrival drastically changed the land and the Natives’ lives in a matter of centuries. Europeans brought both good and bad things with them, they brought law and religion but also death, disease and, destruction. Interactions between colonists and Natives helped spread disease and sometimes war. DISEASE: Native American population decreased drastically from European diseases such as smallpox, yellow fever, malaria, measles and, typhus. European diseases were fatal to the Natives because they no longer had the biological resistance to fight the diseases from the Old World due to their isolation (Kennedy and Cohen 15). The colonizers’ breath, blood, sweat, lice, and their livestock in 1492 unknowingly began the spread of these diseases throughout the New World (Taylor 42). Although minor illness to the colonizers, infections …show more content…

Smallpox was spread through the air on moisture droplets or dust, easily infecting many Natives throughout the country (Taylor 43). When the Spanish first arrived in Hispaniola there was about one million Taino natives, fifty years after their arrival the native population went down to only about 200 people because of the sicknesses the Spanish had unknowingly brought with them (Kennedy and Cohen 15). The same year Cortés laid siege to the city of Tenochtitlán in 1521, a smallpox epidemic broke out in the Valley of Mexico; the combination of Cortés’s conquest and the spread of disease caused the population to decrease from 20 million natives to 2 million in less than a century (Kennedy and Cohen 17). In the 1620s a colonist in New England observed that the Natives “died on heapes...and the

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The Columbian Exchange was the movement of people, animals, goods, plants, diseases, and microorganism that occurred in the sixteenth century. The effects of The Columbian Exchange on early American society were extensive. One of the most devastating effects was the spreading of disease that killed around ninety percent of the Native American population. When Europeans came to the New World they brought with them diseases such as, “smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera”(document one). The native’s immune systems were not prepared to fight theses diseases and this lead to a catastrophic amount of fatalities.

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The population of native american took a big impact from some of the diseases that were transported from the old world. Smallpox, measles, and malaria were just a couple of the common diseases that killed many native americans. The old world also faced a lot of deadly diseases, such as syphilis. These diseases decimated many populations in both worlds and even eliminated some native american

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For centuries after Columbus first landed in the New World, the arrival of European settlers impacted the lives of American Indians so immensely that their presence forever altered the landscape of the New World. The Europeans brought with them deadly germs and diseases—malaria, smallpox, and yellow fever—from which American Indians had no natural immunities, that decimated Indian populations. Additionally, they embarked on an aggressive quest for land—an encounter that led to many American Indian populations either being destroyed, dissolved or forced further and further west off of their ancestral lands. In response to such aggression, American Indians had limited choices: resist, submit, flee, or in rare cases, assimilate. The choices they

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He brought diseases to the Native Americans, he decreased the population of the Native Americans drastically, and he burned the Native Americans who didn’t want to convert to Catholicism. In the beginning, Christopher Columbus came to America and the Native Americans had a major decrease in population. In the beginning they became friends but then Christopher Columbus came in and killed them(Doc. 4). The Europeans also fought

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Europeans brought diseases such as cholera, malaria, measles, mumps, smallpox, typhoid, and yellow fever to name a few. The only known disease that the Natives probably had was syphilis. Although the Europeans inadvertently shared their diseases they did share other

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Very many died of it. They could not walk; they only lay in their resting places and beds.” The first and the second part are showing a huge contrast and the impact that the Age of Exploration had on the Native life, and how the Europeans negatively affected the Native Americans and Africans. Furthermore, document 3 talking about the Estimated Native American Population of Mexico (1518-1593) shows that in 1518 at the start of the Age of Exploration the population was 25 million, then in 1533 it was 17.5, next in 1548 when it was about 6, and then gradually decreased. The population started at 25 million and ended approximately at 2 million.

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When the Europeans arrived in the country more than 50% of the Native Americans died. Most of the deaths were caused by smallpox and starvation. When they died from smallpox it decreased the number of people growing crops which then led on to starvation. The deaths of the Aztec and Incan broke out war, which causes the disease to spread even more.

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The global interaction and exchange not only dealt with material goods and animals, but also disease. Natives in the Americas lacked immunity to various germs held by the Europeans, since they did not come in contact with other parts of the world. The death toll of many of the natives including the Inca Empire, Aztec, Mayan, the Arwak, and Taino on Hispaniola rose exponentially. The diseases that swept over the Americas also came from Africa, such as, yellow fever and malaria. Millions died while their cities and homes collapsed due to invasion, warfare, and

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With them came smallpox, measles, chicken pox, influenza, and many other diseases. “Before the arrival of Columbus, Native American disease wasn’t dominant in the land. Due to the lack of exposure of disease in their younger years, Native Americans were vulnerable to the European diseases that would come with the Columbian Exchange. The diseases would soon destroy many societies of the ancient Aztec, Maya, and Inca. Through many estimates it is foreseen that alien diseases caused over 50% deaths of the Native American population.

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The European conquerors had built up an immunity to certain diseases that were common in Europe. Some of the diseases that decimated the Indian population included the following: smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, and the bubonic plague. Centuries of living near livestock had basically inoculated the European settlers against these diseases. However the Indians were not used to such diseases, resulting in a dramatic decline in the Native American population. According to Diamond, smallpox was a major role in the domination of the Americas by the Europeans.

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As the Europeans found native along the coasts of the New World, they found them easily malleable and able to be used, so they enslaved them and those who fought back were wiped out. Europeans, as well as the Africans, had built up a resistance to many diseases such as smallpox and were therefore not really affected as much by the diseases if they became sick. However, the Native Americans had not had contact with the disease and it quickly spread rapidly and slowly helped the Spanish rid themselves of the natives so they could take control of the land. Geoffrey Cowley offers insight on just how profound the effect of smallpox was when he writes, “ ...When the newcomers arrived carrying mumps, measles, whooping cough, smallpox, cholera, gonorrhea and yellow fever, the Indians were immunologically

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The death tolls it accumulated everywhere the Europeans went. In the densely populated area of central Mexico the casualties are said to have been near 8 million (America, 25). In northern America the indigenous people had an overall smaller population and less concentrated inhabitants. Regardless they experienced a devastating onslaught of diseases that they had no immunity or cure for.

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Among the many things spread and shared in the Columbian Exchange, the trading of diseases is perhaps the most significant. The natives of the Americas had never experienced the serious diseases that European explorers carried over to the New World. From smallpox to influenza and malaria to cholera, Native American populations were drastically decreased due to their poor immunity. Between the numerous amounts of European diseases, though, measles was the most remarkable in that its effects were both widespread and enduring. Measles, also known as rubeola, is a respiratory infection caused by the measles virus.

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The Colonisation of Latin America had a major negative impact on these indigenous people as the arrival in Latin America collided with 12,000 years of isolation from Eurasia which imposed many diseases on the natives. The natives were unable to fight of these diseases as they did not have the immune system for these types of sickness nor the appropriate medicine so many of them died as a result. These diseases included small pox, measles and influenza, bubonic plagues, cholera and tropical

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While the colonization of the America’s was negative for many reasons such as the spread of illnesses, and the forcing of religion upon natives, it was also beneficial to the Native’s because it allowed them to have better weapons and to have different foods and goods in their lives. The Europeans exposed the Natives to many new diseases once they colonized the new areas they discovered. The Europeans greatly impacted the family life and religion of the inhabitants of the areas they found. There was also a lot of exchange going on during the conquest of the Americas because the Natives were excited by the new gadgets they had never seen before that the Europeans brought over.

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