Negative Effects Of The Columbian Exchange

Towards the end of the 1400s Christopher Columbus, a European explorer, embarked on a voyage that led him to discovering a new continent that would be titled The New World. This continent was populated by Native Americans who traded their natural resources and crops in exchange for new animals and foods from the old world. This trading of goods is formally known as the Columbian Exchange which is defined as the exchange of people, products, diseases, and ideas between the Old and New Worlds. Despite some believing the Columbian Exchange was detrimental the the New World because of the harsh treatment of the Native Americans and the spread of diseases, The Columbian Exchange was an overall positive event for the New World because it introduced

The map, in the McDougal Little textbook, illustrates the different crops being exchanged between the continents. The Europeans brought foods such as grapes, onions, citrus fruits, coffee beans, and more that have become staples in recipes we still use today. These foods were very beneficial to both the Native Americans and to all others that lived in the Americas. Lauren Rees wrote, in her article ¨The Columbian Exchange,¨ that these foods from the Old World would both feed more people, and also energize them more because of the higher caloric values. She writes, ¨…(food) allowed people to work harder because they were more energized.¨ Without the Columbian Exchange, the diets and nutrition of the population, as a whole, would have continued to be lower than adequate. Even our cuisines would be incomparable with what we have

It is factual to say that the Natives were not treated justifiably. Bartolome de las Casas wrote, in his journal, ¨They (Indians) suffered and died…Over three million people had perished.¨ Harper Collins published a writing from Howard Zinn that states, ¨That beginning…is conquest, slavery, and death.¨ Others say that the Columbian Exchange was detrimental to the New world because of the diseases that spread from the Old World to the New. Dinesh DŚouza wrote about how because the Indians had not developed any immunity to the diseases such as smallpox, typhus, and the measles, that they perished in ¨catastrophic numbers.¨ While these are the main unfortunate events that occurred during the time of the exchange, it can be inferred that the encounter between the two continents would have happened eventually. Kenneth Auchincloss wrote, ¨the consequences for the people of the western Hemisphere would not have been much different,¨ in the article When Worlds Collide. He argues that if Columbus wasnt the one who discovered the new world, someone else would have. Although there were unfortunate consequences that occurred from the exchange, it does not lessen the value of the positive aspects that came from the Old