Negative Effects Of The Columbian Exchange

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The Columbian Exchange: Positive or Negative? Christopher Columbus is credited with ‘discovering’ the Americas. After he ‘discovered’ them, the Old World and the New World began trading plants, animals, and diseases; otherwise known as the Columbian Exchange. The plants and animals were greatly beneficial, but the diseases were quite the opposite, killing many of the Native Americans. The Native Americans and Africans were forced to become slaves or do labor. Because of the mass deaths, there were less people to grow crops, and people died of starvation. Overall, the Columbian Exchange was a negative event for the New World. Diseases like smallpox, influenza, typhus, measles, malaria, diphtheria, and whooping cough were spread to the Americas