The Pros And Cons Of Age Of Exploration

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Is the Age of Exploration more beneficial or more harmful to the world? Did you know Christopher Columbus never once stepped foot in the present-day United States? But he did indeed spark what we call the “Age of Exploration”. There were three motives for the Age of Exploration: to spread Christianity, find new wealth, and earn more glory for their country. As a result, the Age of Exploration brought harm to both people and the world of its time. Furthermore, the European people killed, enslaved, and introduced diseases, killing millions of Indians and Africans. In the 1500's, many Native Americans were enslaved, mistreated, and ultimately killed. When the encomeiend system was established (a labor system where the conquered could enslave …show more content…

And in doing so, many were enslaved. At the end of the day, the Indians were outworked and undernourished, and they slept on straw beds with nothing to cover them but the clothes on their backs. Additionally, the Spanish weakened the Indian culture by keeping the Indians away from each other. Europeans brought deadly diseases to America and, by doing so, took the lives of more than a million people. America never had smallpox, the flu, or other diseases. As a result, they had no immunity to it. One example was the harm the smallpox brought, killing the whole empire of the Spaniards. As stated in the documentary The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of America by Miguel Leon-Portilla About 95 percent of all Natives died from this disease in the span of 1518–1593. And according to a document called The Key to Understanding Global History by Jerret, millions of people lived in America isolated from European contact as a result of being immunologically defenseless when the Spanish arrived. As a result of many Indians dying, the Europeans got Africans to replace them. Just like the Indians, the Africans were mistreated. Because of the many diseases brought to Anerian, the Indians died. The Europeans