What Is The Impact Of The Columbian Exchange On American Culture

During the early 15th century, there were thousands of groups of people with distinct cultures and languages spread across the Americas. Their lifestyles varied from hurters to farmers. Because of the diversity and complexity, civilizations rose and fell even before Christopher Columbus’s voyage. When Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, there were about 50 million people living on the Americas. Their lives drastically changed from the arrival of the Europeans. The European Conquest brought forced labor, new diseases, and religious conversion which greatly impacted the Natives Americans’ lifestyle and ecologies. Two hundred thousand Spaniards migrated into America and took over the Natives in the 16th century, forming a new system of control. This system is called the encomienda system where the Spanish crown allows the conquerors to force groups of Indians to work in return for shelter, food, and religious

When the European conquest occurred in the early 16th century, the conquerors and Europeans brought conditions that the Americans had never experienced. These conditions included diseases and illnesses that impacted the New World. The population became victims of smallpox, influenza, and other sicknesses. No one in the Americas had ever seen or heard of these infections before that was killing off hundreds and thousands of them. However, even though the diseases impacted the New World negatively, this exchange of viruses became part of the Columbian Exchange. Years later, the Columbian Exchange was a huge part of how the New World’s ecologies grew. People from America finally interacted with Europeans to increase each other’s economies, importing and exporting essential goods across the sea. Though this would occur years into the future of the New World, a positive happening occurred during the European Conquest that impacted the Americas’