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Deforestation In The Columbian Exchange

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The Columbian Exchange introduced a new connection between the newly found Americas and locations in the old world such as Africa and Europe, but this trade was only introduced in 1492. Prior to 1492, the Americas and the old world had no connection with each other, for they had no idea they even existed until Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to try and find a back entrance into the Chinese spice trade. Before 1492, the Americas kept to themselves without true unity; they had many different empires such as the Incans, Aztecs, and Mayans that grew their own private crops to feed themselves. There occurred little trade between the empires of the Americas. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, however, Europe had a strong …show more content…

For example, deforestation occurred in the Americas. When the Spanish first arrived in 1492, the Native Americans had not enforced massive amounts of deforestation through labor systems such as the MITA system, for the labor systems were mainly used to tend to crops that were already good enough for the native people living on the land. Unfortunately, the Spanish people were exceedingly interested in the goods that were already being grown there, so in order to make a greater profit, the Spanished enforced massive deforestation. Trees, such as Redwood Trees and Pine Trees, were cut down to make more room to grow plants. Nearing 1750, the main use of this deforested land had become for cash crops, such as sugar cane shipped from Africa. This sugar cane was shipped to mass produce because sugar was worth a lot when being traded, so Europe would use the possible profits of these sugar canes as a motive to produce more; therefore, deforestation occurred for the cash crops that would be used as an item traded in the Columbian Exchange. Deforestation also occurred in Europe as well because the crops from America, such as tomatoes, maize, and potatoes were shipped through the Columbian exchange into Europe. Europe unfortunately did not have much room to mass produce these foods from the Columbian Exchange, so people began deforestation on the land. Due to the deforestation on trees such as oak trees and birch trees, Europe was able to help feed their people with all the crops shipped from the Americas in the Columbian

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