Negative Effects Of The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange began as people from the Old World and New World began to interact with one another. Natives had many valuable items such as gold and corn, which contributed to one of the many positive effects the New World had on the Old World. Population rapidly increased in Europe and Africa due to new crops, and eventually caused China’s population to triple (America’s History, pg43). The English settlers brought wheat, apples, and grasses for the livestock to graze on. One of the less desirable results of the Columbian Exchange was the exchange of diseases. Along with domesticated animals, which enriched the Native diet, Europeans brought smallpox, measles, influenza, malaria, and yellow fever (The Columbian Exchange, pg1). These diseases devastated Native populations as countless people fell at the hands of new illnesses. Thousands died of mysterious disease, and it got to the point where tribes ran out of people to make fires, fetch water, and bury the dead (The Columbian Exchange, pg1). Native suffering did not stop there. White brutality, alcoholism, and the killing and driving off of game also took a toll on them. While the colonists did suffer from American diseases such as syphilis and Chagas Disease, the deaths from that are insignificant to Native

The Columbian Exchange began soon after Christopher Columbus returned from his voyage to the Americas, which he believed to be India. As he returned to Spain, the Columbian Exchange soon began with the exchange of items from the Old to the New World. Some of which brought negative and positive effects to the various regions of the Old and New World. Of the various items traded, sugar was among the items brought from the Old to the New World, specifically to the Americas. Due to this new crop a new economy began. For the Europeans, because they were able to set up the sugar plantations due to the decreased population brought on by disease, their settlements were able to flourish.

The Columbian Exchange caused beneficial interactions to occur between Europeans and Native Americans, such as, "many of the most eminent families in the city have desired intermarriages with it"(Doc. 3). This shows that intermarriages were quite popular with high class Europeans, which means that the Native Americans who were a part of intermarriages would receive better lives. Therefore, the exchange benefitted Native Americans who Europeans liked, since intermarriages with wealthy Europeans would lead to a lavish life. Furthermore, the exchange had benefits for Native Americans and Europeans for obtaining new products and better land for livestock. The Columbian Exchange offered many different products for both sides, and new land that would be perfect for livestock. Europeans benefitted on the exchange in ways off the land, such as, "horses, pigs, sheep, and cattle were all European animals that flourished rapidly in the Americas because they were able to reproduce without being hindered by predators"(Doc. 9). This shows that Europeans livestock industry would grow thanks to the lack of predators in the New World. Furthermore, Europeans would have more food thanks to the New World. Therefore, the Columbian Exchange had positive effects; due to, new land for livestock and

The Columbian Exchange brought many positive effects into both the Old World and the New World. One of the positive effects The Columbian Exchange had onto the world, was the exchange of crops. With the exchange of crops, the diversity of foods was made. Could you imagine Italian food without tomatoes or Indian food without chili peppers? This food variety is thanks to the Columbian Exchange and would be known

A major negative consequence that resulted from the Columbian Exchange was how many people died from new diseases and how this discovery led to the Atlantic slave trade and other labor systems which led to devastation from millions of natives dying from a disease from a native plant and how some Europeans died from it worse than the black death. Another major negative consequence that resulted from the Columbian Exchange was how the Native Americans depopulated very rapidly and the European settlers started taking Native land at a rapid speed. A major negative consequence that happened in the Columbian exchange was how the living Native Americans were captured and made into slaves and how they were forced to make New world crops.

The Columbian Exchange was highly profitable for the Spaniards, providing boundless goods and cultural influence. The Columbian Exchange can be viewed as an unmitigated success for Europe; one that truly benefitted the Spaniards, and had a highly negative experience for the Native Americans, who went into near extinction, and were forced to trade off their quality assets.

When you are sitting in a fancy restaurant in Texas, tasting a delicious steak with a nice cup of coffee, do you know that before 1492, American people don’t even know what is beef and coffee. Nowadays, people’s diet is abundant. People in every part of the world can taste the food originated in other side of the world. This is due to one of the most significant ecological events in human history called the Columbian Exchange. According to Nunn Nathan and Qian Nancy, “the Columbian Exchange refers to the exchange of diseases, ideas, food crops, and populations between the New World and the Old World following the voyage to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492” (Nathan and Nancy, 2010). It was so spectacular that has left both positive and negative impacts in each side of the world.

The European explorers began the exchange of plant and animal species. In William and Jackson’s writing, they explained how the Europeans helped to increase the food production in America. (Doc #3) This document states, “… cultivation of corn, manioc, and the potato … a process that ultimately brought benefits…” in the Americas. This process was known as the Columbian Exchange. It had an effect on the Eastern and Western Hemisphere. Furthermore, the Columbian Exchange had both good and bad effects on the world. Although it helped increase exchange, it caused many diseases to spread and kill many people.

The impact of the Columbian Exchange on most people in the Americas, Europe, and Africa were new diseases, a new way of life, and decreases in population due to the amount of economic decay. The Columbian Exchange was the creation of colonies in the Americas that led to the exchange of new types of food, plants, and animals. These types of exchanges (plants, animals, and food) also took place between Europe and the Americas. The Columbian Exchange originally began due to explorers who spread and collected new plants, animals, and ideas around the globe as they traveled. Due to the occurrence of the Columbian Exchange, there was a significant alteration in the ecology of most of the world.

Columbian Exchange- The Columbian Exchange was a way exchanging new resources between the new world and the old world. This impacted Europeans and Native Americans positively with the new materials now available, like technology, plants, and animals. There were some negative effects from these exchanges too, such as diseases. Made it easier to interact with other cultures.

The Columbian Exchange that occurred in the Western Hemisphere subjected America to extensive changes that would fundamentally change the people that lived there, the people that would come to live there, and the land itself. In fact, the America that we know today has been shaped by the events that took place hundreds of years ago during the Columbian Exchange. As European people brought their culture and values to the Americas, it started to combine and mix with the cultures and values already established there, changing both Europeans and Indians in admittedly small, but significant ways. While this can be considered a positive point of the Columbian Exchange, in its entirety, the Columbian Exchange could be considered a disaster, especially for the natives that lived in America before the Europeans came to claim it. Not only did Indians suffer at the hands of European diseases that we completely foreign to them, killing off millions and changing the Indian demographic forever, but the world that they grew to be so familiar with changed around them.

The Columbian Exchange was the introduction of the New Age of Exploration. Therefore, it was a turning point in history because it reshape the way people lived across the world. There were many positive and negative aspects over the Exchange between the Old and New World. The introduction of crops, animals, and diseases played a big factor in the European Conquest over Native American that led to many changes in society. The Europeans headed west in search of new land for them to settle in and conquest. When the Europeans first introduced the domesticated animals to the New World, the Native Americans were especially surprised on the exportation of cattle, horses, and pigs were welcome to a new environment. Consequently, it was not easy for

Along with the food, animals, and items came disease. In The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas written by Harvard Professor Nathan Nunn and Associate Professor at Yale, Nancy Qian and published by American Economic Association, it reads “The list of infectious diseases that spread from the Old World to the New is long; the major killers include smallpox, measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, bubonic plague, typhus, and malaria” (Nunn and Qian). The spread of disease caused massive drops in populations throughout the world. In Doctor James Carrick Moore’s book The History of Small Pox written in 1815 states that “several warlike nations of Indians had been almost extinguished by the Small Pox and fifty years ago heaps of bones, like trophies of the disease, were to be seen in the fields, under the tufted oaks” (Moore). Not only the transfer of diseases, but also the exchange of food, ideas, and animals had such a large impact on the world and humankind.

The Columbian Exchange brought diseases in the two countries and was also the forerunner for eliminating Native Americans in North America, but Europe acquired new ways to develop their economy further than what it already was. This discovery was what led to Europe's powers early on in the 1400’s. Europe's discoveries led to the modernization of cultures along with great societies such as the New World, which became the country it is today.

Food and crops, such as maize, potatoes, tomatoes, and sugar cane had a very big impact to the New World in helping to feed more people. These crops and food were a great find, considering people in the new world lived in treacherous places, such as the Mayans, but they found crops that were easy to grow. Tobacco, sugar, coffee and the many other New World crops became popular all over the world and brought more Europeans to Central America. Another positive for Europeans from the Columbian Exchange was the introduction of new medicines from the New World such as quinine for Malaria, “...exploration and colonization of this vast tropical regions of these continents was aided by the New World, discovery of quinine the first effective treatment for Malaria.” (pg 164 of The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas). Disease (along with slavery and war) was one of the huge negatives of the Columbian Exchange, because European diseases killed millions of Native Americans who did not have immunity to them. However, there are many diseases in the world, such as smallpox, measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, bubonic plague, typhus, and malaria and, although you could argue that if the Europeans had never come to the New World these diseases might not have come either, with its plentiful resources and its creative population the two civilizations would have eventually met, so this seems unlikely.