Impact of the Columbian Exchange Essay Example for Free

Impact of the Columbian Exchange Essay The Columbian exchange is the exchange of goods from the New world to the Old world and vice versa. The new world included Europe, Africa, Asia and the new world was known as The Americas. Things that were traded during this time were tomatoes, apples, potatoes, cacao, corn from the New world to Old world. Oranges, lemons, wheat, and rice were major things traded from the Old world to the new. Because of the Columbian exchange, it still affects our modern society. Like how we interact with other countries to get what we need. And trade off things that we have to benefit us. There were many things that occurred that were changed in the world due to the Columbian exchange. For example the spreading of diseases from the old world to the new world. The disease spread from one place to another during the trade was by the ships that shipped over the goods. People and animals would carry unknown diseases to The Americas to trade. Not knowing the people who were there would get exposed to the germs and get ill. Since theyve never encountered diseases from the new world before, they cant fight it off and this caused a major wipeout in The Americas to the people who had no immunity. Diseases like smallpox, measles, malaria, whooping cough were all diseases that the Native Americans living there have never encountered. Because of the rapid spreading of diseases they couldnt find out to escape in time and smallpox (killed most of the Natives population) got rid about 95% of their entire population. The remaining Native Americans would be angry by how not only did the Europeans have invaded their lands but also killed them with their deadly diseases. The Native Americans didnt have any diseases that the Europeans werent already immune to, so the spreading of new diseases wouldnt really have major concerns on the people of the Old World. This caused tension to arise between the two but to the Europeans, they had better things to worry about. Like coming up with ways to help make them more powerful through trade. They knew the Natives were no longer any threat to them. Theyve and have the technology to defeat the Natives at any given time and already have taken over the land. The Columbian exchange also played a role in resulting in the spreading of European culture. With all the trading going on more explorers from Spain come to settle on the New World to look new wealth and to spread Christianity. Eventually others from different countries from the Old World also migrated over to find job opportunities. The Europeans took this opportunity to spread their religion across the New World. They taught the people about the bible and Christianity and as more people learned about Christianity they converted. Which was the beginning of the spread of Christianity. This was a positive thing for the Europeans because they would be gaining more power over the people now that they are on their side, believing in their religion. For the native Americans this did not benefit them. Since the European culture rapidly spread throughout the new world, spread their culture was not able to be carried out to others and it slowly died down. They no longer could live the way they use to, believe in the things they did and carry on their traditions and customs. With the new shipping technology the Europeans over time advanced, let them travel and take over more lands and spread their customs and change the peoples current ways of living and convert into Christianity or they would be killed. Christianity soon traveled and spread all over the world and teachings of it changed peoples everyday life and beliefs. The way they viewed life and the things they needed to do to show their dedication to god. They now have to go to the place of worship the church. Every aspect of their lives was impacted by what they believe now. They changed the way they lived to be fit to what the bible tells them what they should do. For example the bible doesnt believe in planned parenthood and abortion so this caused a major population growth. The spreading of Christianity couldve raised competition between other religions of the expansion of each one. Slave trade also spread to the Americas from the Old World during this time. This impacted America in both a positive and negative way. The positive is that the people living in the Americas get free labor. They dont have to hire people to do field work or any manual labor work. And getting slaves for a good deal bargaining the things they already have. But because of this factor it was also the reason why the economy wasnt as high as it couldve been. Due to slavery, they were force to do many jobs so when people that were looking for jobs had limited choices to find one. There werent many job opportunities since the slaves were doing most of the work out there. The economy was effected also in negative and positive ways. The free labor the Europeans were getting from the slaves caused more food production to be made and faster to trade for more things from the Old World. Fast crops production would mean they wouldnt run out of supply and that will benefit them during trading. In the slaves perspectives, they were treated cruelly and unfairly. Forced out of the homes and family to work day and night unpaid for an unknown owner. They dont get any benefit out of this system except for the fact they are provided food and a shelter over their heads. This affected their lives in many ways. If they had children they needed to teach their children what their duties were and what they needed to do. This would change their perspectives in life and their beliefs. On why they were being placed in the Americas and question their faith in god. These questions they might have had could later influence and change the view of their religion later in their childrens lives.