Christopher Columbus Impact On American Culture Essay

‘’ The Western American culture is influenced by so many other different cultures including Latin American, African, Polynesian, Native American, and Asian cultures. Yet in the 1490 throughout the early 1900s this culture has been mainly influenced by the European traditions. The United States has historically had trouble letting people within it’s borders. However, beginning in the 1960s and continuing on in the present day, the country trends towards cultural diversity, pluralism, and the image of a salad bowl instead.

Christopher Columbus is one of the earlier explorer who made a significant impact on the American culture. Columbus 's impact on the American continents and on the area that would become the United States was incredible.

Columbus and the explorers that followed him changed all that. They brought horses, chickens and other livestock to the Americans and returned to Europe with corn, potatoes, tomatoes and hundreds of other species. This biological exchange transformed the United States, according to Mann. Columbus and those who followed created a market for tobacco, for example, that later fueled the American economy. The importation of horses transformed Native American culture and allowed more rapid transportation across North America. Christopher Columbus came to America in hopes of finding new land, new opportunities, and gold. On the view of the Spaniards side he was helping them expand a money thirsty empire. He was helping route and map new uncharted land. He was bringing his ships back so full of gold, also, Columbus voyage brought together people of different culture, he is one of those who contributed to the current miscellaneous American culture of today describe as a salad bowl America has traditionally been referred to as a "melting pot," welcoming people from many different countries, races, and religions, all hoping to find freedom, new opportunities, and a better way of

To those critics, the year 1492 represented not just a major turning point in world history, but the starting gun for the destruction of native cultures. Exploration was quickly superseded by settlement and exploitation. War, slavery, disease, and death followed in their wake. The damage that Columbus ' voyages caused to Native American populations came in several forms. To find riches in the "New World," Columbus ' men committed acts of violence against the Native Americans, driving them off their land and taking their resources. Some Native Americans were forced into slavery. Thousands of others died from smallpox and other infections brought over by the European explorers. Since they had no prior exposure to the infectious agents that caused these diseases, Native Americans had no immunity and were thus highly