Christopher Columbus Impact On Native Americans

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As I’m sure many of us are aware, Christopher Columbus is a famed Italian explorer who discovered the New World, which is also known as America, on an expedition sponsored by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, in 1492.
1 Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 , near Genoa, in what is now Italy. 2 Christopher first went to sea at the tender age 14 and participated in several trading voyages in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas ( “Christopher Columbus” ). He eventually met and married his wife Felipa Moniz in Lisbon. Through Felipa’s connections he was able to gain access to Prince Henrys collection of explorers’ maps, and information regarding sailing the Atlantic ocean. Like other Europeans …show more content…

During the exchange, plants, animals, ideas and even diseases were exchanged. Due to the exchange of diseases, such as smallpox, measles, influenza etc., majority of the native Americans decimated. One reason why the diseases had such a huge impact on the Native Americans was due to the fact that the Native Americans did not have any immunity against them. In order for a person to be immune against a disease, the person’s body must be exposed to the disease before it is able produce antibodies against it. The Europeans had already been exposed to those diseases before, and had survived, so therefor had antibodies against them. The Native Americans that did manage to survive were attacked, repeatedly, by the many different kinds of diseases that were bought through the exchange, until they fell victim to one of the diseases. . What started out as a population of almost 722,000, soon dwindled to a mere 36,450. In the long term, these diseases were decisive in transforming the dominant people of the New World from descendants of Asians, who had inhabited the hemisphere for millennia, to descendants of European and Africans, the arrivals from the New World (Roark et al, 40). What started out as a simple quest to find a route to Asia, ended up much bigger than anyone could have ever imagined.
It is through dreams, adventures, wars , countless deaths, and much more that our country is what it is today. Let us not forget those people who had lived in these lands before us , those who had gladly shared and those who were killed because of mans greed. Let us not forget the Native American who are the true Americans of America, and who had to suffer in order for us to be where we are today. 2 Works Cited "Christopher Columbus."

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