Between the time period of 1492 to 1750, the regions of America and Africa, through the Columbian exchange, had experienced similarities in the spread of crops, people, and diseases, but differences when it came to the reason for change in population density, environmental change, and change of local ethnicities. The first similarity between the regions of America and Africa was the spread of new crops. In America, crops such as bananas and sugarcane had found their way to the region and became heavily cultivated. Evenmore so, livestock had spread like wildfire through the americas, particularly domesticated animals such as cows, sheep, and pigs, and this was due to the fact that the Americas were largely free of natural predators. Similarly, Africa had received crops such as corn and maize had reached the …show more content…
This had allowed for Africa’s population to rapidly grow. The second similarity was the spread of people. In both the Americas and Africa, groups of people were moved from there originally homes to another area, usually to be forced to work manual labor until their deaths. For instance, in the Americas, many natives were forced to work in the deadly silver mines where they faced the dangers of cave-ins, limited oxygen, and mercury poisoning. Similarly, in Africa, millions upon millions of people were taken from their homelands over the course of centuries, and then forced to work as slaves in the Americas under terrible conditions. Finally, both the region of the Americas and Africa had suffered through the spread of new diseases. In the Americas, foreign diseases such as smallpox had wiped out the natives to such a point that not until the late-seventeenth century did their
Diamond wrote this book to answer the question of a New Guinean politician, Yali. He asked “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own.” Diamond set out to find the answer to this question, to find out why history unfolded like it did. Diamond credits the inequalities in history to differences in environments not biological differences as so many people like to say. Most of the advantages the Europeans had were a direct result of geography. The main points that Diamond attributes to European dominance are early plant and animal domestication and as a result of close contact to animals the deadliest germs were given to the Europeans. As result of its East-West axis the diffusion of food production, technologies, humans and ideas were easily spread throughout Europe. The axis mean that there were similar climatic, geographic, and disease conditions to migrants and no barriers. So anything that could be grown in one area was sure to quickly spread and thrive in the neighboring locations. Moreover, political administration, economic exchanges, incentive for exploration and conquest, and making information available to every individual were facilitated after the development of writing.
“As European adventurers traversed the world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they initiated the “Columbian Exchange” of plants, animals, and diseases.”(P. 26). The Columbian Exchange refers to a period of exchanges between the New and Old Worlds. The exchange of plants, animals, diseases and more modernized technology, beginning after Columbus landing in the Americas in 1492. It lasted through the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Domesticated animals such as cattle, horses, sheep and pigs were introduced to the Americas. The Americas introduced to Europe many new crops such as potatoes, beans, squash, and maize. In time Native people learned to raise European livestock and European and Africans planted American crops. This was the positive effect of the encounter and it was largely responsible for the doubling of the world’s population in the next three hundred years. There were also many negative effects to the “Columbian Exchange” A major consequence was the spread of disease in the New World. Diseases carried by Europeans and Africans devastated the population of the Americas. As Europeans traveled through the Americas epidemics came with them. Typhus, diphtheria, malaria, influenza, cholera, and smallpox killed many of the native people. One example was
Analyze the major similarities and difference among European, Native American and African societies. What was the European impact on the peoples and the environment of the Americas and Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
The Columbian exchange was the widespread transfer of various products such as animals, plants, and culture between the Americas and Europe. Though most likely unintentional, the byproduct that had the largest impact from this exchange between the old and new world was communicable diseases. Europeans and other immigrants brought a host of diseases with them to America, which killed as much as ninety percent of the native population. Epidemics ravaged both native and nonnative populations of the new world destroying civilizations. The source of these epidemics were due to low resistance, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical knowledge- “more die of the practitioner than of the natural course of the disease (Duffy).” These diseases of the new world posed a serious
The Spread of Disease In the New World The extraordinary good health of the natives prior to the coming of the Europeans would become a key ingredient in their disastrous undoing. The greatest cause of disease in America was epidemic diseases imported from Europe. Epidemic diseases killed with added virulence in the " virgin soil" populations of the Americas. The great plague that arose in the Old World never emerged on their own in the western hemisphere and did not spread across oceans until Columbus' discovery.
How did the development of European colonies in the Americas alter the natural environment? (The Earth and Its Peoples, 474)
African slaves were brought to the America’s by the millions in the 17th and 18th century. The Spanish and British established lucrative slave trades within Africa and populated their new territories with captured and then enslaved Africans. The British brought the slaves to their new colonies in North America to work on the large plantations and the Spanish and Portuguese brought the slaves to South America. Slavery within North and South America had many commonalities yet at the same time differences between the two institutions.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a service that transported around twelve and a half million men, women, and children to be bought and sold as slaves by countries mostly in the New World, like the United States of America. (The Transatlantic Slave Trade) The Portuguese were the first to bring African slaves over to the new world, but it quickly caught on over the years. Around 80% of the slaves that came across the Atlantic ended up in Brazil or the Caribbean Islands while only 7% wound up in the United States.(Ross) With the climate being completely different in South America, Europeans found it extremely hard to work and were not used to the living conditions so they contracted diseases. Unlike Europeans, the African slaves were capable of handling the climate and were used to working hard. (How Many Slaves Came to America? Fact vs. Fiction.) The reason the Transatlantic Slave Trade worked for many years was because it had a triangular trade form where Africa would send slaves over to America who would send the products of the slave labor over to Europe who would send ammunition and weapons back to Africa. There have been over 30,000 documented trips from Africa to the Americas. The trip from Africa to America lasted about three months by ships. This was called the middle passage, where a large amount of slaves died from malnutrition
Many years ago, continental drift took the Old and New Worlds apart, dividing North and South America from Eurasia and Africa. That disconnection lasted so long that it fostered divergent evolution; for example, the growth of rattlesnakes on one side of the Atlantic. Subsequently 1492, human travelers in part altered this propensity. Their reestablishment of relationships through the merge of Old and New World plants, creatures, and diseases, frequently known as the Columbian Exchange. It’s one of the most spectacular and significant ecological events of the past millennium.
Native Americans were abused by Spanish officials when the Spanish invaded their lands. In an attempt to control the attacks of the Native Americans, they enlisted fear into the minds of the Indians.
Europeans were deemed poor candidates for slavery due to their higher mortality rates. In 17th century, the New World was going through Public Health crisis. European immigration to the New World influenced the transmission of unknown epidemic diseases in American colonies. Warm climate in American colonies also became det...
Prior to the arrival of European traders, the continent of Africa had developed sophisticated society as it demonstrated its ability to maintain advanced civilizations, withhold three major empires, and gain wealth through trade. Although European traders did advance organized society in Africa, it would be false to say that prior to their arrival Africa was underdeveloped.
...South America and became important export crops in West Africa in the 20th century. While little information was provided on our specific topic, this source was useful for the information of the Columbian Exchange.
Europe and Africa have been linked together in evaluating the state formation process. Both regions have similarities, strengths, weaknesses, and room for improvement. To this day both regions are far from perfect. Some light can be shed on this subject, by evaluating Europe and Africa’s state formation process, evaluating what party benefits, and briefly explaining two economic consequences of European colonialism in Africa.
As the Europeans started to invade Africa and split up the land, they paid no attention to the already existing natural boundaries. Over time, villages with different cultures had set these boundaries. The Europeans ignored these invisible borders as they invaded. This caused soci...