Alfred Crosby, Jared Diamond, David Jones, and Charles Mann use contradictory theories to analyze the components of disease, geography and environment and their impact on the era known as the “Columbian Exchange.” Although each historian reaches different conclusions about the particular environmental factors that most affected the New World’s society, culture, and economy, they all emphasize the unpredictable nature of cultural and biological contact while underscoring the influence of human interaction with the environment. Although they differ, Crosby, Diamond, Jones, and Mann each attempt to retell and reanalyze the impact of the “Columbian Exchange” that is not shaped by the traditional glorification of the white, European male. Specifically, while Crosby argues that disease was the primary agent that allowed European colonists to conquer the natives of the New World, Jones discusses how the environment, politics, and social factors contributed to the devastation caused by Native Americans’ exposure to diseases. Diamond deduces that geography determines the prosperity of a particular society and credits the success of a society with available agriculture and domesticable animals, while Mann writes about the unintended biological effects, particularly from malaria and tobacco, which boosted the homogenocene. Each theory exemplifies how human interaction between “old” and “new” environments produced multitudes of unforeseeable consequences such as disease and invasive plant and animal species. In addition to illustrating how human contact with new climates and cultures had the power to shape history, these theories also attempt to provide alternative historical narratives free from traditional racial constructs. Crosby hyp... ... middle of paper ... ... In conclusion, even though the theories posed by Crosby, Diamond, Jones, and Mann make different arguments about the factors that shaped the “Columbian Exchange” era have different approaches to overcoming racist history and utilize different persuasive techniques, they all highlight the unanticipated consequences of cultural and biological contact initiated by human interaction. Whether discussing malaria, tobacco, small pox, or immune systems, each historian recognizes the unanticipated changes that occur when foreign humans and environments meet. The fact that so many factors --biological, environmental, social, cultural, and economic -- have the power to destroy civilization, end wars, and even lead to slavery, illustrates how globalization and human interaction between other humans and environments can have very different outcomes than initially expected.
Some consequences of the exchange are the spread of disease to the Native people and settlers, the destruction of the Native population, and the disappearance of the Natives custom’s, beliefs, and way of life. Columbus’s arrival to the Americas, land that had already been established by the Natives, resulted in a spread of fatal diseases. Disagreement between the Europeans and the Natives and the enslavement of Native people helped to wipe out the population. Document 5 illustrates the fighting that occurred between the Natives and Europeans.
Indian Givers How the Indians of the Americas transformed the world. This paper tries to explain Jack Weatherford's Indian Givers by examining the history of the Native American connection to many agricultural products that would not have been produced without the knowledge that Indians gave. Weatherford further stipulates that it is through these advances in agriculture that the United States has remained a strong contender in the global market, that without the influences of the Native Americans on the early settlers those early immigrants to America would not have survived. Through his work, "Indian Givers: How Indians of the Americas Transformed the World", Weatherford brings an insight to a people that most individuals have neglected to consider. The paper concludes that it is Weatherford's purpose to demonstrate that Native Americans have been a misrepresented and forgotten people when the history of North America is discussed.
The discovery of America to the rest of the world, otherwise known as “Columbian Encounter”, was one of the majestic period in the European history. But nonetheless it was a starting to a tragic end for the Native Americans. Axtell calls attention to how the term, encounter, is largely a misfit in this situation because the
Viola, Herman J. and Carolyn Martolis., ed. Seeds of Change: Five Hundred Years Since Columbus. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.
In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.
I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel in the Fall 2003 based on a recommendation from a friend. Many chapters of the book are truly fascinating, but I had criticisms of the book back then and hold even more now. Chief among these is the preponderance of analysis devoted to Papua New Guinea, as opposed to, say, an explanation of the greatly disparate levels of wealth and development among Eurasian nations. I will therefore attempt to confine this review on the "meat and potatoes" of his book: the dramatic Spanish conquest of the Incas; the impact of continental geography on food production; and finally, the origins of the Eurasian development of guns, germs, and steel. In terms of structure, I will first summarize the book's arguments, then critically assess the book's evidentiary base, and conclude with an analysis of how Guns, Germs, and Steel ultimately helps to address the wealth question.
Columbian Exchange, which also call the Grand Exchange, is an exchange of animals, crops, pollution (European and African), culture, infectious diseases and ideology between the eastern and western hemisphere in 15th and 16th centuries. Alfred W. Crosby first proposed this concept in his book “ The Columbian Exchange”, which published in 1972.
The reactions of sheer shock and awe is used by the author to support the thesis by demonstrating the brilliance of the society that existed in the Americas before Columbus relative to to Europe and the society Columbus brought to America. An additional way Charles C. Mann supports his thesis is explaining why the natives were defeated if their society was so advanced. Precisely, he stated that disease was why the native society fell: “The People of the First Light could avoid or adapt to European technology but not European disease. Their societies were destroyed by weapons their opponents could not control and did not even know they had”(70). A common reason for disagreeing with the author’s thesis is that the natives could not have been so advanced if they were so easily dispatched by the European people. Fortunately, Charles C. Mann addresses this issue furthering his thesis that advanced society existed in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus by stating it was not the society of the Europeans that was more advanced but rather the uncontrollable spread of disease by the Europeans. A final way Charles C.
To return to the original question of what would have happened if the new world would have attempted to colonize the old, I believe it’s important to point out that the premises presented in this paper remain constant regardless of which hemisphere initiated contact. The new world’s lack of resistance to the diseases introduced by the old set them up to be on the losing end of one of the most uneven deals in modern human history: trading corn for smallpox.
“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
The Europeans colonized most of America because they saw the land they had available where they could expand their influence on the world. Also, they were able to establish colonies that sent raw materials home which would make them money. Through the analysis of Jared Diamonds video Guns, Germs, and Steel, this essay will show that the Europeans were able to conquer the Native American’s so easily because of their geography, weapons, and diseases.
Concluding, the significance of the Columbian exchange greatly impacted what we know of life today. The major impacts that have shaped what we know of the world today happened during the Colombian exchange. The major impacts of the Colombian exchange was Christianity that led to the rise of the Catholic Church, new food crops and domesticated animals that improved the Europeans and American living, new military technology such as weapons and horses, slavery of the natives and Africans and diseases that drastically harmed the different ethnic groups. Colombian Exchange between the old world and the new world still holds a drastic impact on the world today. If we didn’t have these influences then the world would be completely changed. Trading still continues today and has made an impact all over the world.
The prevailing opinion is that European explorers came to the America’s to peacefully colonize and gradually begin mutually beneficial relationships with the native people. However, Howard Zinn proves that the majority of explorers could not coexist with the native tribes, as the conquerors slowly stole their land, and did not return the initial hospitality most of the natives had showed to them. Therefore, the European colonizers blatantly ignored the rights of the Native Americans and acted with violence towards them. In order to conquer the natives, the colonizers “set fire to the wigwams of the village” and “ [destroyed] their crops” (Zinn).
In his essay, “The Indians’ Old World,” Neal Salisbury examined a recent shift in the telling of Native American history in North America. Until recently, much of American history, as it pertains to Native Americans; either focused on the decimation of their societies or excluded them completely from the discussion (Salisbury 25). Salisbury also contends that American history did not simply begin with the arrival of Europeans. This event was an episode of a long path towards America’s development (Salisbury 25). In pre-colonial America, Native Americans were not primitive savages, rather a developing people that possessed extraordinary skill in agriculture, hunting, and building and exhibited elaborate cultural and religious structures.
In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were