Exploration always has negative effects on those being explored. Two major periods of exploration were very close to each other and they involved the exploration of the Americas and Africa's. Consequences of exploration in the Americas included constant battles over gold, slavery, and entire populations being wiped out from foreign disease. The consequences of exploration in Africa included families and villages suffering loss due to slavery, harsh conditions on voyage to America, hard labor for little to no pay, harsh treatment from owners.
The age of exploration started with one Spanish man by the name of Christopher Columbus from 1460-1521. He stormed the Americas claiming lands in the name of Spain, God, and gold. Columbus when first exploring reached the Americas thinking he had hit the East Indies. Instead he reached a Caribbean island and named the natives Indians. These ‘Indians’ were defenseless against everything the Europeans brought because everything they brought was bigger and better than what the Natives had. Although the Spanish Crown had instructed to use diplomacy before force the explorers and their armies were very aggressive. Occasionally the Europeans had brought big dogs with them to fight off any unfriendly Indians. “Native villages were plundered, women raped, and people taken into slavery. One tactic was to lure the tribal chief into the Spanish council and hold him hostage until their demands were met.”(Gale) These tactics often would the explorers up in situations where they were at war with the Natives. This almost ensured that exploration of the Americas was going to have negative effects.
The Americas were the first to be explored. The biggest factor to why exploration had negative effe...
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...is also a small population of people alive now who are descendants of Native Americans because 90% of their population was wiped out years ago. Transitioning back to Africa, even today Africa is a poor country that has been able to slowly develop because of the tragedy exploration caused them. Initially, a nation being the United States was constructed and thrived of of human labor for almost 400 years.
Works Cited
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"Spanish Presence in the Americas." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History: War. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Student Resources in Context. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
Watts, Sarah L., Dr. "Africa and the Americas In the Age of European Exploration."Africa and the Americas. Wake Forest University, 2001. Web. 12 Jan. 2014.
The article “Navigating the Age of Exploration” by Ted Widmer explains how people view American history with only the assumptions pertaining to the present boundaries of the United States instead of seeing the world as explorers did during the Age of Exploration and expanding our boundaries to understand America’s history more fully. Widmer points out that many teachers of American history don’t teach a full continental perspective extending beyond American borders, which doesn’t give credit to the various cultures that contributed to the foundation of the United States. Today, people know little about the contributions of explorers during the Age of Exploration, and their impacts on America. During the Age of Exploration, the Europeans created
Mazrui, Ali A. "The Re-Invention of Africa: Edward Said, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond." Research in African Literatures 36, no. 3 (Autumn 2005): 68-82.
Rodney, Walter, A.M Babu, and Vincent Harding. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, D.C.: Howard UP, 1981. Print.
American history is accompanied by a long list of explorers who first discovered and who explored the massive continent. All of the explorers had an impact on the development of America. The Lewis and Clark expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, stands prominently at the top part of this list. The Lewis and Clark Expedition has had a significant political, social, and economic effect on America. They were the first to map out the west and set off westward expansion. Without the success of the expedition growth of America would have taken five times as long, as predicted by Thomas Jefferson.
Wheatley, Phillis. "On Being Brought From Africa to America.” Baym, The Norton Anthology of American Literature 751-53.
The Spaniards arrived at the Americas prior to the English. The Spanish mainly wanted to explore in the first place because after the Black Death, the population increased, and thus, so did the frequency of commerce. There was a sudden new interest in new products and the new strong monarchs who sponsored the journeys wanted to be more affluent. Therefore, explorers such as Christopher Columbus attempted to go west to target Asia. However, he ended up on Cuba and called the natives Indians. The Spanish soon started to consider the Americas less of a blockage and could now see it as a source of resources. In 1518, Cortes arrived into Mexico with his group of conquistadors, or conquerors, which is a proper name because the men after gold exterminated native areas using their military skills, brutality and greed to turn the Southern America into a vast Spanish empire. The smallpox the Spanish unknowingly carried also helped wipe many people out. When they saw the religious ceremonies of the Aztecs that produced many skulls, they thought of these people as savages and not entirely human. This of coarse was quite hypocritical because the Spanish have killed before during the Inquisition for their faith. It was this contempt that made them think it was all right to slaughter the natives. Spanish colonies were established when conquistadors had gotten a license to finance the expedition from the crown to fixture encomiendas. These encomiendas were basically Indian villages that became a source of labor. The Spanish dreamed of becoming wealthier from South America, but they also wanted a profitable agricultural economy and to spread their Catholic religion (the Pueblo Indians converted to Christianity), which became very important in the 1540s.
Around the beginning of the 15th century until the end of the 18th century, during the Age of Exploration, Europeans began exploring the world by sea to extend their power in the Americas, Middle East, Africa, and were in search of new trading routes, wealth, knowledge, and later on colonizing to control over the indigenous people of the area. A product of this is conquistadors, who are leaders of Spanish conquests of America and conquered territory mostly in Mexico and Peru. Though conquistadors expedition were successful in extending the Spanish control in the Americas, the process was tedious. The conquistadores, were more interested in searching for gold and the fighting aspect instead of governance, which lead some conquistadors and adventures
Many explorers came to America in the 1500’s and the 1600’s. This time period was called The Age of Discovery or the Age of Exploration. Many Europeans came to The New World for gold, slaves, more land, and to find a trade route to Asia. One of the many explorers that came was Juan Ponce de Leon. Juan Ponce came to the New World to find gold and more land. Juan Ponce was the first European to land in Florida and he named it and colonized it.
Trupin, James E. West Africa - A Background Book from Ancient Kingdoms to Modern Times, Parent's Magazine Press. New York, 1991.
In the years leading up to and including 1491 European explorers had been researching and studying the world, however they lacked a real understanding of the true size and geography of our planet. When explorers finally began setting out on their expeditions in the late 1400’s, the world began to experience serious change. Before Columbus is credited with the discovery of America in 1492, the Americas were untouched by Europeans, but within a few hundred years permanent settlements would be founded on American soil despite the presence of the native people.
Exploration and Colonization impacted the native peoples in positive and negative ways. These positive and negative impacts include religion, disease, and technology. These expeditions were occurring during the time that many European nations started searching for new trade routes and started spreading their influence to many new cultures. These people had their way of life, but the Europeans thought their way was better so they pushed their ways on the natives. Some Europeans had good relations with natives, but others did not.
European Exploration discovered parts of the world that no one even dreamed about existing. It created new trade routes, improved technology, and spread religion to the new world. Explorers like Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and others helped further our education on the globe and its other continents. Without these explorers and their expeditions we might not have the knowledge and advancements we have today.
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 "DBQ Project" What Is the Driving Force Behind European Imperialism in Africa? (2012): 257. pp. 177-177. Print.
European exploration brought many new ideas and practices to the world. Europeans exploration discoveries brought negative and positive impacts to the society they were building. The explorations was a success for many countries, but it also was a loss for a lot of Native Americans people. The exploration started a new mankind, it gave countries and people items they never had. The discovery of new world was a big impacts from the European exploration. Countries were now fighting over lands and the resources that were on the land. Slavery and the Columbian change were also big impacts from the exploration. The world changed because of these three big impacts of the European explorations. There