Positive And Negative Effects Of The Columbian Exchange

Every time that we think about our past and what made a significant impact in history, we can say that the Columbian Exchange made a major impact for many people. This expansive exchange that accumulated between the New and Old Worlds is said to be a transformative time in our history. In the times of the columbian exchange, there were many items of distribution that had been transferred between the Americas and the rest of the world. There were many significant people including Motolinía, Bartolomé de Las Casas and Christopher Columbus that were part of this expansive and adventerous exchange between worlds. Even today we still recognize these few people as either influential people or ones of negative influence. The Columbian Exchange …show more content…
After exchanges started to happen, there must have been both Europeans and any Western Hemisphere people who thought that the trading was all going well. They would go on to trade the plants, animals or technology, but sadly diseases became a negative consequence of trading between the New and Old World. Diseases such as smallpox and measles were being spread like no other and the sad part about all of this was that the Europeans did not understand the effects and just how devastating it could get. “Europeans brought smallpox and other diseases to the New World and diseases eventually killed off as much as 90 percent of the native population”(Walbert 2008). When the native people of these worlds do not have the knowledge for diseases, then they will be paying the price of smallpox or measles. Motolinía goes on to tell the people about the plagues that affected both the natives and foreigners. Smallpox started attacking the Indians and because they have never seen it before, they did not have any remedy for this horrible sickness. Motolinía did a lot of ministering and he experienced the first ravage disease to greatly impact the 16th