Q3: Why did the Columbian Exchange make it easier for the expansion of Europeans into the New World?
Understanding how the Columbian Exchange worked and why it was significant to both the Old World and New World is the most important conversation to have. The essay defines the Columbian Exchange as an “artificial re-establishment of connections through the commingling of Old and New World plants, animals, and bacteria.” The author is describing how the two different societies combined their food and animals for a cultural advantage, but also how germs negatively affected the New World. The Columbian Exchange made it easier for the expansion of Europeans into the New World. The crops that they found allowed them to have a new source of food in both the Old and New World. Old World animals found a “hospitable climate and terrain in North America” which made settling in the New World more practical. However, “the crucial factor was…germs” which killed New World people in such large numbers that the Europeans had no real resistance to settling in the New World. When the Europeans …show more content…
The New World “[did not] have the pathogens associated with the Old World’s dense populations of humans and … chickens, cattle, black rats, and Aedes egypti mosquitoes. Among these germs were those that carried smallpox, measles, chickenpox, influenza, malaria, and yellow fever.” Smallpox was one of the many diseases that killed a large number of Native Americans. According to the author, “the first recorded pandemic of [smallpox] in British North America detonated among the Algonquin of Massachusetts in the early 1630s.” With the deaths of Native Americans, the Europeans are able to control the resources in the area. As more Europeans settle in America, new populations of Native Americans are given diseases that set off more
Understanding how the Columbian Exchange worked and why it was significant to both the Old World and New World is the most important conversation to have. The essay defines the Columbian Exchange as an “artificial re-establishment of connections through the commingling of Old and New World plants, animals, and bacteria.” The author is describing how the two different societies combined their food and animals for a cultural advantage, but also how germs negatively affected the New World. The Columbian Exchange made it easier for the expansion of Europeans into the New World. The crops that they found allowed them to have a new source of food in both the Old and New World. Old World animals found a “hospitable climate and terrain in North America” which made settling in the New World more practical. However, “the crucial factor was…germs” which killed New World people in such large numbers that the Europeans had no real resistance to settling in the New World. When the Europeans …show more content…
The New World “[did not] have the pathogens associated with the Old World’s dense populations of humans and … chickens, cattle, black rats, and Aedes egypti mosquitoes. Among these germs were those that carried smallpox, measles, chickenpox, influenza, malaria, and yellow fever.” Smallpox was one of the many diseases that killed a large number of Native Americans. According to the author, “the first recorded pandemic of [smallpox] in British North America detonated among the Algonquin of Massachusetts in the early 1630s.” With the deaths of Native Americans, the Europeans are able to control the resources in the area. As more Europeans settle in America, new populations of Native Americans are given diseases that set off more