The Columbian Exchange Essay Example

The Columbian Exchange had a major impact on the Americas by bringing together different cultures by migrations of the Europeans and Enslaved Africans. They also introduced new crops to the Europeans and domesticated animals to the Natives while introducing them to diseases. As a result of the Americas being first settled by people from Siberia, who then remained isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years, they were susceptible to foreign diseases. With the Natives being killed by diseases like smallpox they began turning to African slave labor. The Europeans would also attempt to convert the Natives to their people’s religion. For example, the Spanish tried converting the natives to be Protestant and set up social classes. 

New forms of forced labor were added as a result of the Columbian Exchange. The Europeans used indentured servants mostly when they first arrived in the Americas and traded with the Natives to survive. Later they would begin using Natives as slaves but they would die of diseases brought by the Europeans. They would then turn to the cruel slave trade because the number of indentured servants had been declining due to the life in Europe improving. The Colonies would send raw materials to Europe while they would send manufactured goods to Africa and they would send slaves to the colonies. Many of these slaves worked on plantation sites and the Caribbean islands. On these islands, sugarcane was grown and processed by forced slaves.

And the Americas New social rankings resulted from the Columbian Exchange. An example of this is the Spanish caste system. At the top of the caste system were people of pure Spanish descent born in Spain. Next were the Creoles who are pure Spanish people born in the Americas. Next were the Mestizos who are people of Creole and Native American descent. Together with the mestizos were mulattoes who were people of Spanish conquistador descent and African slaves. At the bottom were the African and Native slaves who weren’t allowed to get any form of education and were used to move Spain to the most wealthy country in Europe. They would Also use the encomienda system. It gave Spanish people native slaves to find gold granted by the crown. The Spanish were also required to inform the native slaves about Christianity 

The Columbian Exchange brought new ideas into the Americas. Different forms of Christianity were brought to the Americas and forced the Natives to convert. Some of the Natives instead of converting maintained some of their existing cultures while converting. Also with the introduction of African slaves, it added another culture that mixed in with European and Native culture. With the introduction of African culture came new forms of music and religious traditions. The Europeans also brought over ideas of Enlightenment that gave people like slaves and indentured servants ideas of equal rights that would lead to revolts against their owners.