Essay On The Effects Of European Exploration Of The Americas

Although European exploration lead to the findings of many natural resources, the treatment of the Native people living in the New World was horrible and does not justify it. Exploration began around1492, when Christopher Columbus “discovered” North America. His discovery, however, is not one of true meaning due to the fact that there were already 40 to 50 million natives living there already. Along with Columbus were many other European explorers that set out to find things such as god, gold, and glory. These macho explorers were greedy and ruthless.

Prior to the discovery of the New World by Europeans, Native Americans populated what is presently North and South America in massive numbers; however, due to massive population loss, mainly caused by diseases introduced by Europeans and Africans, the Native Americans were unfortunately forced to live as inferiors to the Europeans. A major issue that faced native populations of the New World was the fact that the Europeans introduced foreign animals that carried diseases the natives had never seen before. Specifically in Mexico and Peru, the natives had alpacas and llamas in small and isolated groups, so diseases were not able to originate in them [McNeil 178]. On the other hand, the animals that the Europeans brought over, such as cattle,

All they wanted was to be rich and have a better life. There were many Indian ambushes. J. Fredrick Fauz reports that of the 120 men stationed near the falls, the indians kill “neere halfe”. It was very hard for the Indians because suddenly they had to share their natural resources with these new people. Dennis B. Blankton assesses that “the island is not situated at a point of great natural food abundance.” Colonists and Indians had a very rough relationship and it resulted in many wars and many deaths for both the colonists and the

But as The Europeans got more established on the continents and the Native American population plummeted from European diseases they found out that they were easy pray that could be easily supressed and dismantled from their homes. As the European claimed more land the Natives got angry. The Natives raided small settlements in attempts to scare off the Settlers but their attacks were pitiful compared to the retaliation. Large empires got dismantled by disease and technological superiority and the Natives were relocated westward. As USA Became independent they kept going claiming more land as they expanded westwards.

It benefited only few and those of which were the Spanish who conquered the land only until much after the conquest. It did not benefit the Spanish because once they conquered the land it states in the book "Soon after conquest Spanish America came to rely on silver mines for foreign exchange and Portuguese Brazil on sugar. Gold, found in many parts of Spanish America, was discovered in Brazil just before 1700" (Lane, Restall 67). They had to depend on other sources for gold and sugar. Even after they came across problems such as slaves revolting against them, problems with the maroons, and/or runaways.

Zumarraga’s and other activists actions, over time, pushed for the removal of such practice except for northern parts of Mexico, after all, the lands were not going to work itself to produce the wealth the Spaniards required. The newly acquired lands needed to produce profits sans high cost of production, resulted in the most logical alternative: free labor, and who better than the native Indians and in the later later years, Africans, who were eventually imported by the masses, to carry out these functions? The Spaniards undoubtedly enjoyed the authority they were granted providing their share of profits be made to the crown. They felt a sense of entitlement and invisibility, as they were men, part of a society of conquerors, and in some ways regarded themselves as “owners of the known world”. In Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz poem ‘Arraignment of Men” points out the duplicity regarding men’s innate need to control and condemn others for the same fallacies they themselves exhibit, “You men are such foolish breed, appraising with a faulty rule, the first you charge with being cruel, the second easy you decree”

Diseases only found in the European world, such as smallpox, spread to the Americas due to people migrating with these diseases. Since natives did not have diseases like these, they were easily killed off by them. These diseases ended up killing 90 percent of the population native to America. The large number of deaths allowed the conquistadors to greatly outnumber indigenous people and easily capture the now weak tribes. Some may point out that the American diseases must have also affected the Europeans.

Once the European settlers showed up, the way of war changed drastically. The settlers brought with them deadly diseases which wiped out thousands of Indians. This caused the tradition of Mourning Wars to shift from sporadic ones, to instead become a constant battle to regain lost lives. This caused a large strain on Indian society, now relying on war to regain population and creating a more violent

One of those people being Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said that our nation is not just about our great army or our forts but it’s about liberty for all people,everywhere not just here in America and by expanding America lost thought of that. He also said that the people who take away freedom from others don’t deserve the freedom they have. Secondly, the US didn’t want any different cultures or language other than our language and culture however, they got Hawaii,Alaska,China and Japan which all ahve differnt languages and cultures. Lastly, by expanding they broke the trust of some of the nations and drained them of their liberty and freedom that Americans claim is what the US is all about.

These people had lived in North America for millions of years, but when the Europeans began to explore this newfound land, the Native Americans were treated as inferior humans who had absolutely no value. They were ripped from their homes, killed, or forced to move elsewhere no matter how it would poorly affect their lives. Though this did not negatively impact Britain, it was a huge negative impact of their imperialism as a whole. Millions of Native Americans were killed in the process of establishing an imperial relationship between America and Europe. In one instance, the British settlers purposefully infected an entire large native tribe with small-pox so that they could conquer the land of the natives (Burch).

Europeans had travelled to the Americas with intentions of finding gold as well as convert the inhabitants to Christianity. Many Native Americans were not given a choice and were forced to convert to the new religion and give up their traditional beliefs which created many tensions between the Old and New World.John Mair“argued that some people were by nature slaves, and some by nature free (Watson 446).” Because the Native Americans were a less developed civilization, they lacked the power to protest the European invasion and were forced into slavery which further weakened their already existing society as they had to focus on simply surviving against the foreign invaders. But not all shared the view of Native Americans as backwards and uncivilized. “Using Aristotle as his guide, Las Casas examined the Indian from the physical and the moral standpoint, which marks his essay as perhaps the first exercise in comparative cultural anthropology.” He compared the political, social, and religious arrangements of European cultures with those of Native American tribes and determined that although they were different, they were not inferior. “He paid proper due to the quality of Aztec, Inca and Mayan art and observed their ability to assimilate European ideas and practices that they found

The Spanish saw the natives as inferior and In need of Christianity. The settlers mistreated the natives even though the laws back in Spain declared justice in dealing with the natives. the Spanish saw the natives abundance of gold and that they were not Christian, and they felt justified in mistreating them because they thought they were helping them religiously

The British in particular were not seeking to save souls or to enlighten the people of the pacific, they were looking to create trade and profits. The Russians started expanding eastward and by 1680 they reached the edge of Siberia; Kamchatka, which eventually become the port for the later expeditions to the northwestern parts of America. The Russians like the Spaniards had a particular way of treating native people. When describing the native people of Siberia, the Russians said “Only in the power of speech do they differ from animals” (Taylor pg. 447).

I believe that the Indian Removal Act is a step in the wrong direction because we were not treating the Native Americans like human beings, it went against the constitution, and jackson wanted to build a wall to separate. We the Americans treated the Native Americans as if they were animals. Others might says that they were in our land or that we wanted it because the gold there was our gold not their gold. Truth is they did not want it for the gold they wanted it because that is where there ancestors died and are buried there. They were living there so we can 't just tell people that they can not live somewhere and rip them out of their land and

The worst infectious disease which annihilated almost all of the Native American people was Small Pox. Small Pox was an Old World disease which was very contagious, disfiguring, and often deadly. The people of the Americas had no exposure to this kind of disease so when it struck them, they didn’t understand what it was, or how to cure it. So, when the old world people entered Americas, they bought their plants, animals and diseases which they already had exposure to, leading to their population growth, in contrast to Americas where the population declined due to lack to exposure to Old World life. In conclusion, the Columbian exchange changed the way of life of people in both the Worlds.