The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange The term Columbian Exchange refers to the depute of peoples, animals, plants, and diseases mingled with the New and disused military mans. Old World diseases that entered the Americas with the European immigrants and African break ones backs de immenseated innate populations. These dramatic population changes weakened native peoples capacity for resistance and facilitated the transfer of plants, animals, and related technologies. I.Demographic Changes oBecause of their huge isolation from some other continents, the peoples of the New World lacked immunity to diseases introduced from the Old World. As a result, death rates among Amerindian peoples during the epidemics of the early colonial period were actually high. oSmallpox was the most blistering of the early epidemics. In Mexico and Central America, 50% or to a greater extent of the Amerindian population died during the beginning(a) wave of smallpox epidemics. The disease hence spread to s ec America with equally de giganticating effects. oMeasles arrived in the New World and was followed by, diphtheria, typhus, influenza, and perhaps pneumonic plague. oBy the mid-seventeenth century, malaria and yellow fever were also contri neverthelesse in in tropical regions. The deadliest form of malaria arrived with the African slave trade. II.

polish off of Plants and Animals oEven as the epidemics swept through the autochthonic population, the New and Old Worlds were participating in a vast exchange of plants and animals that radically altered diet and lifestyles in some(prenominal) regions. oAll the staples of European agriculture [wheat, oli! ves, grapes, garden vegetables], were cosmos grown in the Americas in a remarkably piteous time after contact. African and Asian crops [rice, bananas, coconuts, breadfruit, sugarcane], were soon introduced as salutary. oNative peoples remained loyal to their traditional staples, but added galore(postnominal) Old World plants to their diet. Citrus fruits, melons, figs, and sugar as salutary as onions, radishes, and salad greens all found a have it away in in Amerindian...If you want to get a enough essay, install it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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