The Effects of The Columbian Exchange

I can say nowadays; South America or Latin America has a population of more than 450 million people (Rowntree). 50 years ago, the total of the population was not even half of today’s population (Rowntree). So, a lot of factors that took part of this theatrical increase of Latin America’s population like the natural increases and immigration. However, the native Latin American population has collapsed dramatically at the same time. Some of the reasons for loss of the indigenous population are caused by diseases, and starvation was an important factor in the rapid population decrease (Rowntree). Also, the arrival of the Spanish and the warfare impact of the population.

The original people who lived in South America called by Native Americans or Indigenous, as the word “Indians” was invented by Christopher Columbus who arrived there first (New World Encyclopedia). to clarify the collapse of Indians population, health was a major factor. Diseases like influenza and smallpox were responsible for more than fifty-percent of death incidents of the Indigenous (Rowntree). furthermore, the war with the Europeans affected the Native Americans.

According to the New World Encyclopedia Organization, the first group of Native Americans whom Columbus encountered them is the "Tainos". If Anyone did not die or not killed by the diseases was enslaved, until the culture got disappeared in 1650. Furthermore, it was apparently hard for the native people of Latin America to accept the fact that there are foreign people who come from another place to take their land and sources and tried either to kill them or enslave them, so what they did by defending their land from Columbus was natural even though they had no advanced weapons like the Europeans. As a result, the culture must extinct.

In addition to that, according to Learn NC Organization, one of the largest negative impacts of the Columbian Exchange is the new diseases that have never existed in South America like smallpox. Those kinds of diseases were brought by the animals from Europe which the Europeans were immunities from, but not the Native Americans.

Moreover, there are some positive results of the Columbian Exchange. For example, there are so many goods have transferred to Europe from South America, such as potatoes and peanut. Those kinds of foods never happened to be available in Europe, but because of the exchange, people can enjoy them anywhere in the world. Also, despite the diseases in past, having animals such as horses in South America count as a positive consequence and reason is that horses helped in increasing the quality of transportation at that time, instead of walking (Learn NC).