Columbus's paradoxical legacy

Columbus’s paradoxical legacy; the world he creative?

Columbus discovers America in 1492 in his first voyage. He believed that the world was round. He convinces queen Isabella of Spain to found his voyage to find a route to India. But when he arrived to what he thought was India or islands close to India, he had found a New World. Where there positive and/or negative consequences to Columbus arrive to the New World?

One of the positive things that Columbus brought with him was the trade of new food. The new food that was brought to Europe, which had been cultivated by the Indians, was now popular there. Some of these foods were corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate, and peanuts, vanilla and so on. But so was America with European plants. These were new to the Americas and transformed its soil to the plants needs. Some plants were sugar, ginger, cardamom and almonds. There was another positive thing happening, the introduction of animals. For Europe the turkey was one of the most popular animals brought from the New World. For America cattle and pigs were some of the animals brought from Europe. There was also transformation in some of the animals from Europe to America like the horse. In North America the horse was reintroduce to the Indians but this time the Indians used it as transportation to catch the buffalo and other animals. A new wilder bred of horses appeared which was the mustang.

One negative thing that Columbus brought to America was death and diseases. This death and diseases were introduced by the Europeans that came to the Americas to explore and conquer. They also brought animals with them such as the pigs and the cows. This created a problem for the Indians because they did not have the natural immune system that the Europeans had form these diseases. Imagine the chicken pox, or the common cold killing the natives. Approximately 50 to 90% of the Indians were gone in less than a century when Columbus came to the Americas. This also created a new problem for the Europeans; there was a reduction in the Indian workers force. They needed to use a new work force—here comes the Africans that were brought as slaves to the Americas.

One point that was positive and negative at the same time was the treatment of the land. It was positive for the Europeans that came to America because there was space, something that they didn’t have in Europe for some time. The Europeans also compared America as the “Garden of Eden” or “God’s knew Creation”. Also they saw as opportunity to make a living for themselves and for their families in this New World better than in the Old World. They cut trees to make their homes in the new world and made the boats to fish in their new world. They also changed the land for their agriculture and farming. The negative in the sense is to the Indians and the native animals that lived there. The Indians were pushed off their lands

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