African American Social Influence

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Europe quickly became the dominant region over the economic aspects of the Columbian Exchange, however their social influence in the Americas and Africa developed slower during the time period of 1492 to 1750. In the mid-fifteenth century, European interest in Africa expanded from goods to incorporate slaves. Europeans began to take over African civilizations and keep natives as their slaves. This was not a new practice to keep war captives as slaves. However the Europeans began to export these African slaves across the globe to established colonies in both North and South America for the first time. This impacted the European economy because they forced the African slaves to do different kinds of agricultural work, including farming and…show more content…
Since Europeans were experiencing great economic gain, because they had the slaves and native peoples working for them, European countries with established colonies in the Americas began to become increasingly richer. This sparked a social change since an increase in finances led to an increase the power that kings and authority figures in Europe possessed. However, a negative social aspect that occurred due to Europeans immigrating to the Americas was that they brought diseases from their home countries that the native peoples weren’t exposed to before. This caused a devastating decrease in the population of the Native Americans throughout this time…show more content…
The largest continuity experienced during this time was the idea of exploration and expansion. Spurred by Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492, others countries, besides Spain, began to send their own fleets and voyages over to the New World to claim land for their mother countries. The strong demand that European countries still had for sugar and raw materials was another reason that journeys across the Atlantic took place. As those raw materials were gathered and sent back to Europe, the idea of mercantilism became increasingly prominent towards the end of the 16th century, especially in the North American
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