The Columbian Exchange

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The Columbian Exchange The Columbian Exchange created different impacts on the populations in the old and new world. The Columbian Exchange was the global diffusion of plants, food crops animals, human populations, and disease pathogens that took place after the voyages of exploration by Christopher Columbus and other European mariners. (Jerry H. Bentley, 2010) With the Columbian Exchange involving lands with different flora, fauna, and diseases. With the various species in the different hemispheres being evolved around separate lines, the European voyages permanently altered the world’s human geography and natural environment. Between the Americas and the Pacific islands, small pox, but measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, and influenza took heavy tolls on many people. In the western hemisphere, before the voyages, none of the people acquired or possessed those diseases, but in the eastern hemisphere, they were endemic. When these infectious diseases traveled to unexposed populations, it set-off terrible epidemics that destroyed entire societies. In 1519, the epidemic smallpox took over the Aztec empire. Imported diseases took the worst tolls in less populated areas like the Aztec and Inca empires. These diseases were so easily transmissible that they hit areas before the first European explorers even arrived in the areas. When the epidemic diseases finally arrived in the Pacific islands, it had the same terrifying affects as the Americas. When it came to food and crops, the Columbian exchange increased the human population because of the spread of food crops and animals that it sponsored. A nourished world was an important factor in the growth of the world’s population, which began in the 18th century. (Jerry H. Bentley, 2010) The food consisted of wheat, rice, sugar, bananas, apples, cherries, peaches, and many other fruits. Yams,
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