This disease killed tens of thousands of Indians in the New World. Syphilis was the most deadly disease for the Europeans. This was a disease that was transmitted sexually. This was most common with sailors who went long periods of time without women. So once they touched down on land they would contract this disease.
But because Virginia had a better climate than Massachusetts they would grow more exotic crops. Which also had a great deal of impact on their way of trade as well as the quality of goods produced, trading directly from their port. Another interesting aspect was that Virginia did not have any women until 1619. According to American History’s author Alan Brinkley; “In 1619, it sent 100 Englishwomen to the colony (which was still overwhelmingly male) to become the wives of male colonists. The women could be purchased for 120 pounds of
(p. 1 European Exploration) In October 1492, Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic). Columbus believed that he was in the outer islands of the Far East, and he made three more voyages in search of a path to Asia. During the last three voyages, Columbus reached the major islands of the Caribbean, which he named the West Indies. It was not until 1507, a year after Columbus's death, that cartographer Amerigo Vespucci suggested that Columbus had landed on an entirely new land that was far from Asia. (p. 2 European Exploration) Although Spain's new claims created the Spanish Empire, the extent of its lands was still unknown.
The Columbian Exchange The term Columbian Exchange refers to the transfer of peoples, animals, plants, and diseases between the New and Old Worlds. Old World diseases that entered the Americas with the European immigrants and African slaves devastated indigenous populations. These dramatic population changes weakened native peoples’ capacity for resistance and facilitated the transfer of plants, animals, and related technologies. I. Demographic Changes o Because of their long isolation from 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 very high.
Six Degree of Seperation: Event 1: Columbus discoverys the New World - 1492 Italian explorer Christopher Columbus convinced the Spanish monarchs to sponsor his voyage with three ships: the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Santa Clara. After six weeks of his first voyage, Columbus and his fellow seafarers stumbled upon the New World. Columbus's discovery would later lead to the Europeans colonizing on this new unknown land. Event 2: The Tready of Tordesillas - 1494 One of the first Europeans to take advantage of Columbus's discovery was the Spaniards. Since the New World offered raw materials such as gold and silver, the Spaniards were eager to start colonizing and conquering the New World.
Tribes such as the Lencas, the Tecan Uman, and the Nicarao soon started taking over the overall dying city of Copan. In 1502 Columbus sailed past the Islas de la Bahía and shortly thereafter reached the mainland of Central America. Columbus marked his first direct contact while trading with the civilizations of Honduran and northern Central America. Little exploration took place for the next two decades. That was until Spanish navigators Juan Díaz de Solís and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón touched on part of the Honduran coast in 1508 and devoted most of their efforts to exploring the area.
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.
Columbus’s arrival to the “New World” was the first act in a century’s long drama of colonization and conquest. Europeans and their descendents displaced the Taino and their fellow Indians while remaking the Western Hemisphere. Columbus’s ships introduced Old World plants, animals, and micro-organisms into the New Worlds environment. This idea to bring manmade products to the New World had its consequences for the people of the old and new world. The New World was a much healthier place than the old world.
How it affected their people and some of the surrounding people and justification by the Spanish for war against the Aztecs. Secondly, what the Aztecs believed to be the return of the god Quetzalcoatl, the Spanish conquistador, Cortes and his Spanish army. Disease played a huge part in the fall. Small pox brought upon the Spanish spread quickly to the people and no cure for the disease was known therefore leading to many deaths. Lastly, the skillful tactics used by Hernan Cortes that leads to the surrender of the last Aztec emperor.
The discovery and exploration of the Americas led to an initially slow but exponentially increasing westward migration by European countries. Among all the countries were England and Spain who colonized the majority of what is now the United States Eastern Coast. Both intrigued by the rumors and stories of gold and riches that beset the new lands they each did their part in western colonization; and not without reciprocal influence. Initial English colonies were established not only with cliché intentions of religious freedom but also with hopes of new economic expansion through agriculture as well as tactical, advantageous military purposes in the ever-present conflict with Spain. Mainly all original westward exploration was due to desires for gold and riches and in the case of the English this was no exception.