America has developed to the point that European call it the new world. However, according to Native American, it was not a new world because people have been living and working toward making it a better place for years. However, the global exchange has not only reduced the geographic distance but also have led to increase in the violence, terror and revolutionized the world. Native Americans have passed their stories to the next generations in written, oral or via art which involved stories of their origin and their migration stories. Some scholars believe that once America was an entirely new world for the Native Americans as well. In the past, the ice sheets were miles thick, and people were migrating to a different place. About fourteen thousand years ago, the glacial sheets shrank leading to warmer climates. The process of agriculture became popular around nine thousand years ago and because of agriculture different social change occurred but the negative impact was that it lead to a decline in health of the people involved in agriculture. However, in spite of all this, Native Americans have a diverse culture, language and communication ways. The diversity was in living styles to the language difference and also in the occupations. Europe was linked with knowledge and power as well as wealth. Prior to European arrival, America has an extremely rich and diverse culture. However, the Native Americans were not prepared for the arrival of Europeans and the diseases they brought along. Native American were not immune to the diseases which European brought with them such as measles, smallpox, typhus, diphtheria, influenza, and hepatitis. Because of these diseases, the mortality rates increased among people and within first of European arrival 90% of the people died (Locke and Wright). The native American tried the resist the change by resisting from violence, colonialism, and even the living style for several years after the European first arrival but the Europeans kept coming back.
The European arrival was a curse in terms disease epidemic, but they also brought along food transformation. The food that European people consumed was different from the Native American diet. The Spanish conquest was also part of the transformation of the new world, and their aim was wealth, land and titles. In other words, disease and violence were the most terrifying and deadliest exchange in the Columbian exchange because the other exchange such as trade and people were fairly positive. There was a global exchange of food and diets which led to increase in association between different geographic locations. For example, the food exchange was from the basic foods such as beans and rice to the luxurious foods such as cocoa, gold, and chocolates. There was also an exchange of animals such as horses and pigs which were introduced from the Europeans to the new world. The exchange of goods not only enhanced the relationships between different nations but also introduced the new world. During the trade, other than food language and cultures were also exchanged ensuring that the new world has a mix of everything and not separated at any level. The arrival of European in the Native Americans can be detrimental at some aspects such as disease and violence, but their arrival has fully transformed both Americans and Europeans in a way that it can be said “the new world” and would never be similar to the past.
Work Cited
Locke, Joseph, and Ben Wright, editors. “The New World.” The American Yawp, 2017, http://www.americanyawp.com/text/01-the-new-world/.
