Monday, October 10, 2011

How Columbus Affected Ecology?

Columbus sailed the ocean blue

90% of the “New Continents” population wiped out by foreign diseases.  Whole nations, or the “savage people”, as the “superior, civilized, peaceful” Spaniards liked to see it, gone forever, sometimes without a trace, sometimes with just empty ruins repossessed by “Mother Nature” to witness the first phase of the Columbian Exchange.

The “French disease” - harmless to the American Indians - causing pain and suffering and killing off the people of Europe.  The unintended consequences of sudden and massive interference in one natural ecosystem by another …

We know that Columbus “gave” America the horse, the iron and the wheel.  Europe in return got potatoes, corn and ... The Price Revolution.

How did the World change between 1491 and 1493?

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