CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BYENCOUNTE

CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BYENCOUNTER
BETWEEN "OLD" AND 'NEW' WORLDS

INTRODUCED TO THE AMERICAS:

DISEASES: rapidly devastated human populations that had no resistance to Old World Diseases, killing 50-90% of native populations; 50 epidemics in Valley of Mexico 1519-1820 often carried to villages by other natives, arriving before actual contact with Spanish

smallpox, measles, whooping cough, bubonic plague, malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, influenza

ANIMALS: no large mammals in Middle America; introduced new means of transportation/labor horse became indispensable to plains Indians; new food sources

	horses, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, rats (spread disease, decimated native small animals)
	adapted quickly
	competed with Indians for food
	destroyed vegetation

PLANTS:

sugar cane - harmed both man and environment; forbearer of plantation system with slave labor and the initial assault on tropical rainforests;

	from 1650 until beginning of 20th century, Caribbean region was the world's center of cane sugar; worldwide demand
	changed ethnic make up of much of Latin America

grains - wheat, millet, barley, sorghum, rice; adapted well to many areas, enhanced native diets

chick peas (garbanzos), soybeans

fruit - peaches, pears, oranges, melons, limes, bananas

vegetables - onions, radishes, salad greens, yams, peas, leeks, parsley

European clover, grasses, many other plants widely used in our modern American landscape

weeds - Kudzu (lagume brought for forage from Japan - has taken over in the Gulf and South Atlantic US)

INSECTS:

Asian cockroaches, Japanese beetle, Dutch elm disease, Killer bees, Gypsy moth

TECHNOLOGIES:

alphabet, writing

iron-edge tools; didn't shatter like those made of obsidian by Indians

farming equipment - plow; drastically changed agricultural practices

wheel

gunpowder

ranching - changed landscape; walled ranches with tile roofs, adobe brick buildings surrounded by corrals and pastureland; cowboys, gauchos

creation of new institutions

	towns - relocated Indians from their land into villages and towns; changed building patterns that used wood and charcoals; led to more deforestation
	government structures/policies; encomienda - system that gave the right to a conquistador to collect tribute from Indians
	religion (Catholic)

PEOPLE:

	Spanish, Portuguese - main colonizers of Middle and South America
	Africans - necessary as native population decreased; worked on plantations; eventually replaced Indians as the dominant ethnic group in the Caribbean; infused much of their culture into many areas of the Americas
	British, Irish, French, Germans, Dutch, Asians, Indians (from India)

CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BYENCOUNTER
BETWEEN "OLD" AND 'NEW' WORLDS

INTRODUCED TO THE EUROPE:

PLANTS:

maize (corn) from Mexico

	introduced in Africa and south of equator as early as 1550
	fed Africans that provided the manpower for American plantations
	grows where rainfall was sufficient in S. Europe, especially important to Greeks and Serbs
	led to population growth necessary to provide labor for industrialization
	China

potato from Peru

	basic food for people all over the world; no other single crop has played such a decisive role
	N. Europe potatoes dominated the diet of the poor in the 19th/20th century. This in turn contributed to population growth which led to industrialization of Germany and Russia
	China

Maize (corn) and potatoes had a fundamental advantage over the different sorts of grain in Europe - they produced more calories per acre, feeding up to 4 times as many people.

sweet potatoes

China - 1986 raised 80% of world's sweet potatoes

tomatoes

	adapted well to Mediterranean climate
	vitamin content supplemented diet
	today Europe raises more tomatoes than any other continent
	what would Italian food be without tomatoes?

healing plants

	quinine from Peruvian bark
	Ipecac from Amazon roots
	today some 500 prescription drugs derived from American herbs, other plants