Columbian Diseases Exchange with Incas Essay
Columbian Diseases Exchange with Incas Essay
Diseases was a major part of the Columbian Exchange for numerous reasons. Diseases spread through many regions across the world. It affected the Native American population and many others. People today, have stronger immune systems because of the spread of diseases, during the Columbian Exchange. It has made a huge impact to the world over the centuries. Europeans had been living in condensed communities for many years which developed immunities, such as smallpox, malaria, and diphtheria within the people.
When the Europeans came to the Americas they brought along many diseases, which soon started to spread quickly. Columbian Diseases Exchange with Incas Essay. The Native Americans’ immune systems had never come in contact with the diseases that the Europeans brought, which lead to the death of many of these indigenous people. Fifty percent of them were affected, and out of them ninety percent died which led to a decrease of the population in the Americas. The Europeans did not know about the diseases that they had brought with them because they were immune to them. This was not a purposeful genocide, but it was simply the Europeans coming in contact with the Natives.
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In the ancient civilization of Peru, known as the Inca Empire, was a king called Huayna Capac. The Inca built a strong army around their empire. The empire was so large it filled up Peru, Bolivia, modern Ecuador, and the northern half of what is now Chili. This immense empire extended 2,000 miles down the Western Coast of South America with a very large population. The Inca Empire was well known for their powerful army during war.
The Europeans came to the New World through the voyage of Christopher Columbus conquering many places. One of their most powerful tool to conquer these places were their diseases. As they came to the New World, to the Inca Empire, one of the diseases they spread was smallpox. Smallpox was first located in Mexico, where it spread all the way down to the Inca Empire. Diseases at the time, were not curable and were an illness that was unpreventable. Although the Incan Empire was powerful, their immune system was not able to fight this tragic disease. This lead the Inca Empire to decrease and the ruler, Huayna Capac to die. The Inca Empire no longer had a ruler nor a successor which lead to a civil war between the Incas. Columbian Diseases Exchange with Incas Essay.
After the civil war, the Inca Empire was split in two and was ununified, which made it easy for the Spanish to conquer the Empire. Smallpox devastated the Inca and their empire. It lead to the death of their ruler and their empire to be conquered. The Incas suffered greatly because of this disease, smallpox.
In recent years, a topic of much controversy has been the circumstances of our own American colonization. The mistreatment, capture and killing of Native Americans during the Columbian Exchange has turned the perspective of many from an event of major importance to an event of major disaster. The Columbus Day holiday itself isn’t even recognized by some states anymore. Columbus certainly wasn’t a hero and should be viewed poorly for his part in the genocide of the Native American people. However, the holiday must still be celebrated, as the Columbian Exchange itself was an essential piece of our history.
Columbus Day should be celebrated purely because of the impact it had on our lives and the modern world. According to Crosby’s “The Columbian Exchange”, the continental drift that split the Old and New World’s apart was reversed by the exchange of plants, animals, etc. that were once divided. Without it, Europe’s crops like wheat would not have made it to America, and America’s crops like maize would not be seen in Europe. This exchange is one of the most crucial events in American and European history, and to ignore it would be a disgrace to our own country’s story.
The main argument against the holiday is that the consequences of the Exchange with Native Americans are too awful to be in a celebration. This argument is wrong because of two points, the first one being our history is simply full of bloodshed. Columbian Diseases Exchange with Incas Essay. Schweikart and Allen’s “A Patriot’s History” states “the number [of Native Americans dead] is closer to 800,000”. 800,000 is a horrifying number, but it’s miniscule in comparison to other parts of American history. Over 60 million people in the world died as a result of WWII, but no one is saying we should ignore the war or not be proud of our efforts. Columbus wasn’t a great guy, but the holiday isn’t about him. It’s about what he started for the world.
The second point against the Native American argument is that the consequences of the Columbian Exchange were inevitable with globalization anyway. Crosby’s “Columbian Exchange” states “The history of the United States begins… with epidemics of unidentified disease”. The death of the Native Americans due to disease was uncontrollable and outweighed any other fatality in the Exchange. Connecting Europeans to America was a necessary move for us, so the Native Americans would have eventually suffered the diseases they did anyway. The consequences were inevitable; why should the holiday be ignored?
Due to it’s impact on America and the world as a whole, Columbus Day should remain a celebrated holiday, but Columbus himself shouldn’t remain a celebrated man. Our heritage is what’s being celebrated on the day, not anything else. The ends should be celebrated in our advancements as a country, not the means. Of course Columbus and his fellow colonists didn’t do great things. They were greedy and manipulative to get what they wanted. But, the results of his voyage are of too much importance to be not celebrated, let alone ignored. Let us cherish the holiday, and look down upon the man. Columbian Diseases Exchange with Incas Essay.
