Why did Europeans colonists look to Africa for a labor source for their plantations and mines?
Plantation owners in both North and South America wanted a cheap workforce. Some colonists, including Spanish priest Bartolomé de Las Casas, suggested using enslaved Africans as workers. Africans had already developed immunity to European diseases.
Which colonial economies in the Americas in this period relied on the introduction of new systems of labor?
Newly developed colonial economies in the Americas largely depended on agriculture, utilized existing labor systems, including the Incan mit’a, and introduced new labor systems including chattel slavery, indentured servitude, and encomienda and hacienda systems.
How the peoples along the western coast and into central Africa were affected by the Columbian Exchange?
So many Africans were forced into slavery and sold to the Europeans. Then they were forced to migrate to the Americas where they worked in plantations for the rest of their lives. The Columbian Exchange changed the culture of many African people to an Agricultural economy based on the cultivation of maize.
What impact did the New World’s native inhabitants land plants and animals have on Europe?
Along with new plants and animals, Europeans also brought deadly diseases. This biological exchange had the greatest impact of all on Native Americans. Native people had no resistance to such diseases as measles, smallpox, mumps, whooping cough, influenza, chicken pox, and typhus. Millions fell sick and died.
Where did okra spread after the Columbian Exchange?
The Arabs grew very fond of okra. From Arabia, okra was taken west to North Africa and the Mediterranean and east to southwestern Asia. It was brought to the New World, specifically Brazil and West Indies, around the middle of the 17th century.
What did the Europeans do in the New World?
They were indentured servants. In exchange for the cost of ship passage across the Atlantic, men and women from throughout Western Europe came to the Americas to work in a range of labor roles, from skilled trades to plantation agriculture.
Why was labor so important in the Americas?
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, humans could derive power only from the wind, water, animals, or other humans. Everywhere in the Americas, a crushing demand for labor bedeviled Europeans because there were not enough colonists to perform the work necessary to keep the colonies going.
Why did people need power in the sixteenth century?
Physical power—to work the fields, build villages, process raw materials—is a necessity for maintaining a society. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, humans could derive power only from the wind, water, animals, or other humans.
How did the Columbian Exchange affect the Americas?
The Columbian Exchange, in which Europeans transported plants, animals, and diseases across the Atlantic in both directions, also left a lasting impression on the Americas.