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Fannie Sandier

Mr. Stephan

World History A.p.

January 28th, 2009

Change in the Americas and Africa
due to the Europeans.

Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Americas and Africa began to change drastically. The legacy left behind there by the Europeans is still shown in many different ways today. New places were discovered and new cultures were born which continue to impact the world today. Due to the Europeans arriving in the Americas in the sixteenth century, political, economical, social and religious changes occurred which are represented in Latin-American and African-American cultures.

When European peoples first set to the Americas, technology that was unavailable to the western hemisphere and epidemic diseases were brought along with them. (Bentley and Ziegler, 668) Smallpox, one of the epidemic diseases were brought to the Americas around 1518 in the Caribbean. When smallpox hit, serious economical disruption began. Before smallpox, population in 1492 was about six million and after smallpox, around the 1540's the population declined to a few thousand. (670)

When Europeans arrived, the Spanish were there trying to mine gold since they needed to find someway to stun the Caribbean. Even though the Spanish were not eligible to perform heavy work, they had people from Tainos. (670) The Spanish had the right to compel Tainos work in their mines or fields. (670) In order to have these Tainos work on their field, the Spanish captured mostly all of the Tainos that worked on their plantations. Tainos were forced like slaves to work on Spanish fields after Europeans took rule over the Caribbean.

Economical changes in Africa due to the Europeans were slavery. Europeans traded with Africa with money and guns in return for slaves. Africans were sold to make crops in the Caribbean and other places of the Americas. Men did most of the work around in Africa so when two-thirds of the men were taken away from Africa for slavery, women had to learn how to do most of the heavy labor.

Building sugar plantations weren't only in the Caribbean. There were also plantations in Brazil, Portugal, Azores Madeiras, Cape Verde Islands, Sao Tome and even in the main place slaves were coming from, Africa and more.(709) Africa and the Americas had slave trades with other peoples which started most of their political and social categories. Even though the Europeans weren't the first ones to start the slave trade, by the time they arrived to sub-Saharan Africa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, selling, capturing and distributing slaves was already a full grown business that had been going for over 500 years.(709) The earliest European slave trade were Portuguese explorers. (709) These Portuguese explorers at first had slave raiding instead of trading, which the first slave raiding occurred in 1441 when Portuguese explorers took twelve African men and took them to the Caribbean as slaves. (709)

Eventually, different cultures noticed and basically thought it was a good idea to do the same, therefore, all these cultures needed slaves for labor. When Europeans started along with their slave trade expanded greatly causing many social changes. Different cultures communicated somehow to all get what they wanted. Because of the different slave trades, populations were up and down. For instance, the Atlantic slave trade took about six million men from Africa and contributed them to the Americas by trade and same with the Islamic slave but with just adding a several million. The society soon came back when crops went up more throughout Africa. However, despite the population, these people created new cultures by coming together.

With all these cultures meeting and making exchanges, some cultures are bound to clash together. Perfect examples would be their religion and languages. Even though European language was the dominant language, Africans sometimes combined their language with European language. (717) Most slaves spoke these creole languages Gullah and Geechee respectively. (717) Like their languages, some Africans were polytheistic before all of the European slavery, yet, during or after became monotheistic. Africans started to convert to Christianity if not had already converted. It wasn't too much like European Christianity, but somehow similar. It was more of a syncretic faith that had more of the interests and beliefs that Africans accepted, just as Latin-Americans were with Christianity. (717)

These cultures are still shown today in the languages, foods, or just how they survive here in the Americas and in Africa. For example here in the Americas, natives still cook similar foods as they did when they met with Cabeza De Vaca in 1528. (Conquistadors Movie) Like the natives, Latin-American and African-American cultures to the same. So even though the Europeans and other peoples are not trading slaves, cultures that clashed together are still shown today.