The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange.
Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the Americas led to several changes to the lives of inhabitants of the continents. The contact between the Mesoamerica and Europe facilitated the deliberate exchange of goods and cultures between the two civilizations. Crops, skills, animals, and diseases were some of the exchanges that took place between the Old World and the New World (Nunn and Qian 163). However, some of the consequences of the contact were unintended. This can be seen in the various events that were triggered by this contact which did not reflect the initial intentions of the Europeans in the Americas.
Farming of sugar in the Americas led to the unintended consequence of the institution of slavery. The increased demand for sugar from affluent Europeans resulted in more production of sugar in the Caribbean to supply merchants with the commodity who later transported it to European markets for consumption (Nunn and Qian 163-165). As more farms were created for the production of sugar, the demand for labor also increased. As a result, millions of Africans were captured and sold to European merchants who later shipped them to the Americans. The slaves provided cheap labor in sugar plantations.
The slave trade was an unintended consequence in the sense that the growth of wealth in Europe translated into an increased demand for sugar in households. The increase in demand created more business opportunities for European merchants .These merchants brought finished products to Africa and exchanged them for slaves who were shipped to the Americas to provide forced labor in sugar plantations in the Caribbean (Nunn and Qian 165-175).

.A key aspect of the trade involved manipulation of prices by European merchants so as to make sustain the slave of slaves to the Americas. The manipulation was meant to ensure that African chiefs and kings continued to demand European goods so as to continue exchanging them with slaves.
The existence of some form of slavery in Africa before the arrival of Europeans played a significant role in the development and success of the Trans-Atlantic Trade (Nunn and Qian 163-175).Some African chiefs and kings owned slaves. This fact made it easier for sale of human beings to the Americas since there was groundwork in place for the slave trade. It was a consequence in the sense that if it were not practiced in African probably the shipment of many Africans to the Americas would not have occurred.
The migration of Africans as slaves to the Americans marked the first modern contact of Africans and people of the Mesoamerica. This contact made many cultures to interact (Nunn and Qian 163-169). Although culture has undergone great changes over centuries, some cultural aspects of Africans and Europeans can be seen in the American society today. After the end of slavery, millions of people of African descent had settled in the Americas and formed part of the American history. Today, people of African and European descent make up the majority of the populations in the New World. The outstanding thing about these new interactions is that people of African descent began to struggle against forced labor in the Americas. What followed were brutal measures that meant to silence voices of civil liberties. Although slavery was abolished after the American Civil War, discrimination based on race continued. Despite the huge progress made over the last 60 years, racism is still a big issue in the American society.
Works Cited
Nunn, Nathan, and Nancy Qian. “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 24, no. 2, 2010, pp. 163-188.