Corrales 4

Anahi CorralesMs. EnriquezLiterature, 10th gradeJanuary, 26nd 2015The Discovery of AmericaThe discovery of America was the boom of the 1500s. However, people from different parts of the world still come here to experience new things and make memories. The discovery changed the perspective of science, religion, and the world in general. Even though America was discovered in the 1400s, it is still considered as the New World. The discovery, caused by the need of a new path to Asia, destroyed American civilizations, but it created an exchange of living creatures like plants and animals, as well as languages and religion. The Black Plague devastated Europe; there wasnt enough food for the survivals of the ill. The only way of eating meat in those times was eating it in decomposition with a large amount of species that would hide the flavor. This increased the need of species from Asia, especially Indian ones. The only way Europeans had to communicate with Asia was the Silk Path, which was occupied by an invader group. *these events obligated navigators to search for a marine path to Asia. Years before the discovery of America, a Portuguese found a new path around Africa, sadly only the Portuguese could use this new way. It was time for a new expedition, the Spanish one. In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered America, and since that date the two worlds, new and old one, crashed and became one.Since the discovery of America large groups of Europeans came for different reasons: Some looked for freedom of believes, others looked for adventure, fame and richness while priests and monks came to convert the Americans into Catholicism. All these groups of people destroyed the American civilizations in a million ways, changing their culture, society, language and knowledge. The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history. (Conrad) The Spanish group, for example, destroyed two American empires: The Incan Empire or Tahuantisuyo and the Aztec Empire. Taking Americans as unknowledgeable and satanic, the Europeans decided to burn their cities, capture their leaders, destroy their temples and build Catholic churches instead. Leaders capture brought European amazing richness which made them even hungrier of gold. When Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca Atahualpa, the king offered precious metals instead of his head. The result of this was 2 rooms of silver artifacts, one room of gold ones and of course, and one leader dead. War began, in South America and Mexico, not only the horses and the fire guns affected Americans also the diseases that Europeans brought. Thousands of Americans died each day, the discovery and the conquest of America sounds like a horrible thing, but it created good things too. There was a huge exchange between America and Europe. New species, like plants and animals traveled between continents. European products such as wheat, apple, grape and so on; where produced in the rich American lands. European animals were taken to America too: sheep, horse and the cow where producing new meat and products as milk and cheese in the New World. Also, American products were taken to the Old Continent like the cacao, corn, pineapple, potatoes and the pepper where taken to Europe. There are some American and European products mixed together and created new inventions. Both, Americans and Europeans got a richer diet. Besides diet and products, there was an exchange of culture like languages and religions. Even though Europeans imposed their religion and culture in America, natives still had some influence of their mother language and religion. The discovery of America changed the whole world and it improved it. By uniting two different continents, race, religion, food, diet and language would never be the same again. Even though we can see there were bad effects of the discovery, we can see millions of good ones. Have you ever wonder how would be America if any European decided to risk; his own life and no one would discover America in the 1500s? Probably, we would be still Indians or we would be part of colonies; while the other side of the world would have technology and freedom.

BibliographyConrad, Joseph. "Article Title." Quotations Page. 24 May 2010, 25 01, http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/21803.html