Columbian Exchange Research Paper

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Culture has spread throughout the ages through a variety of ways. The Greeks and Romans spread their culture through conquest, the Spaniards colonization, and the Middle East through conversion. All of these slight methods of cultural diffusion have impacted our world greatly today. However, not all of these have had a positive effect. Due to Alexander the great’s conquest many were slaughtered, the Spaniards not only killed, but they forced the Mayans and Aztecs into a different fate, one worse than death; they robbed them of their identities. The Columbian exchange shares multiple similarities and difference with the style of cultural diffusion which took place between the Islamic community and the Christian community during the time period…show more content…
The Columbian exchange may be viewed initially as colonization; however, during the final hour of Spain’s colonization Spain’s control over Mesoamerica should be viewed as conquest. For instance, when Hernan Cortez visited the Mayan civilization as an attempt to “convert” the Mayans from their idolatries ways when really he was simply ridding Mesoamerica of the Mayan population. A symptom of the Spanish colonization which took place in 1492, the Columbian Exchange is one of the most significant forms of cultural exchange due to the fact that it was the first to combine the old world and the new world. The combination created a bridge between the Eastern hemisphere of monotheistic progression and the Western hemisphere of polytheistic scientific nonadvancement. Viewed as a method of exchange of crops, religion, and ultimately disease, the Columbian exchange was not a way of equal opportunity sharing. Rather, it was a method of using brute force to take control of another’s land, conquest. This conquest often costumed in colonization allowed destruction, abhorrent qualities such as inferiority to seep through and ultimately led to the incarceration of

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