What Are The Causes Of The Columbian Exchange

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In 1492 Columbus set sail for the Indies and landed in the Bahamas, and in 1493 the first Spanish settlement was established. His journey and geographical discoveries helped pave the way for European colonization of the New World. Columbus’s voyage lead to the Columbian exchange in which crops, livestock, ideas, culture, and even people were exchanged between the Americas and the “Old World”. In their strive for wealth, the Spanish began to exploit and enslave both indigenous people and Africans through this exchange. The Arawak who settled onto the Caribbean, but were displaced into Hispaniola by the Carib, were met by European colonizers with disease and enslavement. These enslaved peoples worked on plantations for the colonists´ profit,