In the collision of the Old and New World the Americas received new crops and animals that they had previously never been opened up to. Animals especially, revolutionized the everyday lives of not only visiting explorers, but also large populations of the Native Americans that had already been living in the land. Previously, the Americans had only had a limited source of domesticated animals: canines, llamas, guinea pigs, and a vast selection of birds. Of these, only the llama could have served the purpose of doing strenuous physical work in replacement of the more ubiquitous manual labor. As stated by “The Columbian Exchange”, “On Columbus’s second voyage in 1493 he brought horses, dogs, pigs, cattle, chickens, sheep, and goats.” Because these animals had no natural predators and an immunity to European disease they thrived of off the land and created new forms of labor-reduction and food for the people inhabiting these lands. Pigs especially created a unique new sustenance for peoples in the Americas as they reproduced at astonishing rates and provided magnificent amounts of nutrient-rich meat. Horses too had been brought over and these two …show more content…
Due to the high population densities in Europe and the unimpressive sanitary practices that ran rampant, the nation had been plagued by epidemic after epidemic of contagious maladies and the Western European peoples became almost constantly ill with some form of a disease. The Native Americans in the other side of the Atlantic had been used to much more rural climates and rarely, if ever, had widespread outbreaks on the scale of Europe. Not only was the native population less prone to eruptions of disease, but they had also never been exposed to the specific pathogens the Europeans brought over to the Western Hemisphere and therefore had no immunity to