Europe before the discoveries was not a pleasant place to live. “Since the onset of the Black Death in 1346, the people of western Europe had experienced wave upon wave of deadly diseases, varied from time to time by fearsome famines and bloody wars.” European society was also very poor at the time. Most people could not even fulfil the basic needs of food and shelter. As a result of this, very little value was placed upon human life and people were prepared to go to enormous lengths to get ahead in life; to gain some power, wealth or title that might if only temporarily lift them from their horrible struggle to survive each day.
One impact the discoveries had on Europe was to throw the economy into turmoil. Gold and Silver, normally precious metals in short supply began to flood the market. Thus its value dropped whilst the value of commodities rocketed. This was good news for debtors who saw the amount they owed drop dramatically but for other factions of society such as property owners it was terrible.
The Europeans brought back many new things from the New World. The most
important of these was new plants. Up to that time most people had subsisted on
wheat. This was not a very economic crop as it had a very poor yield. Maize and
Potatoes on the other hand had a much greater yield. “A single acre of land could
produce 25,000 pounds of potatoes, enough for the family with enough left over to
feed a couple of pigs.” This is now known to historians as the Dietary Revolution.
Apart from new food and plants, the European market was also flooded with a huge variety of other products. “Cargo ships arrived crammed with wooden shingles, ship timbers, hemp rope, tar and turpentine, furs, dyes such as indigo and red Brazil wood, dried fish, flaxseed oil, tow, hides, and a host of other raw materials to feed Europe's growing industrial economy” The capital subsequently accumulated in Europe from this trade helped to finance the Industrial Revolution that made Europe even wealthier compared to the rest of the world.
One phenomenon which I feel merit’s special mention here is the arrival in Europe of stimulant Drugs. One need only look at the drug culture in which we live today to realise the significance of this. The Europeans already had wine and beer, but “these were depressants, not stimulants.” All of a sudden, they were receiving shipments of the North American Indians' tobacco with its nicotine and the Aztecs' cocoa with its caffeine. “In very short order, Europe had become a drug-consuming society, addicted to its coffee, tea, and cocoa, its laudanum and various codeine-laced cough remedies, and anxious to ensure its regular and cheap supply of these substances.”
So how was the New world affected? Well while the Europeans prospered from the discoveries the same cannot unfortunately be said for the American natives. In what was to become the eastern half of the United States, the new settlers followed a policy of virtual extermination of Native Americans. “If science has taught us anything, it is that one event invariably effects countless others. This is no more evident than when a species is introduced into a new environment. Once a foreign species finds itself in new surroundings, it can either die or adapt. Often, these introduced species take over the environment, irrevocably changing it to fit their needs. This usually leads to a serious deteriorating in the well being of species currently existing there. Such is the case as when the Europeans introduced themselves to the New World.” The new arrivals not only brought themselves, their technologies, and ways of life, but, most disastrously, their diseases arrived as well. The natives’ immune systems did not protect them from smallpox, measles, diphtheria, and typhoid fever diseases which the invaders had become accustomed to. In some areas, such as the Caribbean, the native population was completely wiped out. In other areas, it was radically reduced. By about 1510, the Indian population of Mexico had declined by up to 75 percent from its preconquest level. There is also the matter of cultural domination. “Native religions were replaced by Christianity, though later investigations have revealed that many native beliefs were mixed synchronically with the new Christian religion. For example, in Mexico Our Lady of Guadeloupe (the Virgin Mary) was endowed with some of the attributes of the Aztec fertility goddess Tonantzin.” Nevertheless, the overall impact was the destruction of Native American culture as European religious, political, and social models were introduced in a conscious effort to recreate the Old World order in the New World.
The Europeans also had other plans for the new world. Just as would later happen in Australia thousands of socially undesirables including “Dissidents, criminals, paupers, ne'er-do-wells, religious fanatics, and others” were deported, one way or another, to populate the new colonies. The fact that half of them died during the first year was of little consequence.
To bring this essay to a conclusion I would like to mention Aristotle’s law of causality. In the discussion of history, events are often considered as if in some way being agents that can then bring about other historical events. Every action has an equal and opposing reaction. I feel that this is particularly true of this essay as it helps show that many actions by the Europeans were to have consequences for the rest of the world, many which are still being felt today. One could go on at great length expanding on this theme, explaining how the availability of vast expanses of "empty" land affected a society the elite of which had been distinguished by the fact that they were land-owners, or how new substances, “such as the quinine in the bark of the South American chincona tree, slowly began to bring under control some of the diseases endemic in Europe, how there was finally proof that the world was round or how the availability of unlimited supplies of immense trees revolutionized naval architecture, but we have probably covered enough to illustrate how completely and basically Europe was transformed.
Bibliography:
Nelson L. H., THE IMPACT OF DISCOVERY ON EUROPE, University of Kansas.
26 February 1998, accessed on 26th/10/07, http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php/sections.php?artid=714&op=viewarticle.
Doubleday B.M.M (1973),PACIFIC VOYAGES, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION , London, Doubleday publishers.
Fritze R.H, (2003), New Worlds: The Great Voyages of Discovery 1400-1600, London, Praeger Publishers.
