European Conquest
European colonization in the Americas began in 1492. Before the conquest, pre-Columbian North America was a sparsely populated virgin land, and many of Native Americans inhabited the area that is the United States now. North American Indians consisted simply of small migratory bands that subsisted through fishing, hunting, and gathering wild plants (Fox, 2010). The Native American developed inventive and creative cultures and also they cultivated plants for medicines, food, and textiles; established extensive patterns of trade domesticated animals; built cities, and constructed a wide variety of methods of social and political organization.
European expansion in the Americas led to an unprecedented movement of plants across the Atlantic. Tobacco is a prime example which became a valuable export due to increase in the habit of smoking in Europe (Jackson, 2013). Also, sugar is another example which was brought by Columbus to the Caribbean on his second voyage from Spain in 1493 and after that a wide variety of other herbs, flowers, seeds, and roots.
European colonization on the North American environment led to the introduction of diseases. Microbes and smallpox which native inhabitants had no immunity caused sickness and death everywhere Europeans settled. The young and old Native Americans had the highest mortality rates because they were the most vulnerable (Trexler, 2014). The loss of the older generation meant the loss of knowledge and tradition, while the death of children only compounded the trauma.
In sum, before colonization took place, many Native Americans inhabited the area that is currently the United States, and they involved themselves in farming, fishing, hunting, and gathering wild plants. European colonization on the North American environment led to an unprecedented movement of plants across the Atlantic and introduction of diseases such as Microbes and smallpox.
References
Fox, Stephen. “A History of American Advertising and Its Creators.” 7 (2010): 178
Lears, Jackson. “A Cultural History of Advertising in America.” (2013): 436.
Nome, William G. “American Indians.” (2015): 9.
Trexler, RC. “How the European conquest affected Native Americans.” (2014): 32.