HIST 1301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Indentured Servant, The Columbian Exchange, Columbian Exchange
Document Summary
Discoveries of gold and silver increased the value of these land grants at little cost as spaniards utilized the pre-existing mita system that made indian workers available to the mines: the spanish empire became fabulously wealthy. Silver shipped to china was minted into coins and exchanged for silks, spices, and ceramics. Gold transported to europe flowed into the countinghouses of spain and embellished the catholic churches of europe: between 1500 and 1650, at least 350,000 spaniards migrated to mesoamerica and western south. Although spanish monks suppressed native religious practices and converted thousands to. Catholicism, the merging of ideologies and practices did occur and new forms of native american. Christianity emerged: the columbian exchange, the spanish invasion of the americas had a significant impact on life in the americas, in. Africa, and in europe due to the process of biological transfer that historians have called the.
