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Jacob Creamer Period 2 2/17/2011   The Amazing Charm of the Americas

Life today in America is all as we know it, what caused this is just one important event. Christopher Columbus sailing hoping to find a trade route from Europe to India, instead what he found was way better, land. He found the Americas, far away from where he is from. It would change the world and within it, trade, technology, animals, farming, and cultivation.

Agriculture from both worlds flourished with great force. Europe with a need of land, and wood found it in the new world. The great abundance of resources in the new world was amazing for the Europe citizens. As soon as word spread, migration from the old to the new began. People got their own plot of land, something that was merely impossible in their homeland of Europe. The new world gained great hunting tools. Horses offered a high-speed way to hunt bison. The Native Americans gained multiple ways of trade and supply from the newcomers. They took in numerous, countless items such as new animals able to pull plows and for new meals.

Both worlds also domesticated many crops. From the old to the new world, cows, chicken, horses, goats, and sheep created new openings for work and food. From the new to the old world, turkey, llama, and alpacas were brought. The reason we have turkey on thanksgiving is it was found in the new world, so every thanksgiving we are celebrating in part the discovery of the Americas. An endless list of fruits and vegetables were also traded and discovered between the worlds. Most of which grew better in the opposite world. Coffee for example was from the old world but perfected in the new world. Crops like the potato changed the old. Apples did the same for the new world.

There were hardships of disease and sickness, small price to pay for the cultivation of so many things, the gift of land and eventually success of happy lives.

The Columbian Exchange was the start of a new age. The start of the formation of a new country, the greatest on earth, The United States. It was the start of hard innovation, also the beginning of the modern age. Christopher Columbus was a hero for joining the two worlds, for creating so much exploration, for starting a new revolution. Hardships were overcome with pride of success, of the chance of a new beginning. The teachings each world gave to one other exchange the importance of knowledge, hard work and hope.

Today, if the Columbian Exchange never happened, sure the two divided worlds would find each other eventually. But in every way, today is the way it is because of the exchange, if it happened later, we would not be a technologically advanced as we are. The exchange was the start of innovation, invention, and the finding of new objects, and knowledge. Everything put together makes that of who we are in America, and how we started and prospered.