What is the impact of colonial settlement on the environment?
The impact of colonial settlement on the environment The animals and farming practices that Europeans brought to Australia, as well as industry and mining, have had a significant impact on the environment.
How did the Europeans affect the environment in Australia?
The animals and farming practices that Europeans brought to Australia, as well as industry and mining, have had a significant impact on the environment. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have lived on the Australian continent for tens of thousands of years and they learned to respect and care for the fragile land.
How did European colonization affect the environment in the Americas?
However, different European powers had different colonial objectives and the peoples and environments they encountered in the Americas also differed. The level of cultural exchange and its ecological impact therefore varied.
How did the settlers affect the native flora and fauna of Australia?
The settlers planted different foods, the new foods and animals were a threat to the native flora and fauna. The new animals that the settlers introduced were rabbits, foxes , cane toads and rats. These animals became predators to the australian native animals.
How did European settlement change the environment in Australia?
Since European settlement in 1788, the way in which people use the land has significantly changed Australia's natural systems and landscapes. Some land management practices place enormous pressures on the land which can result in damage to ecosystems, reductions in biodiversity and degradation of soils and waterways.
What environmental effects did the Columbian Exchange have on Europe?
The population of Europe exploded as a result of food from the New World. Corn and especially potatoes could grow in dry soil and tended to be resistant to pests. New World crops provided more calories per acre than crops from the Old World.
How was environment affected during colonial period?
Impacts of Environmental Colonialism Large-scale depopulation resulted in massive tracts of agricultural land being left untended, UCL researchers find, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation (Milman).
What effects did European colonization have on the world?
Colonialism's impacts include environmental degradation, the spread of disease, economic instability, ethnic rivalries, and human rights violations—issues that can long outlast one group's colonial rule.
How did the Columbian Exchange affect natural environment?
By stripping the Americas of much of the human population, the Columbian Exchange rocked the region's ecological and economic balance. Ecosystems were in tumult as forests regrew and previously hunted animals increased in number.
What diseases did European bring to the New World?
Europeans brought deadly viruses and bacteria, such as smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera, for which Native Americans had no immunity (Denevan, 1976).
How did the environment impact the development of the different colonial economies?
Colonial America depended on the natural environment to meet basic needs of the people and the colony. The available natural resources provided (or in essence dictated) what each region's unique specialty would be or become. Specialized economies quickly emerged as a result of human and environmental interaction.
What were the positive and negative effects of colonization?
Where colonizers established medical centers, they succeeded in lowering infant mortality and promoted vaccination and disease prevention. While the colonizers did bring positive improvements and advancements, the inhabitants often lacked immunity to the pathogens the colonizers also brought from their home countries.
How colonialism was responsible for deforestation?
First the British encouraged the production of commercial crops like jute, sugar, wheat and cotton. The demand for these crops increased in the 19th century and forests were cleared to meet the food grains and raw materials needed for industrial growth in Europe.
How did European settlers treat Natives?
The army and many settlers treated the Natives as nothing more than pests to be got rid of. Laws were introduced that banned certain ceremonies, forced the children into the European education system, and tied whole groups to land that was useless and could not sustain them.
What were the negative effects of European exploration?
Age of Exploration had many effects, People said that it had Positive and Negative Effects to them, The main Negative effects were 1) Culture being destroyed, by destroying and eliminate the rich cultures and civilizations. 2) Spread of disease, like smallpox, black spots,etc. Where spread all around the world.
What happened when European settlers arrived in America?
After European contact, the native population of the Americas plummeted by an estimated 80% (from around 50 million in 1492 to eight million in 1650), due in part to Old World diseases carried to the New World, and the conditions that colonization imposed on Indigenous populations, such as forced labor and removal from ...
What were the negative effects of European Exploration?
Age of Exploration had many effects, People said that it had Positive and Negative Effects to them, The main Negative effects were 1) Culture being destroyed, by destroying and eliminate the rich cultures and civilizations. 2) Spread of disease, like smallpox, black spots,etc. Where spread all around the world.
What cultural effects did the Columbian Exchange have?
The Columbian Exchange impacted the social and cultural makeup of both sides of the Atlantic. Advancements in agricultural production, evolution of warfare, increased mortality rates and education are a few examples of the effect of the Columbian Exchange on both Europeans and Native Americans.
Which impact did European Exploration have on civilization in the Americas?
The Europeans brought technologies, ideas, plants, and animals that were new to America and would transform peoples' lives: guns, iron tools, and weapons; Christianity and Roman law; sugarcane and wheat; horses and cattle. They also carried diseases against which the Indian peoples had no defenses.
Why did diseases spread so rapidly in the Americas after European explorers arrived?
Diseases unknown to them spread rapidly among Native peoples, who lack immunity to viruses and bacteria carried by Europeans. As Native peoples travel waterways by canoe to trade and share news, they unknowingly take the germs to neighboring tribes.
Learning Intention
Demonstrate an understanding of the factors that influenced Australian settlement patterns and how the environment changed in the 1800s. (rubric)
Key Concepts, Skills and Understandings
In this lesson, students will investigate the impact European settlement may have had on Australia's natural environment. They will view and analyse a video describing the natural flora and fauna of Australia. The students will then create original quotes to describe the natural environment the early settlers would have encountered.
Learning Intention
To stimulate interest and curiosity about the Australian Colonies ( engage ), students view the stimulus video: An Ancient Land. They imagine they are a new settler to Australia in the early 1800s and create a quote to describe the native flora (plants) and fauna (animals) they saw.
What were the ecological impacts of European colonizations?
The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492 initiated an extensive exchange in material goods, traditions, and ideas that was to have ecological impacts not only in the Americas and Europe, but also in the wider world. These transfers are often referred ...
How did the Iberians control the land?
Given the high demand for some crops in Europe, notably sugar cane, and the growing demand for food in the cities and mining areas, that could not be supplied by declining native populations, the Iberians began to assume control of agricultural production through the acquisition of land and the development of haciendas. In pre-Columbian times a variety of types of land tenure existed: Some lands were owned by the state, communities, or private individuals, while tribal peoples and hunter-gatherers had no concept of private property. With the exception of state lands, the Iberians recognized private ownership of land, but not usufruct rights, which meant that lands that were used but not owned by indigenous communities were vulnerable to seizure by incoming settlers and their descendants. Although the Iberians attempted to replicate the large estates or latifundia that existed in Europe, because native rights to land were recognized in law, at the outset few large land grants were allocated. However, such land grants could be consolidated piecemeal over time and combined with lands acquired in other ways to underpin the growth of great estates held by single owners.
How did the Iberians provide labor?
The Iberians disparaged manual work and looked to Native Americans, or in their absence African slaves, to provide the necessary labor. Initially this was supplied through the encomienda, an institution that had been used during the Reconquest of southern Spain from the Moors. An encomienda was an allocation of Indians to an individual who was given the right to exact tribute and labor from them. However, because of ill treatment, in 1549 the right of encomenderos to exact labor was withdrawn and in many regions replaced by other forced labor systems modeled on pre-Columbian forms of draft labor, such as the repartimiento or mita. Where labor was short, landowners attempted to recruit free workers by offering them incentives in the form of better wages, credit, or plots of land on their estates. Where labor demands could not be met locally, the only recourse was to import African slave labor. However, this was only an economic proposition where agricultural commodities, such as sugar, could generate sufficiently high profits to cover the high cost of importing African slaves.
Why were cattle raised in the Americas?
The Iberians were more successful in establishing the raising of livestock because they faced little competition from native domesticated animals . The only animals raised in the Americas in pre-Columbian times were llama, alpaca, guinea pig, muscovy duck, and turkey. Cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats accompanied all early expeditions to the New World. Although better suited to savanna conditions, cattle raising soon became important in the Caribbean, and encouraged a good market for hides in the Iberian peninsula and by the haulage demands of sugar industry. On the mainland and in Brazil the expansion of cattle raising was linked to the development of the mining industry for which it provided hides for saddle bags and tallow for candles.
Why did sugar become the mainstay of the economies of Brazil and many Caribbean islands?
Sugar became the mainstay of the economies of Brazil and many Caribbean islands where, because of the shortage of Native American labor, its cultivation led to the large-scale exploitation of imported African slaves. The Iberians were not the only people to introduce new crops.
Why did sheep spread less widely?
Sheep spread less widely because they were better adapted to the cooler, drier conditions. The rapid expansion of livestock was encouraged by the existence of large stretches of grassland that had not been used intensively in pre-Columbian times or else had been abandoned by declining native populations. In sparsely settled areas, such as the Pampas of Argentina and the Llanos of Venezuela, Texas, or California, feral cattle often gave rise to extensive herds.
Which regions of Latin America were sparsely populated?
The same processes also characterized sparsely populated regions of Latin America such as Argentina and Chile. The Spanish Crown required all ships involved in early exploratory expeditions to carry seeds, plants, and livestock for the establishment of European forms of agricultural production.
What did the settlers bring to Australia?
The settlers brought some animals to Australia such as cows, chickens, pigs and much more, they brought the animals to eat. They also brought supplies and tools to build gaols and buildings . They built gaols for convicts that have committed a crime most of the convict would steal food because they were starving . They brought 11 ships, many convicts were killed by sicknesses like the flu or the cough but now we don't die of that because medicine can cure us but they didn't have medicine, when the settlers came
What animals did the settlers eat?
The new animals that the settlers introduced were rabbits, foxes , cane toads and rats. These animals became predators to the australian native animals. Indigenous people ate kangaroos and wombats, Tasmanian devils and other creatures which are now extinct.
How long did the indigenous people live?
Indigenous people lived a happy and simple life of hunting and gathering food for more than 65,000 years on the continent now known as Australia before the arrival of European settlers in 1788.
What is the new evidence gathered from sediments along the Delaware River in Pennsylvania?
New evidence gathered from sediments along the Delaware River in Pennsylvania is drastically revising theories about land use by Native Americans and the impact they once had on their environment.
Did Native Americans have a greater impact on the landscape in North America than widely believed?
While this discovery is not a total surprise, previous research has suggested that Native Americans had a greater impact on the landscape in North America than widely believed, these new findings represent the first direct evidence of the impacts on streams.
Did Europeans have a significant impact on the waterways?
Conducted by scientists from the Smithsonian, the Center for American Archaeology, Baylor University and Temple University, the study shows that “Colonial-era Europeans were clearly not the first people to have an impact on the waterways in North America,” says archaeobiologist Timothy Messner of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “Widespread sedimentation caused by intensive settlement and maize farming in the Delaware Valley began about 500 years before European settlers arrived. And this was not just happening along the Delaware, but all over Eastern North America.” A paper on this subject was published recently in the scientific journal Geology.
Old World Crops and Livestock in The New World
- Like most immigrants, those who went to the Americas were interested not only in improving their economic and social standing but also in replicating their culture. However, different European powers had different colonial objectives and the peoples and environments they encountered in the Americas also differed. The level of cultural exchange and its ecological impact therefore va…
The Adoption of Old World Crops and Livestock
- Despite pressure from Iberians, Native Americans were selective in their adoption of crops introduced from Europe. Some, such as cereals and sugar cane, necessitated fundamental changes to existing agricultural systems by requiring specially cleared fields, ploughs, and oxen, as well as specialized equipment for their cultivation or processing. Given that agriculture in mo…
Changes in Agricultural Implements and Techniques
- Some new agricultural techniques accompanied the arrival of new plants and animals. In the Old World cereals were sown by broadcasting in specially cleared fields, whereas in the New World seeds were generally planted individually in swiddens or simple gardens. The Spanish also introduced Arabic techniques of irrigation, notably canal and reservoir...
The Development of Haciendas
- Given the high demand for some crops in Europe, notably sugar cane, and the growing demand for food in the cities and mining areas, that could not be supplied by declining native populations, the Iberians began to assume control of agricultural production through the acquisition of land and the development of haciendas. In pre-Columbian times a variety of types of land tenure existed: …
Gold and Silver Mining
- One of the prime aims of the Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas was the creation of wealth through the mining of gold and silver; initially agriculture generated lower profits and required a greater investment of time and money. Gold, silver, copper, and tin had been mined and worked by pre-Columbian peoples, notably the Incas, Aztecs, and a number of chiefdoms in Colombia and t…
Manufacturing
- Native Americans produced many types of textiles. In the Andes they were often made of llama or alpaca wool, but these were not available in Mexico where indigenous textiles were made of cotton or fiber from the maguey cactus. In pre-Columbian times households undertook the production of textiles, although specialized weavers produced cloth for elites and rituals. Most o…
The Impact of Native Crops on Europe and The Wider World
- The impact of indigenous American crops had an equally profound effect on production and consumption patterns in Europe and the rest of the world. Attention focused initially on exotic crops, such cacao and dyes, which were produced in the Americas and exported. However, the transfer of staple food crops to the Old World brought more far-reaching effects, totally transfor…
The Transfer of Diseases
- The transfer of diseases between the Old World and the Americas had a disproportionate impact on Native Americans. In pre-Columbian times Native Americans suffered from a range of gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases, tuberculosis, and possibly louse-borne typhus. However, the only serious infection to be carried back to Europe from the Americas was probably syphilis, …
Bibliography
- Bauer, Arnold J. Goods, Power, History: Latin America's Material Culture. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2001. Carney, Judith A. Black Rice: The Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 2001. Coe, Sophie D. America's First Cuisines. Austin: Texas University Press, 1994. Cook, N. David. Born to Die: Disease and New W…