The Reshaping Of Everyday Life

13 Pages 3125 Words

icans and the Europeans was the sharing of native crops to each other. The Europeans brought back from the New World, tobacco, maize, beans, tomatoes, and potatoes, which provided food for the now greatly populated Europe. Other crops that were brought to Europe included blueberry, cranberry, papaya, wild rice, and pumpkin. In exchange for these great new crops the Europeans brought massive amounts of pigs, cattle, and horses. The horse highly affected the lives of the Native Americans by improving their hunting abilities. Another crop that did exceptionally well in the tropical climate of the Caribbean was the sugar cane brought over by Columbus.
Not all things exchanged were beneficial, however. Europeans unknowingly brought with them many diseases that eventually plague the Native Americans. Small pox, yellow fever, and malaria were some of the devastating diseases carried into the New World. Native Americans did also transfer the sexually transmitted disease of syphilis to the Europeans who had never experienced this before. Also, the ill treatment of the Native Americans by the land hungry Europeans virtually wiped out their civilization. Although at times they waged wars that would temporarily halt the European colonization, for the most part their voice in North America was forever muzzled.
The colonial family was extended rather than nuclear. An extended family includes the core group of males, which are a grandfather, adult sons and sons’ sons, their wives, and their unmarried daughters. The house in the colonial times shaped the home. You could not have an extended family that included servants, apprentices, and other non-kinfolk in a house that measured twenty feet by twenty feet and raised only a story and a half. Even if you added another room, you would only have enough livable space for a nuclear family, which consisted of parents and children. This was due to the high number of children in a family. The average nu...