Geographical discoveries definitely had far reaching impacts on Europe, the Americas, and Africa. From the 15th century, some sea routes from Ocean to Ocean were known. But most of these routes were quite unknown to the Europeans. Not even a single ship had ever reached the Caribbean or the Americas. In the Southern Atlantic, nobody had done any exploration. No ship entered there or traveled toward the Pacific or Indian Ocean. But by the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th, all this became old stories. Adventurous navigators reached all these places. The discovery of the Americas had big repercussions on Europe, The ow of silver and gold from the newly discovered regions helped international trade and industrialization.
Between 1500 and 1600, each year hundreds of ships loaded with silver from South American mines readied Spain. But neither Spain nor Portugal made use of it for their internal development or welfare of the common people. They used it to develop trade or to build their naval power.
But England, France, Belgium, and Holland benefitted from the discoveries. Their merchants formed joint-stock companies and started trade trips. They established colonies in the newly discovered regions and brought new-world products like tobacco, potato, sugar, coco, pepper, and rubber into Europe. Soon the American produce became familiar to the Europeans. The Europeans then took them to places like India.
Geographical discoveries were ruinous to the indigenous people of the Americas. Many of the local people there were killed. Their culture and lifestyles were destroyed. They had to work like slaves in mines, estates, and mills.
Before the coming of the Europeans, there were some 70 million indigenes in the Americas. After a century and a half, their number was reduced to 3.5 million. It was wars and diseases that destroyed them.
In the duel between ancient American and European cultures, the Aztec-Inca cultures were completely ruined. Europeans used a war strategy that terrifed the local people psychologically and physically. This also showed the differences in their values. The local people did not realize the depth of the greed of the Spaniards for gold and silver.