Columbian Exchange

Page 28 Americasto Europe Europe to America

Columbian Exchange It is no surprise that Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas-- but none of these incidental contacts made the impact that Columbus did. His voyages started the Columbian Exchange, a hemispherical swap of peoples, plants, animals and diseases that transformed not only the world he had discovered but also the one he had left.

PLANTS He enormously increased the number of kinds of foods and quantities of food by both plant and animal sources. New food crops have enabled people to live in places where they previously had only slim means of feeding themselves. In terms of economic and cultural impact, maize (corn) and potato are the most important. Maize produces good crops in various climatic zones and it prospers in areas too dry for rice and too wet for wheat; thus fitting into a niche between the two. Maize grows quickly and produces almost double the yield of wheat.

The potatoes which hung on to Spanish ships were not welcomed at first; Europeans found it unappetizing. But packing more calories per acre than any European grain, the potato eventually became the dominant food of northern Europe's working class. It was by chance that the potato was used as a cheap food for sailors returning from America. Once the potato got to Europe, its ability to grow in poor soils, resistance to cold, and ease of management gave it an edge for temperate European environments with overtaxed soils. The potato continues to be one of the major sources of food calories in the world.

Plant Exchange A few of the other plants that took root in the European diet was the cacao bean for chocolate, lima beans, peanuts, pumpkins, squash, cashews, tomato and pineapples. Sunflowers, petunias, marigolds and poinsettias also made their way to Europe. Several other plants of importance include quinine, tobacco, and sugar cane. Sugar cane is especially important because of its impact on slavery. While originally a European plant, it thrived in tropical American forests.

As Indians perished, African slaves were ferried in. The slave-based plantation system that sugar started spread to Georgia and the Carolinas to raise rice, indigo, and cotton. While Europe was coming to learn to like the potato and tomato, the Americas were invaded by olives, coffee, vegetable seeds, wheat, lemons, oranges, lettuce and cabbage.

Animals For almost every purpose--meat, milk, leather, fiber, power, speed, and even manure--the European domesticated animals were superior to those few species domesticated by Amerindians. Free of the diseases and pests that had killed them at home, the European animals thrived and went wild. Their numbers grew to amazing proportions, providing mounts, meat, milk and leather more cheaply in the New World than the Old.

Animals The two dozen mares and stallions Columbus unloaded quickly fit in to the New World's environment. Cortes' animals terrified the Aztecs, who thought each rider and his steed were one gigantic god. The "sky dogs" propagated quickly, and great herds ran wild from northern Mexico to the pampas of Argentina within a century. Pigs found more food available to them in the New World and increased their numbers dramatically. Cattle and sheep were also introduced.

DISEASE The advantage of the human invaders of America was not their plants, animals, muskets or rifles, but their diseases. The aboriginal Americans had their own diseases, but the number of these was insignificant compared to those entering the New World. The European invasion contributed whooping cough, smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, influenza, and diphtheria. Native communities lost between 50 and 90 percent of their people. Old World peoples had adjusted to these infections and were relatively immune to the diseases which wiped out native populations. Syphilis is sometimes called the "vengeance of the vanquished." It is one of the few diseases that Columbus's men took back to the Old World. A lethal epidemic swept Europe in five years.

PEOPLE The epidemics not only destroyed the native populations, but they also effected other people groups. One such group was the Africans. With the decline of an available work force among the natives, the Spaniards resorted to importing African slaves because they didn't want to do the work themselves. The Africans had the same immunities as the Europeans and thus made better slaves than the natives.