The Columbian Exchange

Before 1492 Two very different ecosystems Two different disease pools Two sets of flora and fauna Two sets of culturally diverse peoples

What is the Columbian Exchange? The Columbian Exchange is the interaction between Europeans of the Old World and indigenous people of the New World The Columbian Exchange is specifically focused on the exchange of: –People and their inventions, cultures and ideas –Plants and animals –Disease

Columbian Exchange According to historian Alfred Crosby, the exchange of plants, animals and pathogens between the two hemispheres was biologically “the most spectacular thing that has ever happened to humans," and he coined the phenomenon the Columbian Exchange.

Disease The smallpox virus

The Impact of Disease In the Old World domesticating pigs, horses, sheep and cattle, infected citizens with a wide array of pathogens. Centuries of war, exploration and city building, kept those pathogens in constant circulation. European diseases like: smallpox, mumps measles, whooping cough, cholera, yellow fever, influenza where all new and deadly to natives. Virtually any European explorer of the 16th century had battled such illnesses during childhood and emerged fully immune.

Smallpox In Mexico alone, the native population fell from roughly 30 million in 1519 to only 3 million in Aztecs afflicted with Smallpox Modern-day victims of smallpox

Fauna

The Impact of Livestock

Negative Impacts of Grazing Animals Horses, cattle, chickens, dogs, sheep and goats were intro’d by Columbus on the second voyage in The animals were preyed upon by few or no predators and had resistance to new world diseases, which left them to feed freely upon the rich grasses, roots and wild fruits of the New World. This led to rapid reproduction. Grazing animals like sheep increased in numbers so rapidly, that they led to the extinction of certain plants, animals, and in some cases the Native Americans who depended on them.

Meat and Milk

Positive Impacts of Grazing Animals Those Native Americans who survived grew to appreciate the domesticated animals because it allowed permanent settlement for those who had prior been nomadic. Cattle, sheep, pigs and goats provided Natives with the means to do what was only meagerly possible before 1492: turn grass, which humans cannot eat, into meat and milk.

Flora

The greatest impact of the Columbian Exchange was the exchange of different food crops. Sweet Potatos Cassava Potatos

The Exchange of Plants and Animals Originally from the Western Hemisphere Potato Maize (corn) Manioc (cassava, tapioca) Sweet potato Tomato Cacao (chocolate) Squash Chili peppers Pumpkin Papaya Guava Tobacco Avocado Pineapple Beans (most varieties, including phaseolus vulgaris) Peanuts Certain cottons Rubber Turkeys Originally from the Eastern Hemisphere Sugar Olive oil Various grains (Wheat, rice, rye, barley, oats) Grapes Coffee Horses Cattle Pigs Goats Sheep Chickens Various fruit trees (pear, apple, peach, orange, lemon, pomegranate, fig, banana) Chick peas Melons Radishes A wide variety of weeds and grasses Cauliflower Cabbage

The Impact of Plants The potato grew well in the temperate climate and produced three times as much food per unit of land as wheat or any other grain. Corn grew in areas too dry for rice and too wet for wheat. The introduction of these crops became food staples in W. Europe and Far East Asia.

The Intro of Cash Crops Cash crops like tobacco, sugar, indigo became the focal point of new world crop production and became the catalyst for the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Sugar was one of the first Old World plants brought to the Americas b/c it thrived in the tropical climate of the Caribbean and NE Brazil.

Cash Crops Cont’d The process of turning sugar cane into granulated sugar is difficult. Old World diseases reduced the number of Native Americans to such a degree that demands could not be met by natives. This was also true for tobacco and cacao plantations. In order to supply labor for the cash crops grown on plantations, Europeans imported millions of Africans (some 9.3 in total) to work as slaves.

Sugar, Tobacco and Slavery

The Columbian Exchange

MAP 26.2 The Atlantic slave trade,