what was the columbian exchange essay

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Columbian Exchange

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Columbian Exchange , the largest part of a more general process of biological globalization that followed the transoceanic voyaging of the 15th and 16th centuries. Ecological provinces that had been torn apart by continental drift millions of years ago were suddenly reunited by oceanic shipping , particularly in the wake of Christopher Columbus ’s voyages that began in 1492. The consequences profoundly shaped world history in the ensuing centuries, most obviously in the Americas , Europe , and Africa . The phrase “the Columbian Exchange” is taken from the title of Alfred W. Crosby’s 1972 book, which divided the exchange into three categories: diseases , animals , and plants .

Before 1492, Native Americans (Amerindians) hosted none of the acute infectious diseases that had long bedeviled most of Eurasia and Africa : measles , smallpox , influenza , mumps , typhus , and whooping cough , among others. In most places other than isolated villages, these had become endemic childhood diseases that killed one-fourth to one-half of all children before age six. Survivors, however, carried partial, and often total, immunity to most of these infections with the notable exception of influenza. Falciparum malaria , by far the most severe variant of that plasmodial infection, and yellow fever also crossed the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas.

In the centuries after 1492, these infections swirled as epidemics among Native American populations. Physical and psychological stress, including mass violence, compounded their effect. The impact was most severe in the Caribbean , where by 1600 Native American populations on most islands had plummeted by more than 99 percent. Across the Americas, populations fell by 50 percent to 95 percent by 1650.

The disease component of the Columbian Exchange was decidedly one-sided. However, it is likely that syphilis evolved in the Americas and spread elsewhere beginning in the 1490s. More assuredly, Native Americans hosted a form of tuberculosis , perhaps acquired from Pacific seals and sea lions . But they had no counterparts to the suite of lethal diseases they acquired from Eurasians and Africans. The paucity of exportable infections was a result of the settlement and ecological history of the Americas: The first Americans arrived about 25,000 to 15,000 years ago. The domestication of species other than dogs was yet to come. So none of the human diseases derived from, or shared with, domestic herd animals such as cattle , camels , and pigs (e.g. smallpox, influenza) yet existed anywhere in the Americas. Unlike these animals, the ducks , turkeys , alpacas , llamas , and other species domesticated by Native Americans seem to have harboured no infections that became human diseases.

The animal component of the Columbian Exchange was slightly less one-sided. Horses , pigs, cattle, goats , sheep , and several other species adapted readily to conditions in the Americas. Broad expanses of grassland in both North and South America suited immigrant herbivores, cattle and horses especially, which ran wild and reproduced prolifically on the Pampas and the Great Plains . Pigs too went feral. Sheep prospered only in managed flocks and became a mainstay of pastoralism in several contexts , such as among the Navajo in New Mexico .

With the new animals, Native Americans acquired new sources of hides, wool, and animal protein. Horses and oxen also offered a new source of traction, making plowing feasible in the Americas for the first time and improving transportation possibilities through wheeled vehicles, hitherto unused in the Americas. Donkeys , mules , and horses provided a wider variety of pack animals. Thus, the introduced animal species had some important economic consequences in the Americas and made the American hemisphere more similar to Eurasia and Africa in its economy.

The new animals made the Americas more like Eurasia and Africa in a second respect. With goats and pigs leading the way, they chewed and trampled crops, provoking between herders and farmers conflict of a sort hitherto unknown in the Americas except perhaps where llamas got loose. This pattern of conflict created new opportunities for political divisions and alignments defined by new common interests.

One introduced animal, the horse , rearranged political life even further. The Native Americans of the North American prairies , often called Plains Indians , acquired horses from Spanish New Mexico late in the 17th century. On horseback they could hunt bison (buffalo) more rewardingly, boosting food supplies until the 1870s, when bison populations dwindled. Additionally, mastery of the techniques of equestrian warfare utilized against their neighbours helped to vault groups such as the Sioux and Comanche to heights of political power previously unattained by any Amerindians in North America .

The Columbian Exchange was more evenhanded when it came to crops. The Americas’ farmers’ gifts to other continents included staples such as corn (maize), potatoes , cassava , and sweet potatoes , together with secondary food crops such as tomatoes , peanuts , pumpkins , squashes , pineapples , and chili peppers . Tobacco , one of humankind’s most important drugs, is another gift of the Americas, one that by now has probably killed far more people in Eurasia and Africa than Eurasian and African diseases killed in the Americas.

Some of these crops had revolutionary consequences in Africa and Eurasia. Corn had the biggest impact, altering agriculture in Asia , Europe, and Africa. It underpinned population growth and famine resistance in parts of China and Europe, mainly after 1700, because it grew in places unsuitable for tubers and grains and sometimes gave two or even three harvests a year. It also served as livestock feed, for pigs in particular.

In Africa about 1550–1850, farmers from Senegal to Southern Africa turned to corn. Today it is the most important food on the continent as a whole. Its drought resistance especially recommended it in the many regions of Africa with unreliable rainfall.

Corn had political consequences in Africa. After harvest, it spoils more slowly than the traditional staples of African farms, such as bananas , sorghums , millets , and yams. Its longer shelf life, especially once it is ground into meal, favoured the centralization of power because it enabled rulers to store more food for longer periods of time, give it to loyal followers, and deny it to all others. Previously, without long-lasting foods, Africans found it harder to build states and harder still to project military power over large spaces. In the moist tropical forests of western and west-central Africa, where humidity worked against food hoarding , new and larger states emerged on the basis of corn agriculture in the 17th century. Some of them, including the Asante kingdom centred in modern-day Ghana , developed supply systems for feeding far-flung armies of conquest, using cornmeal, which canoes, porters, or soldiers could carry over great distances. Such logistical capacity helped Asante become an empire in the 18th century. To the east of Asante, expanding kingdoms such as Dahomey and Oyo also found corn useful in supplying armies on campaign.

The durability of corn also contributed to commercialization in Africa. Merchant parties, traveling by boat or on foot, could expand their scale of operations with food that stored and traveled well. The advantages of corn proved especially significant for the slave trade , which burgeoned dramatically after 1600. Slaves needed food on their long walks across the Sahara to North Africa or to the Atlantic coast en route to the Americas. Corn further eased the slave trade’s logistical challenges by making it feasible to keep legions of slaves fed while they clustered in coastal barracoons before slavers shipped them across the Atlantic.

Cassava , or manioc, another American food crop introduced to Africa in the 16th century as part of the Columbian Exchange, had impacts that in some cases reinforced those of corn and in other cases countered them. Cassava, originally from Brazil , has much that recommended it to African farmers. Its soil nutrient requirements are modest, and it withstands drought and insects robustly. Like corn, it yields a flour that stores and travels well. It helped ambitious rulers project force and build states in Angola , Kongo , West Africa , and beyond. Farmers can harvest cassava (unlike corn) at any time after the plant matures. The food lies in the root, which can last for weeks or months in the soil. This characteristic of cassava suited farming populations targeted by slave raiders. It enabled them to vanish into the forest and abandon their crop for a while, returning when danger had passed. So while corn helped slave traders expand their business, cassava allowed peasant farmers to escape and survive slavers’ raids.

The potato , domesticated in the Andes , made little difference in African history, although it does feature today in agriculture, especially in the Maghreb and South Africa . Farmers in various parts of East and South Asia adopted it, which improved agricultural returns in cool and mountainous districts. But its strongest impact came in northern Europe, where ecological conditions suited its requirements even at low elevations. From central Russia across to the British Isles , its adoption between 1700 and 1900 improved nutrition, checked famine, and led to a sustained spurt of demographic growth.

Potatoes store well in cold climates and contain excellent nutrition. In the Andes, where potato production and storage began, freeze-dried potatoes helped fuel the expansion of the Inca empire in the 15th century. A few centuries later potatoes fed the labouring legions of northern Europe’s manufacturing cities and thereby indirectly contributed to European industrial empires. Both Catherine the Great in Russia and Frederick II (the Great) in Prussia encouraged potato cultivation, hoping it would boost the number of taxpayers and soldiers in their domains. Like cassava, potatoes suited populations that might need to flee marauding armies. Potatoes can be left in the ground for weeks, unlike northern European grains such as rye and barley , which will spoil if not harvested when ripe. Frequent warfare in northern Europe prior to 1815 encouraged the adoption of potatoes.

Over-reliance on potatoes led to some of the worst food crises in the modern history of Europe . In 1845–52 a potato blight caused by an airborne fungus swept across northern Europe with especially costly consequences in Ireland , western Scotland , and the Low Countries . A million starved, and two million emigrated—mostly Irish.

Eurasian and African crops had an equally profound influence on the history of the American hemisphere. Until the mid-19th century, “drug crops” such as sugar and coffee proved the most important plant introductions to the Americas. Together with tobacco and cotton , they formed the heart of a plantation complex that stretched from the Chesapeake to Brazil and accounted for the vast majority of the Atlantic slave trade .

Introduced staple food crops, such as wheat , rice , rye, and barley, also prospered in the Americas. Some of these grains—rye, for example—grew well in climates too cold for corn, so the new crops helped to expand the spatial footprint of farming in both North and South America. Rice, on the other hand, fit into the plantation complex: imported from both Asia and Africa, it was raised mainly by slave labour in places such as Suriname and South Carolina until slavery’s abolition. By the late 19th century these food grains covered a wide swathe of the arable land in the Americas. Beyond grains, African crops introduced to the Americas included watermelon , yams, sorghum, millets, coffee, and okra . Eurasian contributions to American diets included bananas ; oranges , lemons , and other citrus fruits; and grapes .

The Columbian Exchange, and the larger process of biological globalization of which it is part, has slowed but not ended. Shipping and air travel continue to redistribute species among the continents. Kudzu vine arrived in North America from Asia in the late 19th century and has spread widely in forested regions. The North American gray squirrel has found a new home in the British Isles. Zebra mussels have colonized North American waters since the 1980s. However, the consequences of recent biological exchanges for economic, political, and health history thus far pale next to those of the 16th through 18th century.

Columbian Exchange

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The Columbian Exchange is a term coined by Alfred Crosby Jr. in 1972 that is traditionally defined as the transfer of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World of Europe and Africa and the New World of the Americas. The exchange began in the aftermath of Christopher Columbus ' voyages in 1492, later accelerating with the European colonization of the Americas .

Columbus ' Arrival

The Americas had been isolated and cut off from Asia at the end of the last Ice Age approximately 12,000 years ago. Apart from occasional contact with Vikings in eastern Canada 500 years prior to Columbus and Polynesian voyages to the Pacific Ocean coastline of South America around 1200, there was no regular or substantial contact between the world's peoples. By the 1400s, due to rising tension in the Middle East, Europeans began the search for new trade routes led by Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394-1460), who sailed southward along the west coast of Africa, establishing trading posts. The Portuguese goal was to sail around the southern tip of Africa into the Indian Ocean to directly access the markets of India , China , and Japan .

An Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus (l. 1451-1506), sailing under the flag of Spain on behalf of Ferdinand II of Aragon and his wife Isabella of Castile, proceeded westward across the Atlantic Ocean in search of direct routes with the same markets in Asia. Columbus and his ships departed Spain on 3 August 1492, making a brief stop in the Canary Islands for provisions and ship repairs, before commencing the 5-week voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. On 12 October, Columbus and his crew made landfall in what is now the Bahamas on an island that the native people called Guanahani, which Columbus renamed San Salvador. Following Columbus' first journey, the Spanish, and later other Europeans, began settlements in which they attempted to recreate their Old World lifestyles and cultures in the Americas.

On Columbus' second voyage (1493-1496) domesticated animals – horses, cattle, pigs, chickens – were introduced to the New World for purposes of food and transportation. The subsequent establishment of sugar, rice, and later tobacco and cotton plantations formed a new basis for wealth and trade. The accidental exchange of diseases, especially those carried by the Europeans, spread to the indigenous peoples resulting in the catastrophic deaths of upwards of 90% of all native peoples.

In terms of plants, Europe had experienced its own exchange phenomenon 5,500 years earlier. The origins of world agriculture can be traced back to over 12,000 years ago, and farming was firmly established in Europe by 4,000 BCE. The crops brought to the Americas by the Europeans in the late 1400s and early 1500s served to satisfy European demands to recreate their traditional diets but would also disrupt New World agricultural systems.

The Spanish initially introduced wheat, olives, and grapevines in order to produce bread, olives, and wine, staples of the Spanish diet and intimately tied to their Catholic rituals. In time, additional cereals and sugar would cross the Atlantic, allowing Europeans to create large agricultural plantations first in the Caribbean and later spreading to Mexico and throughout the rest of the Americas. When the European-based indentured servitude system drawn from the poor, debtors, and criminals failed to provide enough labor, Europeans also enslaved indigenous peoples to work the plantations. This approach failed, too, as the native peoples were not used to the physical demands of large-scale agriculture , ran away from the farms, and were dying in high numbers due to disease exposure. The Europeans then turned their attention towards Africa, resulting in the nearly 400-year phenomenon of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Africa supplied not only people for work but contributed to the exchange of plants by introducing rice, bananas, plantains, lemons, and black-eyed peas, creating additional sources of food and wealth for colonists and agricultural enterprises.

The Americas also provided Europe, Asia, and Africa with a rich variety of new foodstuffs. Maize, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, peanuts, tobacco, and cacao ( chocolate ) were among the plants that journeyed eastward across the Atlantic. By the 1530s, tobacco, smoked and inhaled (in the form of snuff) by Native Americans, became a very valuable cash crop, especially in the British Middle Atlantic colonies. Cacao was used by the Olmec , the Maya civilization , and cultivated in Aztec agriculture. The cacao bean was ground into a powder and infused into water creating a very bitter drink, which was disliked by Europeans. Hernan Cortés (1485-1547) brought cacao back to Spain in 1528. The Spanish added sugar and honey to alleviate the bitterness, and in the next hundred years , as it spread throughout Europe, vanilla was added to the mixture producing a new luxury item: chocolate.

The potato had the greatest impact on Europe affecting both their diet and lifespan. Potato consists of essential vitamins and nutrients, and it can grow in a wide range of soils capable. Producing high yields, the introduction of potato ended centuries-old cycles of malnourishment and famine, leading to higher population growth in Europe.

The discovery and use of quinine by Europeans assisted them in their future colonial adventures in Africa. Native to the Andes mountains region of Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia, the cinchona tree's bark contains an alkaloid that provides effective medicinal treatment against malaria-carrying mosquitos. The discovery by Dr. Thomas Thomson in 1841 and the use of quinine by Europeans helped to cut in half the rate of deaths among European colonizers in the Africa and Pacific Ocean areas of colonization .

Cayenne, bell, tabasco, and jalapeño peppers derive from the capsicum pepper found in Bolivia and Brazil. Arriving in Europe after 1493, capsicum spread throughout South and East Asia and was adopted into the traditional cuisines of many European and Asian countries including Hungary (paprika) and Korea (kimchi). Medicinal uses of peppers have proved to be as valuable as their culinary adaptations. Capsicum offers the necessary requirements of vitamins A, B, and C; aids digestion by increasing the amounts of saliva and gastric acids; and is now used for pain relief for cases of arthritis, toothaches, and certain repository illnesses.

Tobacco, initially thought to possess medicinal value, was used in the American colonies as a currency for a short while. Tobacco's various smoking products increased significantly during and after World War I but has been shown to be one of the leading causes of death around the world according to the World Health Organization. Thought to increase creativity and reduce hunger, coca is the central ingredient in producing cocaine. Native to the Andes, coca was chewed as part of a ritual in the Inca religion and was adopted as such by Spanish settlers in the New World. Its most famous adaptation was in the creation of Coca-Cola developed in the 1880s by an Atlanta pharmacist as a substitution for alcohol during Prohibition in the United States. Like the soft drink, cocaine has spread around the globe and is one of the most used illegally traded drugs.

The Columbian Exchange facilitated the transfer of all of the major domesticated animals from the Old World to the Americas: cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and pigs. The few domesticated species in Pre-Columbian America included the dog and the alpaca. The alpaca was limited in its use as it could not be ridden for transportation and could not carry loads greater than c. 35 kg (75 pounds). However, its fur could be used for making cloth. The largest animal present in the Americas was the bison, but it resisted domestication.

The Spanish allowed imported domesticated herds to roam freely over the plentiful supply of lands upon which the animals thrived. Additionally, the Americas contained no natural predators to the new animals. However, these newly introduced animals upset the ecological balance as they ate and destroyed much of the native plants. Three domesticated European animals had an immediate effect: cattle, horses, and pigs. By 1565 cattle ranching spread from the Caribbean to Mexico and Florida. Along with cattle, the Spanish brought the metal plow. This instrument, hitched to cattle, permitted the Europeans to expand the size of their agricultural enterprises. More planted land produced more food and consequently increased the population size and extended life expectancy. Furthermore, cattle provided a stable source of protein in the form of meat and dairy products.

The horse allowed Europeans to travel greater distances into the interior of the continents. The horse also provided greater speed and height advantages in conflicts with the indigenous peoples and frightened the natives with their appearance. Unable to contain the proliferation of reproduction, the horse spread quickly across the Americas. In time the native peoples would adopt and adapt the horse for travel and warfare .

On his second voyage to the Americas in 1493, Columbus brought pigs. Unusually rugged in surviving the ocean voyage, the pig provided the Spanish with an additional source of food. Pigs that escaped into the wild became the ancestors of today's feral pig population and provided an opportunity for hunting by later explorers and colonists. During Hernando de Soto's expedition to La Florida (1539-1542) , the pig was introduced to North America.

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The most devastating component of the Columbian exchange was the transfer of Old World diseases to the Americas. Among the lethal germs were smallpox, measles, mumps, whooping cough, chickenpox, typhus, and influenza. The later Transatlantic Slave Trade introduced hepatitis B, malaria, and yellow fever to this deadly disease cocktail. Native populations were decimated by disease outbreaks which allowed the Spanish, and later Europeans, to conquer the indigenous populations more easily.

Most infectious diseases in history have been passed from herds of domesticated animals into the human population in a process known as zoonosis. Beginning after 8,000 BCE, these lethal germs entered Europe, first as occasional outbreaks and then becoming endemics, especially as population density increased. As Europeans lived with domesticated animals, including animals residing in houses, for thousands of years, the prolonged and repeated exposure to those germs allowed the Europeans to develop natural immunities. This, however, did not apply to the indigenous populations in the Americas. Having been cut off from exposure to diseases after the last Ice Age, the native peoples lost any acquired immunities. Additionally, the indigenous population of the Americas had fewer domesticated animals from which diseases might emerge and transfer.

The first disease that made its appearance in the New World was influenza in 1506 followed by smallpox in 1519. Indigenous peoples would begin to sicken and die in extremely high numbers so much so that by 1650 it has been estimated that 90% of the native populations perished. Disease was the most effective ally of the Spanish conquistadors either preceding or accompanying them in their conquests across the Caribbean and the Americas. Hernan Cortés, in August 1519, successfully conquered the largest city in the Americas, Tenochtitlan , after a 75-day siege in which a few hundred conquistadors defeated a native army numbering in the thousands. Disease, warfare, and starvation weakened the abilities of the Aztecs to resist. Cortés' conquest of the Aztecs ultimately left only about 2 million people of the roughly 11-25 million who existed when the Spanish first arrived in Mexico. Disease also accompanied Francisco Pizzaro when he conquered the Inca in Peru in the early 1530s.

The disease exchange occurred in both directions. Syphilis crossed the Atlantic Ocean back to Europe by some of Columbus' sailors who had engaged in sexual relations with native women in the Caribbean. A few of those sailors joined the army of Charles VIII of France (r. 1483-1498) when he invaded Italy in 1494-95. The first recorded case of syphilis was reported in Naples in 1495. Recently historians have offered an alternative theory about the introduction of syphilis into Europe. It has been suggested that the disease already existed in Europe prior to the 15th century but was misdiagnosed and thought to be other diseases such as leprosy because the symptoms –pain, rashes, genital ulcers – were similar. Left untreated, syphilis causes death amongst its sufferers.

Consequences

Often referred to as one of the most pivotal events in world history, the Columbian exchange altered life on 3 separate continents. The new plants and animals brought to the Americas and the new plants brought back to Europe transformed farming and human diets. From the 16th century onward, farmers enjoyed a wider variety of plants and animals to choose from to earn a living and expand their prospects for wealth. The new crops on all 3 continents allowed farmers to plant in soils that were previously unusable thus producing higher yields and ending an ongoing history of food insecurity.

To meet the growing labor demands, especially on the expanding cash crop plantations, the Europeans turned to Africa. The Transatlantic Slave Trade represented the largest forced migration of people in human history with the transfer of 12-20 million Africans to the Americas between the 16th to 19th centuries. The result of the various exchanges became known as the triangular trade in which the Americas supplied the Old World with raw materials, Europe transformed those raw materials into finished goods which were traded to Africa and the Americas, while Africa supplied slaves to fulfill labor needs in the New World.

The transfer of domesticated animals to the New World would, along with the transfer of plants, alter human diets, provide new forms of transportation and inaugurate a new form of warfare between peoples for centuries to come. By the 1560s, the islands in the Caribbean were largely depopulated due to lethal, infectious diseases. Not only did whole civilizations collapse due to sickness, another 20% of native peoples died from famine resulting from the collapse of the local farming sector.

Scholarship on the Columbian exchange has expanded to include additional items transferred across the ocean in the centuries after Columbus. Nunn and Qian describe how rubber, found in trees and vines in Central and South America as well as West-Central Africa, was initially used by Africans primarily as an adhesive and Native Americans for boots, tents, and containers. After 1770, the use of rubber increased significantly with the discovery of vulcanization, which created a more stable compound that could be used as electrical insulation along with increased production of tires for bicycles, automobiles, and motorcycles. Rubber production exacted a terrible toll on Central Africa during the period of European colonization.

Other aspects of the Columbian exchange include economic, religious, and cultural transformations. The tremendous amounts of silver which flowed from the mines in South America back to Spain altered the European economy . The new wealth led to better lives for many Europeans and an increased population. The increased circulation of silver permitted the Catholic Church to underwrite a response to the challenges posed by the Protestant Reformation as well as spread Catholicism amongst the natives in the Americas. More detailed maps of lands and oceans, greater circulation of news flowing from the New World assisted by the new printing press, more effective navigational devices such as the compass, and astronomical discoveries helped launch a golden age in literature and art. The Columbian exchange, which started out as the introduction of new plants, animals, and diseases into different cultures, ultimately took on greater significance in the profound cultural, colonial, economic, nationalist, and labor consequences.

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Bibliography

• Alfred W. Crosby, Jr. "“Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America”." he William and Mary Quarterly , 33, no. 2 (1976), pp. 289–99.
• Bianchine PJ, Russo TA. "The Role of Epidemic Infectious Diseases in the Discovery of America." Allergy Proc. , 13(5) 1992 Sep-Oct, pp. 225-32.
• Crosby Jr., Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange. Praeger, 2003.
• How Disease and Conquest Carved a New Planetary Landscape , accessed 22 Apr 2022.
• How the Columbian Exchange Brought Globalization—And Disease , accessed 22 Apr 2022.
• J. R. Mcneill. "Europe's Place in the Global History of Biological Exchange." Landscape Research , Volume 28, 2003 - Issue 1, pp. 33-39.
• Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian. "The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas." Journal of Economic Perspectives , Volume 24, Number 2—Spring 2010, pp. 163–188.
• Rebecca Earle. "The Columbian Exchange." The Oxford Handbook of Food History , edited by Jeffrey M. Pilcher, ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012, 341-57.
• Sherry Johnson. ""Dreams of Empire: The Legacies of Contact." ." Myths and Dreams: Exploring the Cultural Legacies of Florida and the Caribbean , edited by Phyllis Shapiro. Jay I. Kislak Foundation, Inc., 2000, 21-34.
• What We Eat: The Story of Livestock in America - #104 , accessed 22 Apr 2022.

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How the Columbian Exchange Brought Globalization—And Disease

By: Sarah Pruitt

Updated: June 6, 2023 | Original: August 25, 2021

Two hundred million years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, all seven continents were united in a single massive supercontinent known as Pangaea. After they slowly broke apart and settled into the positions we know today, each continent developed independently from the others over millennia, including the evolution of different species of plants, animals and bacteria.

By 1492, the year Christopher Columbus first made landfall on an island in the Caribbean, the Americas had been almost completely isolated from the Old World (including Europe, Asia and Africa) for some 12,000 years , ever since the melting of sea ice in the Bering Strait erased the land route between Asia and the West coast of North America. But with Columbus’ arrival—and the waves of European exploration, conquest and settlement that followed, the process of global separation would be firmly reversed, with consequences that still reverberate today.

What Was the Columbian Exchange?

The historian Alfred Crosby first used the term “Columbian Exchange” in the 1970s to describe the massive interchange of people, animals, plants and diseases that took place between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres after Columbus’ arrival in the Americas.

On Columbus’ second voyage to the Caribbean in 1493, he brought 17 ships and more than 1,000 men to explore further and expand an earlier settlement on the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). In the holds of their ships were hundreds of domesticated animals including sheep, cows, goats, horses and pigs—none of which could be found in the Americas. (Horses had in fact originated in the Americas and spread to the Old World, but disappeared from their original homeland at some point after the land bridge disappeared, possibly due to disease or the arrival of human populations.)

The Europeans also brought seeds and plant cuttings to grow Old World crops such as wheat, barley, grapes and coffee in the fertile soil they found in the Americas. Staples eaten by indigenous people in America, such as maize (corn), potatoes and beans, as well as flavorful additions like tomatoes, cacao, chili peppers, peanuts, vanilla and pineapple, would soon flourish in Europe and spread throughout the Old World, revolutionizing the traditional diets in many countries .

Disease Spreads Among Indigenous Populations 

Along with the people, plants and animals of the Old World came their diseases. The pigs aboard Columbus’ ships in 1493 immediately spread swine flu, which sickened Columbus and other Europeans and proved deadly to the native Taino population on Hispaniola, who had no prior exposure to the virus. In a retrospective account written in 1542, Spanish historian Bartolomé de las Casas reported that “There was so much disease, death and misery, that innumerable fathers, mothers and children died … Of the multitudes on this island [Hispaniola] in the year 1494, by 1506 it was thought there were but one third of them left.”

Smallpox arrived on Hispaniola by 1519 and soon spread to mainland Central America and beyond. Along with measles , influenza, chickenpox , bubonic plague , typhus, scarlet fever, pneumonia and malaria, smallpox spelled disaster for Native Americans , who lacked immunity to such diseases. Although the exact impact of Old World diseases on the Indigenous populations of the Americas is impossible to know, historians have estimated that between 80 and 95 percent of them were decimated within the first 100-150 years after 1492.

The impact of disease on Native Americans, combined with the cultivation of lucrative cash crops such as sugarcane, tobacco and cotton in the Americas for export, would have another devastating consequence. To meet the demand for labor, European settlers would turn to the slave trade , which resulted in the forced migration of some 12.5 million Africans between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Syphilis and the Columbian Exchange

When it came to disease, the exchange was rather lopsided—but at least one deadly disease appears to have made the trip from the Americas to Europe. The first known outbreak of venereal syphilis occurred in 1495, among the troops led by France’s King Charles VIII in an invasion of Naples; it soon spread across Europe. Syphilis is now treated effectively with penicillin, but in the late 15th-early 16th centuries, it caused symptoms such as genital ulcers, rashes, tumors, severe pain and dementia, and was often fatal.

According to one theory , the origins of syphilis in Europe can be traced to Columbus and his crew, who were believed to have acquired Treponema pallidum, the bacteria that cause syphilis, from natives of Hispaniola and carried it back to Europe, where some of them later joined Charles’ army. 

A competing theory argues that syphilis existed in the Old World before the late 15th century, but had been lumped in with leprosy or other diseases with similar symptoms. Because syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease, theories involving its origins are always controversial, but more recent evidence —including a genetic link found between syphilis and a tropical disease known as yaws, found in a remote region of Guyana—appears to support the Columbian theory.

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Introduction

The Columbian Exchange is the process by which plants, animals, diseases, people, and ideas have been introduced from Europe , Asia , and Africa to the Americas and vice versa. It began in the 15th century, when oceanic shipping brought the Western and Eastern hemispheres into contact. The exchange began to increase particularly in the wake of Christopher Columbus ’s voyages that began in 1492. The consequences of the Columbian Exchange profoundly shaped world history. ( See also colonization of the Americas ; early exploration of the Americas ).

Since Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, the Columbian Exchange has slowed but not ended. Shipping and air travel continue to redistribute species among the continents. Kudzu vine arrived in North America from Asia in the late 19th century and has spread widely in forested regions. The North American gray squirrel has found a new home in the British Isles. Zebra mussels have colonized North American waters since the 1980s.

American historian Alfred W. Crosby coined the phrase the Columbian Exchange in his 1972 book. He named this transfer of products and other elements after Columbus. In his book he divided the exchange into three categories: diseases, animals, and plants.

During the Columbian Exchange, diseases mostly came from Eurasia and Africa and spread to the Americas. Many human diseases —including smallpox and influenza —came from domesticated herd animals. They included cattle, camels, and pigs. Before Europeans brought these animals to the Americas, Native Americans had no contact with them. Instead, Native Americans domesticated such animals as ducks, turkeys, alpacas, and llamas. These species did not have infections that were spread to humans.

Therefore, before 1492, Native Americans were not exposed to the infectious diseases that had spread through most of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Besides smallpox and influenza, these diseases included measles , mumps , typhus , and whooping cough . They spread easily in crowded cities and had become common childhood diseases. They killed thousands of children every year, but people who caught one of the diseases and survived developed partial or total immunity to that disease (except in the case of influenza). Malaria and yellow fever crossed the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas.

In the centuries after 1492, the introduced diseases turned into epidemics among Native Americans. They had no time to build up resistance to the diseases. Physical and psychological stress, including mass violence, increased their effect. The impact was most severe in the Caribbean. By 1600, Native American populations on most islands had decreased by more than 99 percent. Across the Americas populations fell by 50–95 percent by 1650.

The animal exchange of the Columbian Exchange was slightly less one-sided than the disease exchange. European sailors landing in the Americas, captured wild turkeys, and brought them back to Spain in 1519. From there the turkeys spread throughout Europe. Meanwhile, Europeans brought horses, pigs, cattle, goats, sheep, and several other species to the Americas. The animals easily adapted to the new conditions. Cattle and horses ran wild and reproduced on the grasslands in both North America and South America. Pigs too became wild. Sheep prospered only in managed flocks. They became a mainstay among several groups, including the Navajo in New Mexico.

With the new animals, Native Americans acquired new sources of hides, wool, and food. Horses and oxen made plowing easier. They also improved transportation possibilities through wheeled vehicles. Donkeys, mules, and horses provided a wider variety of pack animals. Therefore, these introduced animals had important economic consequences in the Americas. They also made the economy in the Americas more similar to that in Eurasia and Africa.

The new animals made the Americas more like Eurasia and Africa in another way. The animals chewed and trampled crops, provoking conflict between herders and farmers. This conflict forced people to take sides, creating new political divisions. The horse rearranged political life even further. Plains Indians acquired horses from Spanish New Mexico late in the 17th century. On horseback they could better hunt bison (buffalo), boosting food supplies (until the 1870s, when bison populations dwindled). In addition, groups such as the Sioux and Comanche grew skilled in warfare on horseback. This helped them to reach heights of political power previously unreached by any Amerindians in North America.

The Columbian Exchange was more balanced when it came to crops. Among the American crops introduced to other continents were staples such as corn (maize), potatoes, cassava, and sweet potatoes. They also included tomatoes, peanuts (groundnuts), pumpkins, squashes, pineapples, chili peppers, avocados, vanilla, and cacao (from which chocolate is made). Tobacco , perhaps the world’s most economically important drug plant, is also native to the Americas.

Some of these crops had revolutionary consequences in Africa and Eurasia. Corn , for example, helped reduce famine in parts of China and Europe, because it grew in places unsuitable for other crops. It also served as livestock feed. Corn is drought resistant, making it especially favorable in African regions with unreliable rainfall. In addition, corn is less likely to spoil and can be ground into cornmeal. In the 17th century the Asante kingdom, centered in modern-day Ghana, developed supply systems to transport cornmeal for feeding armies on campaign. Slave traders also used corn to feed captured slaves.

Cassava, or manioc, was another American crop introduced to Africa in the 16th century. Originally from Brazil, cassava needs minimal soil nutrients, and it withstands drought and insects. Like corn, it yields a flour that stores and travels well. Farmers can harvest cassava at any time after the plant matures. The food lies in the root, which can last for weeks or months in the soil. This characteristic allowed African farming populations targeted by slave raiders to vanish into the forest and abandon their crop for a while. They could then return when danger had passed. So while corn helped slave traders expand their business, cassava allowed peasant farmers to escape and survive slave traders’ raids.

People in the Andes domesticated the potato . The crop made little difference in African history, but today it is an important agricultural product there. Farmers in various parts of East and South Asia also adopted the potato, which grows well in cool and mountainous areas. But its strongest impact came in northern Europe. People from central Russia across to the British Isles adopted potatoes between 1700 and 1900. There potatoes improved nutrition, slowed famine, and led to population growth. However, overreliance on potatoes led to mass starvation in Ireland and surrounding countries in the mid-1800s after a potato blight wiped out the entire crop.

Eurasian and African crops had an equally important influence on the history of the Americas. Until the mid-19th century crops such as sugar and coffee were the most important plant introductions to the Americas. Together with tobacco and cotton , they formed the heart of the plantation system. The increase in the demand for those crops increased the demand for slaves to work the land. This helped the Atlantic slave trade to thrive.

Introduced staple food crops—including wheat, rice, rye, and barley—also prospered in the Americas. Some of these grains, such as rye , grew well in climates too cold for corn, allowing people to farm new lands. Rice , by contrast, fit into the plantation system. By the late 19th century these food grains covered a wide area of farming land in the Americas. Beyond grains, African crops introduced to the Americas included watermelon, yams, sorghum, millets, coffee, and okra. Eurasian contributions to American diets included bananas, oranges, lemons, and grapes.

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Alfred W. Crosby on the Columbian Exchange

The historian discusses the ecological impact of Columbus’ landing in 1492 on both the Old World and the New World

Megan Gambino

Senior Editor

In 1972, Alfred W. Crosby wrote a book called The Columbian Exchange . In it, the historian tells the story of Columbus’s landing in 1492 through the ecological ramifications it had on the New World.

At the time of publication, Crosby’s approach to history, through biology, was novel. “For historians Crosby framed a new subject,” wrote J.R. McNeil, a professor at Georgetown University, in a foreword to the book’s 30th anniversary edition. Today, The Columbian Exchange is considered a founding text in the field of environmental history.

I recently spoke with the retired professor about “Columbian Exchange”—a term that has worked its way into historians’ vernacular—and the impacts of some of the living organisms that transferred between continents, beginning in the 15th century.

You coined the term “Columbian Exchange.” Can you define it?

In 1491, the world was in many of its aspects and characteristics a minimum of two worlds—the New World, of the Americas, and the Old World, consisting of Eurasia and Africa. Columbus brought them together, and almost immediately and continually ever since, we have had an exchange of native plants, animals and diseases moving back and forth across the oceans between the two worlds. A great deal of the economic, social, political history of the world is involved in the exchange of living organisms between the two worlds.

When you wrote The Columbian Exchange , this was a new idea—telling history from an ecological perspective. Why hadn’t this approach been taken before?

Sometimes the more obvious a thing is the more difficult it is to see it. I am 80 years old, and for the first 40 or 50 years of my life, the Columbian Exchange simply didn’t figure into history courses even at the finest universities. We were thinking politically and ideologically, but very rarely were historians thinking ecologically, biologically.

What made you want to write the book?

I was a young American historian teaching undergraduates. I tell you, after about ten years of muttering about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, you really need some invigoration from other sources. Then, I fell upon it, starting with smallpox.

Smallpox was enormously important until quite modern times, until the middle of the 20th century at the latest. So I was chasing it down, and I found myself reading the original accounts of the European settlements in Mexico, Peru or Cuba in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. I kept coming across smallpox just blowing people away. So I thought there must be something else going on here, and there was—and I suppose still is.

How did you go about your research?

It was really quite easy. You just have to be prepared somehow or other to notice the obvious. You don’t have to read the original accounts in Spanish or Portuguese. There are excellent English translations dating back for generations. Practically all of them will get into a page or two or ten about the decimation of American Indians, or a page about how important maize is when all European crops fail, and things like that. I really didn’t realize that I was starting a revolution in historiography when I got into this subject.

So, how were the idea and the book received at first?

That is kind of interesting. I had a great deal of trouble getting it published. Now, the ideas are not particularly startling anymore, but they were at the time. Publisher after publisher read it, and it didn’t make a significant impression. Finally, I said, “the hell with this.” I gave it up. And a little publisher in New England wrote me and asked me if I would let them have a try at it, which I did. It came out in 1972, and it has been in print ever since. It has really caused a stir.

What crops do you consider part of the Columbian Exchange?

There was very little sharing of the main characters in our two New World and Old World systems of agriculture. So practically any crop you name was exclusive to one side of the ocean and carried across. I am thinking about the enormous ones that support whole civilizations. Rice is, of course, Old World. Wheat is Old World. Maize, or corn, is New World.

The story of wheat is the story of Old World civilization. Thousands of years ago, it was first cultivated in the Middle East, and it has been a staple for humanity ever since. It is one of Europe’s greatest gifts to the Americas.

Maize was the most important grain of the American Indians in 1491, and it is one of the most important grain sources in the world right now. It is a standard crop of people not only throughout the Americas, but also southern Europe. It is a staple for the Chinese. It is a staple in Indonesia, throughout large areas of Africa. If suddenly American Indian crops would not grow in all of the world, it would be an ecological tragedy. It would be the slaughter of a very large portion of the human race.

Maize, potatoes and other crops are important not only because they are nourishing, but because they have different requirements of soil and weather and prosper in conditions that are different from other plants.

What ideas about domesticating animals traveled across the ocean?

American Indians were very, very roughly speaking the equal of Old World farmers of crops. But American Indians were inferior to the Old World raisers of animals. The horse, cattle, sheep and goat are all of Old World origin. The only American domesticated animals of any kind were the alpaca and the llama.

One of the early advantages of the Spanish over the Mexican Aztecs, for instance, was that the Spanish had the horse. It took the American Indians a little while to adopt the horse and become equals on the field of battle.

You talk about the horse being an advantage in war. What other impacts did the adoption of domesticated horses have on the Americas?

Horses not only helped in war but in peace. The invaders had more pulling power—not only horses but also oxen and donkeys. When you consider the great buildings of the Old World, starting with the Egyptians and running up through the ages, people in almost all cases had access to thousands of very strong animals to help them. If you needed to move a ton of whatever in the Old World, you got yourself an animal to help you. When you turn to the Americas and look at temples, you realize people built these. If you need to move a ton in the New World, you just got a bunch of friends and told everybody to pull at the same time.

What diseases are included in the Columbian Exchange?

The Old World invaders came in with a raft of infectious diseases. Not that the New World didn’t have any at all, but it did not have the numbers that were brought in from the Old World. Smallpox was a standard infection in Europe and most of the Old World in 1491. It took hold in areas of the New World in the early part of the next century and killed a lot of American Indians, starting with the Aztecs and the people of Mexico and Peru. One wonders how a few hundred Spaniards managed to conquer these giant Indian empires. You go back and read the records and you discover that the army and, just generally speaking, the people of the Indian empires were just decimated by such diseases as smallpox, malaria, all kinds of infectious diseases.

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• Columbian Exchange

Written by: Mark Christensen, Assumption College

By the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain causes of the Columbian Exchange and its effect on Europe and the Americas during the period after 1492

Suggested Sequencing

This narrative should be assigned to students at the beginning of their study of chapter 1, alongside the First Contacts Narrative.

When European settlers sailed for distant places during the Renaissance, they carried a variety of items, visible and invisible. Upon arriving in the Caribbean in 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew brought with them several different trading goods. Yet they also carried unseen biological organisms. And so did every European, African, and Native American who wittingly or unwittingly took part in the Columbian Exchange – the transfer of plants, animals, humans, cultures, germs, and ideas between the Americas and the Old World. The result was a biological and ideological mixing unprecedented in the history of the planet, and one that forever shaped the cultures that participated.

For tens of millions of years, the earth’s people and animals developed in relative isolation from one another. Geographic obstacles such as oceans, rainforests, and mountains prevented the interaction of different species of animals and plants and their spread to other regions. The first settlers of the Americas, who probably crossed the Bering Strait’s ice bridge that connected modern-day Russia and Alaska thousands of years ago, brought plants, animals, and germs with them from Eurasia. However, scholars have speculated that the frigid climate of Siberia (the likely origin of the Native Americans) limited the variety of species. And although the Vikings made contact with the Americas around 1000, their impact was limited.

A large variety of new flora and fauna was introduced to the New World and the Old World in the Columbian Exchange. New World crops included maize (corn), chiles, tobacco, white and sweet potatoes, peanuts, tomatoes, papaya, pineapples, squash, pumpkins, and avocados. New World cultures domesticated only a few animals, including some small-dog species, guinea pigs, llamas, and a few species of fowl. Such animals were domesticated largely for their use as food and not as beasts of burden. For their part, Old World inhabitants were busily cultivating onions, lettuce, rye, barley, rice, oats, turnips, olives, pears, peaches, citrus fruits, sugarcane, and wheat. They too domesticated animals for their use as food, including pigs, sheep, cattle, fowl, and goats. However, cows also served as beasts of burden, along with horses and donkeys. Domesticated dogs were also used for hunting and recreation.

The lack of domesticated animals not only hampered Native Americans development of labor-saving technologies, it also limited their exposure to disease organisms and thus their immunity to illness. Europeans, however, had long been exposed to the various diseases carried by animals, as well as others often shared through living in close quarters in cities, including measles, cholera, bubonic plague, typhoid, influenza, and smallpox.

Europeans had also traveled great distances for centuries and had been introduced to many of the world’s diseases, most notably bubonic plague during the Black Death. They thus gained immunity to most diseases as advances in ship technology enabled them to travel even farther during the Renaissance. The inhabitants of the New World did not have the same travel capabilities and lived on isolated continents where they did not encounter many diseases.

All this changed with Columbus’s first voyage in 1492. When he returned to Spain a year later, Columbus brought with him six Taino natives as well as a few species of birds and plants. The Columbian exchange was underway. On his second voyage, Columbus brought wheat, radishes, melons, and chickpeas to the Caribbean. His travels opened an Atlantic highway between the New and Old Worlds that never closed and only expanded as the exchange of goods increased exponentially year after year. Although Europeans exported their wheat bread, olive oil, and wine in the first years after contact, soon wheat and other goods were being grown in the Americas too. Indeed, wheat remains an important staple in North and South America.

With European exploration and settlement of the New World, goods, animals, and diseases began crossing the Atlantic Ocean in both directions. This “Columbian Exchange” soon had global implications. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)

Horses, cattle, goats, chickens, sheep, and pigs likewise made their New World debut in the early years of contact, to forever shape its landscapes and cultures. On the lusher grasslands of the Americas, imported populations of horses, cattle, and sheep exploded in the absence of natural predators for these animals in the New World. In central Mexico, native farmers who had never needed fences complained about the roaming livestock that frequently damaged their crops. The Mapuche of Chile integrated the horse into their culture so well that they became an insurmountable force opposing the Spaniards. The introduction of horses also changed the way Native Americans hunted buffalo on the Great Plains and made them formidable warriors against other tribes.

The Atlantic highway was not one way, and certainly the New World influenced the Old World. For example, the higher caloric value of potatoes and corn brought from the Americas improved the diet of peasants throughout Europe, as did squash, pumpkins, and tomatoes. This, is turn, led to a net population increase in Europe. Tobacco helped sustain the economy of the first permanent English colony in Jamestown when smoking was introduced and became wildly popular in Europe. Chocolate also enjoyed widespread popularity throughout Europe, where elites frequently enjoyed it served hot as a beverage. A few diseases were also shared with Europeans, including bacterial infections such as syphilis, which Spanish troops from the New World spread across European populations when their nation went to war in Italy and elsewhere.

By contrast, Old World diseases wreaked havoc on native populations. Aztec drawings known as codices show Native Americans dying from the telltale symptoms of smallpox. With no previous exposure and no immunities, the Native American population probably declined by as much as 90 percent in the 150 years after Columbus’s first voyage. The Spanish and other Europeans had no way of knowing they carried deadly microbes with them, but diseases such as measles, influenza, typhus, malaria, diphtheria, whooping cough, and, above all, smallpox were perhaps the most destructive force in the conquest of the New World.

Contact and conquest also led to the blending of ideas and culture. European priests and friars preached Christianity to the Native Americans, who in turn adopted and adapted its beliefs. For instance, the Catholic celebration of All Souls and All Saints Day was blended with an Aztec festival honoring the dead; the resulting Day of the Dead festivities combined elements of Spanish Catholicism and Native American beliefs to create something new. The influence of Christianity was long-lasting; Latin America became overwhelmingly Roman Catholic.

People also blended in this Columbian Exchange. The Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans in the New World procreated, resulting in offspring of mixed race.

Races in the Spanish colonies were separated by legal and social restrictions. In the mid-eighteenth century, casta paintings such as these showed the popular fascination with categorizing individuals of mixed ethnicities.

Throughout the colonial period, native cultures influenced Spanish settlers, producing amestizo identity. Mestizos took pride in both their pre-Columbian and their Spanish heritage and created images such as the Virgin of Guadalupe – a brown-skinned, Latin American Mary who differed from her lighter-skinned European predecessors. The Virgin of Guadalupe became the patron saint of the Americas and the most popular among Catholic saints in general. Above all, she remains an enduring example and evidence of the Columbian Exchange.

Watch this BRI Homework Help video on the Columbian Exchange for a review of the main ideas in this essay.

Review Questions

1. The global transfer of plants, animals, disease, and food between the Eastern and Western hemispheres during the colonization of the Americas is called the

• Middle Passage
• Triangular Trade
• Interhemisphere Exchange

2. Which of the following provides evidence of the cultural blending that occurred as a result of the Columbian Exchange?

• The adoption of Aztec holidays into Spanish Catholicism
• The willingness of the Spanish to learn native languages
• The refusal of the Aztecs to adopt Christianity
• Spanish priests’ encouragement to worship the Virgin of Guadalupe

3. Which item originated in the New World?

4. How did the Columbian Exchange affect Europe?

• Domesticated animals from the New World greatly improved the productivity of European farms.
• Europeans suffered massive causalities form New World diseases such as syphilis.
• The higher caloric value of potatoes and corn improved the European diet.
• Domesticated animals from the New World wreaked havoc in Europe, where they had no natural predators.

5. How did the Columbian Exchange affect the Americas?

• Domesticated animals from the Old World greatly improved the productivity of Native Americans’ farms.
• Native Americans suffered massive causalities from Old World diseases such as smallpox.
• The higher caloric value of crops such as potatoes and corn improved Native Americans’ diets.
• Native Americans learned to domesticate animals thanks to interactions with Europeans.

6. Which item originated in the Old World?

Free Response Questions

• Compare the effects of the Columbian Exchange on North America and Europe.
• Explain why historian Alfred Crosby has described the Columbian Exchange as “Ecological imperialism.”

AP Practice Questions

“The Columbian Exchange has included man, and he has changed the Old and New Worlds sometimes inadvertently, sometimes intentionally, often brutally. It is possible that he and the plants and animals he brings with him have caused the extinction of more species of life forms in the last four hundred years than the usual processes of evolution might kill off in a million. . . . The Columbian Exchange has left us with not a richer but a more impoverished genetic pool. We, all of the life on this planet, are the less for Columbus, and the impoverishment will increase.”

Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

1. Which of the following most directly supports Crosby’s argument?

• Population gain in Europe due to New World crops such as the potato
• Population decline in North America due to diseases such as smallpox
• Mass migration of Europeans to North America in the sixteenth century, displacing Native American groups
• Overgrazing by animals introduced by Europeans

2. A historian seeking to discredit Crosby’s argument might use what evidence?

• The immediate and widespread adoption of Christianity in the New World
• Native Americans’ struggles with Europeans for dominance in the New World
• Native American groups’ failed adoption of European technologies
• A net population gain over time due to increased availability of high-caloric foods native to the New World

Primary Sources

Bartholomew Gosnold’s Exploration of Cape Cod: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6617

Suggested Resources

Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 . New York: Praeger, 2003.

Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Mann, Charles C. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. New York: Vintage, 2012.

McNeill, William. Plagues and Peoples . New York: Anchor, 1977.

Related Content

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The Columbian Exchange

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The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

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Summary and Study Guide

The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 is one of the first environmental histories and was published in 1972. It has remained in print since and was reissued in 2003 as a special 30th anniversary edition with a new preface and foreword. This study guide refers to the 2003 Praeger edition of the book.

Crosby earned his Ph.D. in history at Boston University and was a professor of geography, history, and American studies at the University of Texas. Crosby was a civil rights activist and supported the United Farm Workers Union. His books are published in 12 languages; among the most recognized are Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 and America’s Forgotten Pandemic : The Influenza of 1918 . His 2018 New York Times obituary referred to him as the “father of environmental history.”

Content Warning: This book uses terminology such as Old World and New World , which is Eurocentric and inaccurate. It also consistently uses “Indian” to refer to Indigenous people, although the author identifies this terminology as inaccurate in the preface. This guide uses “Indian” only in quoting Crosby’s language. This guide also discusses the enslavement of African and Indigenous people.

Plot Summary

Alfred W. Crosby, Jr.’s The Columbian Exchange concerns the long-term biological impact of contact between the Americas and Europe, as well as Africa and Asia. Human both purposely and accidentally transformed the globe through this exchange of plants, animals, human beings, and diseases. Using scientific data and primary sources (documents written during the period under study), Crosby argues that while the Columbian Exchange had some short-term positive effects on the world, its overall impact is destructive.

Crosby begins by explaining the differences between the Americas and the rest of the world. These contrasts were the result of millennia of geographical isolation. Humans migrated to the Americas across the Bering land bridge thousands of years ago. Once this bridge was submerged again, inhabitants of the Americas developed in isolation. When Europeans later encountered the American continents, they were hard-pressed to explain the contrasts between this region and their own—such as the noticeable differences in flora, fauna, and humans’ physical appearances—due to their era’s Christian worldview that God created all life at once. While some put forth new theories of multiple creation, the church deemed these perspectives blasphemous and justified the subordination of Indigenous peoples to papal—and, thus, European—rule by claiming they were part of God’s singular creation.

The conquest of the Americas was not due to superior European technology but was the result of a different kind of warfare: biological. Europeans transported numerous diseases across the Atlantic that did not exist in North and South America because of the region’s isolation. Indigenous peoples, thus, had no natural immunity to these illnesses, such as smallpox, which killed them swiftly and in vast numbers. The origin of syphilis is debated, but some scientists claim that it probably originated in the Americas and was brought back to the Continent by Europeans; however, it was not as devastating to European populations as Europeans’ diseases were to the Americas. It did, however, cause fear and potentially strain social relationships.

Europeans brought new crops and livestock to the Americas that transformed and sometimes damaged the landscape. Wheat, olives, and grapevines were staple Spanish crops, for example, but Spanish colonists initially had difficulty growing them in new climates. However, they soon found zones of the Americas that could support their growth. Nevertheless, survival also necessitated that Europeans embrace the cultivation of indigenous crops such as maize, manioc, and potatoes. These American crops soon found their way to Europe, Africa, and Asia, where farmers embraced them, especially when people realized that they could complement rather than compete with what they already grew. This crop diversification caused massive global population growth from the early modern period into the modern era. European demographic growth led to a steady flow of emigrants to European colonies around the world, including the Americas, which further displaced Indigenous peoples from their lands. Likewise, the introduction of European livestock like cattle and horses also displaced Indigenous populations and intruded on their farmlands, negatively impacting the amount of plant food they could produce and further harming Indigenous groups. The arrival of European plants and animals in the North and South American continents also contributed to environmental degradation and ecological disruption from which the land never recovered. Crosby concludes that the Columbian Exchange harmed and continues to harm the world and its people.

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The Columbian Exchange

• De Las Casas and the Conquistadors
• Early Visual Representations of the New World
• Failed European Colonies in the New World
• Successful European Colonies in the New World
• A Model of Christian Charity
• Benjamin Franklin’s Satire of Witch Hunting
• The American Revolution as Civil War
• Patrick Henry and “Give Me Liberty!”
• Lexington & Concord: Tipping Point of the Revolution
• Abigail Adams and “Remember the Ladies”
• Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” 1776
• Citizen Leadership in the Young Republic
• After Shays’ Rebellion
• James Madison Debates a Bill of Rights
• America, the Creeks, and Other Southeastern Tribes
• America and the Six Nations: Native Americans After the Revolution
• The Revolution of 1800
• Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase
• The Expansion of Democracy During the Jacksonian Era
• The Religious Roots of Abolition
• Individualism in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
• Aylmer’s Motivation in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”
• Thoreau’s Critique of Democracy in “Civil Disobedience”
• Hester’s A: The Red Badge of Wisdom
• “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
• The Cult of Domesticity
• The Family Life of the Enslaved
• A Pro-Slavery Argument, 1857
• The Underground Railroad
• The Enslaved and the Civil War
• Women, Temperance, and Domesticity
• “The Chinese Question from a Chinese Standpoint,” 1873
• “To Build a Fire”: An Environmentalist Interpretation
• Progressivism in the Factory
• Progressivism in the Home
• The “Aeroplane” as a Symbol of Modernism
• The “Phenomenon of Lindbergh”
• The Radio as New Technology: Blessing or Curse? A 1929 Debate
• The Marshall Plan Speech: Rhetoric and Diplomacy
• NSC 68: America’s Cold War Blueprint
• The Moral Vision of Atticus Finch

Copyright National Humanities Center, 2015

Lesson Contents

Teacher’s note.

• Text Analysis & Close Reading Questions

Follow-Up Assignment

• Student Version PDF

In what ways did the arrival of Europeans to America bring about unforeseen and unintended consequences for the people and environments of both the New World and the Old?

Understanding.

The Columbian Exchange — the interchange of plants, animals, disease, and technology sparked by Columbus’s voyages to the New World — marked a critical point in history. It allowed ecologies and cultures that had previously been separated by oceans to mix in new and unpredictable ways. It was an interconnected web of events with immediate and extended consequences that could neither be predicted nor controlled.

Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Text Complexity

Grade 9–10 complexity band.

For more information on text complexity see these resources from achievethecore.org .

In the Text Analysis section, Tier 2 vocabulary words are defined in pop-ups, and Tier 3 words are explained in brackets.

Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.

Common Core State Standards

• ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.1 (cite evidence to analyze specifically and by inference)
• ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.2 (determine a central idea and its development)

Advanced Placement US History

• Key Concept 1.2 (IIA) (introduction of crops and animals not found in the Americas)

In this lesson students will explore a description of the Columbian Exchange written by Charles C. Mann as part of the introduction to his book, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created . In three excerpts students will examine elements of the Exchange — an overview, a specific biological example of unintended consequences, and finally an example of unintended human costs of the Columbian Exchange. Each excerpt is accompanied by close reading questions for students to complete. The text analysis is accompanied by three interactive exercises to aid in student understanding. The first interactive allows students to explore vocabulary in context; the second encourages students to review the textual analysis; and the third explores the use of diction, simile, and appeal to authority.

This lesson focuses upon the Columbian Exchange as an interwoven process with unforeseen consequences. Charles Mann expands upon the earlier theories of Alfred W. Crosby, who explored the idea of the Columbian Exchange in 1972 (for a general essay on the Columbian Exchange written by Crosby, including suggestions for class discussions, click here ). Although Mann details the effects of tobacco, the potato, corn, malaria, yellow fever, the rubber industry, and other elements of the Exchange in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres fully in 1493 , this lesson focuses specifically upon some effects of the Exchange in Hispaniola. The follow-up assignment allows students to extend the effects of the Exchange into the African slave trade. The author uses Colon, the Spanish spelling for Columbus, throughout, and that spelling has been retained in the excerpts for this lesson.

This lesson is divided into two parts, both accessible below. The teacher’s guide includes a background note, the text analysis with responses to the close reading questions, access to the interactive exercises, and a follow-up assignment. The student’s version, an interactive worksheet that can be e-mailed, contains all of the above except the responses to the close reading questions, and the follow-up assignment.

Teacher’s Guide

Background questions.

• What kind of text are we dealing with?
• When was it written?
• Who wrote it?
• For what audience was it intended?
• For what purpose was it written?

When Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola (the island including the modern countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic) during his first voyage in 1492, he and his men did not realize the lasting effects their voyage would have on both the New World and the Old at that time and in the years to come. The Columbian Exchange is the term given to the transfer of plants, animals, disease, and technology between the Old World from which Columbus came and the New World which he found. Some exchanges were purposeful — the explorers intentionally brought animals and food — but others were accidental. In this lesson you will read about this Exchange from a description written by Charles C. Mann, a writer specializing in scientific topics. This lesson uses excerpts from a book entitled 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created in which Mann describes the effects, both intended and unintended, of the Columbian Exchange. Mann wrote 1493 to explore the Columbian Exchange as a process which is still going on today.

This lesson draws from the introduction in Mann’s book. There are three excerpts, each with close reading questions. The first excerpt is a general overview of the Exchange — while it does not include all parts of the Exchange, you will see examples of how animals and plants from one part of the world replaced those in another part of the world. In excerpt two you will explore a specific example of unintended consequences of the Columbian Exchange, when settlers thought they were simply bringing in an enjoyable food, but they wound up with an invasive pest. Finally, in excerpt three you can see the devastating effects of the Columbian Exchange upon the Taino Indians, the residents of Hispaniola before Columbus arrived. In some of the excerpts you will see Columbus spelled as Colon — this is the Spanish spelling and is used by the author.

Text Analysis

Close reading questions.

1. Why do you believe Columbus brought cattle, sheep or horses with him? They were part of the European culture. They would help in farming (cattle and sheep) and communication, transportation, and war (horses). The Spanish intended to start a colony and would need the animals.

2. What would the Taino culture have been like without cattle or horses? There would have been communication only by human messenger and fields planted by hand. There would have been no quick communication (by horse) or plowed fields or pastures (no cattle, so they were not possible or necessary) and only a few, small paths, no real roads (the only transportation was by foot).

3. What is the thesis statement of paragraph 1? How does Mann develop that thesis? Cite evidence from the text. The thesis is “Colon and his crew did not voyage alone.” Mann develops that thesis by giving examples to prove his point, including earthworms, cockroaches, African Grasses, rats, and other animals and plants.

4. How did the introduction of cattle and sheep affect plant life on Hispaniola? New grasses for grazing choked out native species.

5. Why is it important that alien grasses, trees, and other plants choked out native vegetation in Hispaniola? Choking out native grasses reduced the biodiversity (the number of distinct life forms) of Hispaniola. Ecosystems that are more biodiverse (they have more distinct life forms) are more productive and are more resistant to diseases.

6. What can be the effect of introducing a new predator into an environment, such as the Indian mongoose in Hispaniola? Give an example. It can render another species extinct, which may itself have unintended consequences. For instance, the food source for the Dominican snake may have increased in population which may have led to other effects.

7. How does Mann show that the Columbian Exchange is still ongoing? He relates how, in 2004, the orange groves have become prey of the lime swallowtail butterflies.

8. In the second paragraph of this excerpt, Mann implies his thesis but does not actually state it. What is the implied thesis of paragraph 2? How does he imply the thesis? Mann implies that the Columbian Exchange can have negative results. He gives examples, citing grasses that were choked out, trees that were replaced with other types of trees, and animals driven toward extinction. In this excerpt, Mann offers an overview of the Columbian Exchange with examples.

…Colon [Columbus] and his crew did not voyage alone. They were accompanied by a menagerie of insects, plants, mammals, and microorganisms. Beginning with La Isabela [Colon’s first settlement], European expeditions brought cattle, sheep, and horses, along with crops like sugar cane (originally from New Guinea), wheat (from the Middle East), bananas (from Africa), and coffee (also from Africa). Equally important, creatures the colonists knew nothing about hitchhiked along for the ride. Earthworms, mosquitoes, and cockroaches; honeybees, dandelions, and African grasses; rats of every description — all of them poured from the hulls of Colon’s vessels and those that followed, rushing like eager tourists into lands that had never seen their like before.

Movqvites (Mosquito), “Histoire Naturelle des Indes,” ca. 1586

9. According to the author and his sources, what unintended import came in to Hispaniola with plantains? With the plantains came scale insects.

10. How does the author define scale insects? They are small creatures with tough, waxy coats that suck the juices from plant roots and stems.

11. Define “ecological release.” Ecological release is when an invasive species is introduced into an environment with no natural predators and subsequently the population explodes.

12. Using the example of scale insects as evidence, why are natural predators important to an ecosystem? They help to regulate the population of a species and keep an ecosystem in balance.

13. What was the unintended effect of this import, scale insects, according to Wilson? Why did they have this effect? The scale insects sucked juices from plants and stems. They had no natural enemies, so their populations grew greatly. The scale insects became a food source for fire ants. With a virtually unlimited food source, the fire ant population grew greatly. The fire ants invaded settlers’ homes. This proved to be dangerous to the settlers.

14. Mann begins the second paragraph in this excerpt with “So far this is informed speculation.” What effect does this admission have on our perception of Mann as an author? It reminds the reader that Mann is approaching his topic from a scientific perspective, being careful to alert readers to what is proven and what is not. This helps to establish him as a writer we can trust.

15. What document from the 1500s seems to confirm this unintended effect? Bartolome de Las Casas wrote of a sudden infestation of fire ants in 1518 and 1519.

16. What was the unintended effect to settlers of the introduction of plantains to Hispaniola? Although they had plantains to eat, they also had to deal with fire ants. As a result, they abandoned their homes.

17. How does Mann combine 16th and 20th century evidence? He uses 20th century science to explain a 16th century eye-witness account. Here Mann gives a specific example of unintended consequences.

Natives and newcomers interacted in unexpected ways, creating biological bedlam . When Spanish colonists imported African plantains [a tropical plant that resembles a banana] in 1516, the Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson has proposed, they also imported scale insects, small creatures with tough, waxy coats that suck the juices from plant roots and stems. About a dozen banana-infesting scale insects are known in Africa. In Hispaniola, Wilson argued, these insects had no natural enemies. In consequence, their numbers must have exploded — a phenomenon known to science as “ecological release.” This spread of scale insects would have dismayed the island’s European banana farmers but delighted one of its native species: the tropical fire ant Solenopsis geminata . S. geminata is fond of dining on scale insects’ sugary excrement; to ensure the flow, the ants will attack anything that disturbs them. A big increase in scale insects would have led to a big increase in fire ants.

18. What is the thesis of this excerpt? Mann asserts that “the most dramatic impact of the Columbian Exchange was on humankind itself.”

19. What evidence does Mann use to develop this thesis? He uses Columbus’s original account, 16th century official Spanish documents, and estimates by modern historians.

20. Why did the Spanish conduct a census of the Indians on Hispaniola in 1514? What did the census find regarding the Taino population? The Spanish conducted a census in order to count the Taino so that they could be assigned to Spanish settlers as laborers. This was part of the encomienda system, whereby a Spanish settler was given a plantation as well as the labor of all the Indians who lived on that plantation. The census-takers found that there were few Taino left, perhaps only about 26,000.

21. According to the author, what two factors caused this change in population? Which cause was the most influential? The two causes were Spanish cruelty and the introduction of diseases by the Columbian Exchange. The most influential was the introduction of disease.

22. The third sentence in paragraph 2 of this excerpt uses a rhetorical device called asyndeton. Asyndeton is a list of items with conjunctions omitted and can be used to imply that there are more items that could be added to the list. What types of items does the author list using asyndeton? What is the effect? The author lists diseases, both viruses and bacteria. The effect is a “piling up”, implying that more diseases were brought to Hispaniola as well, but the author may not have the space in the sentence to list them. In fact, other diseases were introduced by the Columbian Exchange, including malaria, yellow fever, whooping cough, chicken pox, the bubonic plague, and leprosy.

23. Why was the introduction of these diseases so devastating for the Taino and not the Spanish explorers? The Taino had never been exposed to these diseases before and therefore had no natural immunity to stop or control the spread of the disease. The Spanish did have some natural immunity, since the diseases were present in Europe at that time.

24. What is the effect of Mann including the information about the first recorded epidemic, which occurred within one year of Columbus’s arrival? He reminds the reader that the devastating effects of diseases brought by the Exchange happened almost immediately for the Taino. This conveys the seriousness of the Exchange as well as the power of the diseases in a population with no natural immunity.

From the human perspective, the most dramatic impact of the Columbian Exchange was on humankind itself. Spanish accounts suggest that Hispaniola had a large native population: Colón, for instance, casually described the Taino as “innumerable, for I believe there to be millions upon millions of them.” Las Casas claimed the population to be “more than three million.” Modern researchers have not nailed down the number; estimates range from 60,000 to almost 8,000,000. A careful study in 2003 argued that the true figure was “a few hundred thousand.” No matter what the original number, though, the European impact was horrific . In 1514, twenty-two years after Colon’s first voyage, the Spanish government counted up the Indians on Hispaniola for the purpose of allocating them among colonists as laborers. Census agents fanned the across the island but found only 26,000 Taino. Thirty-four years later, according to one scholarly Spanish resident, fewer than 500 Taino were alive….

Spanish cruelty played its part in the calamity , but its larger cause was the Columbian Exchange. Before Colon none of the epidemic diseases common in Europe and Asia existed in the Americas. The viruses that cause smallpox, influenza, hepatitis, measles, encephalitis, and viral pneumonia; the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera, typhus, scarlet fever, and bacterial meningitis — by a quirk of evolutionary history, all were unknown in the Western Hemisphere. Shipped across the ocean from Europe these maladies consumed Hispaniola’s native population with stunning rapacity . The first recorded epidemic, perhaps due to swine flu, was in 1493….

Joan Vinckeboons, “Map of the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico,” 1639(?)

Mann describes in excerpt three a major change in Taino population on Hispaniola and the effects of this change on the Taino population and the Spanish. But another group was also affected — enslaved Africans. The Spanish used the encomienda system in Hispaniola, whereby conquistadors were given large plantations as well as the Indian slave labor of all who lived on the plantation. Through this system the Spanish moved quickly to enslave Indians, even though the official mission of the Spanish was to Christianize them. In response to pressure from the Catholic Church, in 1542 King Carlos V banned Indian slavery, opening the way for African slaves. Mann writes,

By 1501, seven years after La Isabella’s founding, so many Africans [as slaves] had come to Hispaniola that the alarmed Spanish king and queen instructed the island’s governor not to allow any more to land [but]…the colonists saw that the Africans appeared immune to disease, didn’t have local social networks that would help them escape, and possessed useful skills — many African societies were well known for their ironworking and horsemanship. Slave ships bellied up to the docks of Santo Domingo in ever-greater numbers. The slaves were not as easily controlled as the colonists had hoped [and]…. No longer were Africans slipped into the Americas by the handful. The rise of sugar production [sugar production is very labor intensive] in Mexico and the concurrent rise in Brazil opened the floodgates. Between 1550 and 1650…slave ships ferried across about 650,000 Africans, with the total split more or less equally between Spanish and Portuguese America…. Soon they [Africans] were more ubiquitous [existing everywhere] in the Americas than Europeans, with results the latter never expected. (Mann, p.387–388)

What do you believe might have been some of the “results the latter [the Europeans] never expected”? In what ways can New World slavery be said to be related to the Columbian Exchange? Discuss the possible unintended consequences with your classmates. Use specific examples as evidence.

Vocabulary Pop-Ups

• menagerie : collection of wild or unusual animals
• alien : foreign, hostile
• depredation : ravages
• bedlam : wild confusion
• entomologist : insect expert
• phenomenon : observable event or fact
• dismayed : alarmed
• speculation : thoughtful opinion
• culprit : villain
• horrific : causing horror
• fanned : spread out
• calamity : great disaster
• quirk : peculiar action
• maladies : chronic diseases
• rapacity : fierce hunger
• Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (New York: Vintage Books, 2012).
• Bouttats, Pieter Balthazar, 1666–1755, engraver. : El almirante Christoral Colon descubre la Isla Española, iy haze poner una Cruz, etc. / P. B. Bouttats fec., Aqua forti. [1728] Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a10998/?co=cph (accessed September 15, 2014).
• Histoire Naturelle des Indes , Illustrated manuscript. ca. 1586. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983 MA 3900 (fol. 71v–72) The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Histoire-Naturelle-des-Indes/72
• Vinckeboons, Joan. Map of the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Map. [1639?] Pen-and-ink and watercolor. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA http://www.loc.gov/item/2003623402/ (accessed September 15, 2014)
• De insulis nuper in mari Indico repertis [Christopher Columbus discovering America]. Woodcut, 1494. Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Illus. in Incun. 1494 .V47 Vollbehr Coll [Rare Book RR] http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g04806/?co=cph (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Christopher Columbus leaving Spain to go to America. London : J. Edwards, 1800? 1 print : engraving. Illus. in: America, part 4 / Theodore de Bry, 1528-1598, ed., 1800?, plate VIII. Library of Congress Miscellaneous Items in High Demand Collection http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90715316/ (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Christophe Colomb parmi les Indiens / lith. de Turgis. Paris : Vve. Turgis, [between 1850 and 1900]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/93504854/ (accessed September 29, 2014).
• Histoire Naturelle des Indes , Illustrated manuscript. ca. 1586. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983 MA 3900 (fol. 11v–12) The Morgan Library and Museum, New York. http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Histoire-Naturelle-des-Indes/12

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(part 3 of 3) GUIDING STUDENT DISCUSSION You may find your students more interested in the subject at hand than you expect. They have been run past Columbus a goodly number of times and arrive in your classroom prepared to be bored. The role of plants, animals, and diseases in history will have the advantage of novelty and your students are all, I hope, sufficiently scared by AIDS to consider infectious disease as a subject of possible interest. Unfortunately, most of them will have little acquaintance with how evolution, i.e., biology, works historically. PictureQuest   I recommend starting with food. Ask them what they had for breakfast or lunch and have them speculate about the geographical origins of their foods. Wheaties and Cheerios are Old World, wheat and oats having originated in southwest Asia. Corn flakes are New World, Mesoamerican to be precise. Milk is from cows, which are Eurasian. Sugar is southeast Asian, probably from New Guinea. Eggs are from chickens, which are . . . and so on. You don't need huge tomes for this kind of research. Any of the standard encyclopedias will have the information you need. What is the significance of the Columbian Exchange demographically? What is the staple of the Bantu of southern Africa? Maize, an American food. What is the staple of Kansas and Argentina? Wheat, an Old World food. The chief crop of the lower Rio Grande river is rice, from Asia. How many of the six billion of us are dependent for our nourishment on crops and meat animals that didn't cross the great oceans until after 1492? What were the Amerindian societies like with no beasts of burden (or unimpressive ones), and, therefore, no plows, no wagons, no way to move really heavy objects but by human muscle? Ask your students to imagine all those equestrian statues of Charlemagne, Napoleon, George Washington—without the horse. Ask them to imagine the pony express without the ponies. The Inca had such an express system, without ponies. "Hernando Cortés and the Spanish soldiers confront the Indians," in Durán, La Historia antigua de la Nueva España , 1585 Library of Congress "What must it have been like to be exposed in a rush to a totally alien people, horses, steel, and new and hideous diseases?" Next you might recommend empathy to your students. What must it have been like to be exposed in a rush to a totally alien people, horses, steel, and new and hideous diseases? Discuss the contrast between the degrees of success of European imperialism in the Americas and Africa—in the first, triumph and, in many of its regions, replacement of the native with immigrant populations—and in the other, short-lived success (and in only one colony, South Africa, the immigration of large numbers of Europeans who were, even there, unable to exercise control for long). You might suggest that this contrast was the product of the different ecologies of the two. Ask why there was a Nelson Mandela for the indigenes of South Africa, but no equivalent for the Amerindians of the United States. Dead "killer bees" Nevada, 2000 Steve Marcus / Las Vegas Sun Zebra mussels attached to a single threehorn wartyback mussel, Illinois River, 1993 Illinois Natural History Survey   How did Cort�s conquer the Aztecs and Pizarro the Inca with only a few hundred soldiers? Could it be that they had allies, in the case of Cort�s's thousands of Amerindian allies, and that both conquistadors, Cort�s and Pizarro, had an ally in smallpox, a European disease to which almost all of the Spaniards were immune because of childhood exposure and the Amerindians were totally susceptible because they had had no previous contact? AIDS, you might mention, is just the latest of Old World diseases to arrive in America. Mention the spread north from Brazil of the so-called �killer bees"—Africanized honey bees—as a late example of the success of Old World immigrants. Brought from South Africa to Brazil in 1956, the aggressive African bees soon escaped and interbred with the docile European bees (which had themselves been introduced to the New World by European settlers in the 1600s). The resulting hybrid �killer bees� have traveled north at about 200 miles a year (arriving in the U.S. Southwest in 1990), threatening beekeepers� swarms and attacking livestock, pets, and people. The spread of zebra mussels is another recent example. Having arrived in the Great Lakes in the mid-1980s (probably when a European ship discharged its ballast into Lake St. Clair), they have spread quickly throughout the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin. They encrust boat hulls, clog water intake pipes, overtake other mussel species, disrupt the food chain—the list goes on as researchers catalogue the damage. SCHOLARS DEBATE "The Spaniards enter Mexico," in Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España , c. 1575-80 James Lockhart The original sources of the Columbian and post-Columbian contacts across the great oceans include a good deal on the biology of the collision. Bernal Di�z del Castillo, for example, in Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva Espa�a (1632) cites the importance of smallpox and of horses in the conquest of Mexico. After all, one did not have to be a trained biologist to notice epidemics among the Amerindians or their fear of horses, the biggest land animals they had ever seen. But there was little on such phenomena in the secondary sources until after the middle of the twentieth century. The reason is probably that most historians are trained in the liberal arts, not in the sciences, and are inclined to think that we control nature, rather than the opposite: they thought Cort�s was successful because he was a very great soldier and not, surely, because he was lucky enough to have received a live case of smallpox. Since the 1940s there has been a decline in Euroamerican self-esteem and an avalanche of publications on the biology of the Columbian Exchange, starting with the seminal demographic and epidemiological studies of Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah (see Cook and Borah, The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest [1963]). The problem of the teacher, who wants to spend a day or a week and not a lifetime on the subject is one of selection. For general orientation and the latest in details, I recommend articles in the massive The Cambridge History of Food , ed. Kenneth F. Kiple (2000), and The Cambridge World History of Human Disease (1993), also edited by Kiple. For a briefer general consideration, I must, blushing with false embarrassment, suggest my own The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (1972), Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (1986), and also, without the blushes, Otto T. Solbrig, So Shall You Reap: Farming and Crops in Human Affairs (1994) and William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (1976). Readers especially interested in specific crops and animals should acquaint themselves with at least Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1985), Redcliffe Salaman, The History and Social Influence of the Potato (1985 edition), and Elinor G. K. Melville, A Plague of Sheep: Environmental Consequences of the Conquest of Mexico (1994). The Columbian exchange of infections, which is inextricably entwined with demographic history, is a matter of immense controversy. Few doubt that there were pandemics among the Amerindians post-1492, but historians do argue about whether these propelled the native populations over the cliff into declines of ninety to one hundred percent or something far less. Henry F. Dobyns argues for the biggest plunge, David Henige for the least, each in a barrage of publications. For the beginner, I would recommend Russel Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492 (1987); The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 , 2nd ed. (1992); Disease and Demography in the Americas , eds. John W. Verano and Douglas H. Ubelaker (1992), and Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, "The Red Mean: Self Portrait," 1992; part of the artist's series "The Quincentenary Non-Celebration" Bernice Steinbaum Gallery Conquest , 1492-1650 (1998). You might ask your students to read the hundred pages of the latter book or even the first chapter alone in preparation for a discussion on whether the depopulation of the parts of America first contacted by Europeans ranks with the Holocaust of World War II as genocide or not. As a sidelight, you might want to ask them why they think there was so much debate in 1992 about the Columbian Quincentennial. Before the 1892 celebration, the debate, if you want to consider it as such, was about the degree of European triumph and about which particular set of Europeans had triumphed most. In 1992 there was an argument, ugly at times, which still continues, pivoting on whose version of Amerindian demographic history we accept, and on whether we think acquisition of the smallpox virus was a fair price for the Amerindians to have paid for the acquisition of Christianity and the alphabet. Links to Online Resources Illustration Credits Works Cited Alfred W. Crosby, Jr. , is Professor Emeritus of History, Geography, and American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His publications in environmental and epidemiological history include The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (1972), Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (1986), and Germs, Seeds, and Animals: Studies in Ecological History (1994). His most recent work is The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600 (1997). Address comments or questions to Professor Crosby through TeacherServe " Comments and Questions ."

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Course: US history   >   Unit 1

• Motivation for European conquest of the New World
• Origins of European exploration in the Americas
• Christopher Columbus
• Consequences of Columbus's voyage on the Tainos and Europe
• Christopher Columbus and motivations for European conquest

The Columbian Exchange

• Environmental and health effects of European contact with the New World
• Lesson summary: The Columbian Exchange
• The impact of contact on the New World
• The Columbian Exchange, Spanish exploration, and conquest

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Video transcript

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• Period 1: 1491–1607

Period 1: 1491-1607

On a North American continent controlled by American Indians, contact among the peoples of Europe, the Americas, and West Africa created a new world. Topics may include

Native American Societies before European Contact

European exploration in the new world, the columbian exchange, labor, slavery, and caste in the spanish colonial system, cultural interactions between europeans, native americans, and africans.

Image Source : View of icons representing conquered towns and the tributes they paid to the Aztecs in a detail from the Codex Mendoza, ca. 1541 (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

4–6% Exam Weighting

Resources by Period:

• Period 2: 1607–1754
• Period 3: 1754–1800
• Period 4: 1800–1848
• Period 5: 1844–1877
• Period 6: 1865–1898
• Period 7: 1890–1945
• Period 8: 1945–1980
• Period 9: 1980–Present

Key Concepts

1.1 : As native populations migrated and settled across the vast expanse of North America over time, they developed distinct and increasingly complex societies by adapting to and transforming their diverse environments.

1.2 : Contact among Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans resulted in the Columbian Exchange and significant social, cultural, and political changes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

American Indians

By elliott west.

Learn about the diversity of Indigenous tribes in North America.

Cahokia: A Pre-Columbian American City

By timothy r. pauketat.

Learn about a center of trade and interaction built along the banks of the Mississippi.

Nature, Culture, and Native Americans

By daniel wildcat.

Watch a discussion about Indigenous peoples and their interaction with the environment.

Secotan, an Algonquian village

Engraving of an agrarian town in North America, based on a watercolor by English mapmaker John White

• Primary Source

North America on the Eve of the European Invasion

By christopher l. miller.

Discover the way Native Americans lived in North America before Europeans arrived.

Native American Discoveries of Europe

By daniel k. richter.

Learn about the cultural context of Native peoples' responses to the arrival of European explorers and colonists.

America before Columbus

By charles c. mann.

Watch a discussion about the pre-Columbian population and settlement of the Americas.

An Introduction to the History of Migration and Settlement in North America

By edward a. jolie.

Learn about the migrations of indigenous peoples in the Americas.

Europeans and the New World

By brian delay.

Watch a discussion of the context of western European exploration and European interactions with Indigenous peoples.

Columbus reports on his first voyage

Columbus’s letter to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain announcing the discovery of unknown lands 

Imperial Rivalries

By peter c. mancall.

Understand how European political competition in the late fifteenth century drove exploration and colonization.

Sir Francis Drake's attack on St. Augustine

Illustration depicting an English naval attack on Spanish St. Augustine in present-day Florida

The Rise and Fall of New Netherland

By david middleton.

Read about Henry Hudson’s voyages for the Dutch Republic.

Mexicans in the Making of America

By neil foley.

Learn about Spanish exploration and conquest of the Americas in a broad essay about changes and continuities.

European Exploration

By felipe fernández-armesto and benjamin sacks.

Learn about European navigation and the exploration of the Americas.

Navigating the Age of Exploration

By ted widmer.

Learn about the vast global movements that characterized the Columbian Exchange.

by Alfred W. Crosby

Discover how the commingling of Old and New World plants, animals, and bacteria remade global ecologies.

The Spanish Borderlands and Columbian Exchange

By ned blackhawk.

Learn about Indigenous and European interactions in Spanish colonial holdings in the Americas.

The Americas to 1620

Learn about the broad context of European, African, and Indigenous interactions.

The Doctrine of Discovery

Pope Alexander VI’s decree granting Spain the exclusive right to lands in the Americas

Iberian Roots of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

By david wheat.

Understand the role of Portugal and Spain in the transatlantic slave trade.

Disputing the subjugation of the Indians

Bartolomé de las Casas versus Juan Ginés Sepúlveda on the enslavement of the Taíno in Hispaniola

Spain authorizes Coronado's conquest in the Southwest

Royal letter instructing Francisco Coronado to explore the northern lands in search of wealth and resources

Early North America

Look beyond the Euro-centric view of the “New World.”

Indian Slavery in the Americas

By alan gallay.

Learn about the European enslavement of Indigenous peoples in the Americas.

The New York African Burial Ground

By edna greene medford.

Read about one of the earliest graveyards for free and enslaved Africans.

The African Slave Trade

By philip morgan.

Watch a discussion of the core experiences of slavery from East Africa to sugar plantations in the New World.

American History Timeline: 1491-1607

Image citations.

Listed in order of appearance in the sections above

• White, John. The Towne of Pomeiock. 1585-1593. Drawing on paper. British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1906-0509-1-8
• William Iseminger, Cahokia Mounds, 1982, Painting. Image courtesy of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. 
• White, John. The Manner of Their Fishing. 1585-1593. Watercolor over graphite on paper. British Museum.
• de Bry, Theodor. Village of Secotan. In A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia: of the Commodities and of the Nature and Manners of the Naturall Inhabitants. Frankfurt am Main: J. Wechelus, 1590. Engraving based on a drawing by John White. Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
• "Naw-Kaw, a Winnebago Chief." In The Indian Tribes of North America, vol. 1, by Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall. Philadelphia, ca. 1840. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC05120.02.  Grasset de Saint-Saveur, Jacques. "Tableau des principaux peuples de l'Amérique." Paris, France. 1789. Etching and aquatint with hand coloring. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Theodore de Bry, Indians worship the column in honor of the French king, 1591, engraving for Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam occidentalem, vol. 2: René de Laudonnière, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt (Frankfurt am Main: J. Wechelus, 1591) (Rijksmuseum)
• Hiser, David. Pictograph at Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek State Park, San Juan County, Utah. DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency's Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, 1972. Photograph. National Archives.
• Anonymous Spanish artist. The Silver Mine at Potosí. ca. 1585. Watercolor on parchment. The Hispanic Society of America.
• Columbus, Christopher. Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, February 1493. Epistola Chirstofori Colom: cui [a]etas nostra multu[m] debet: de Insulis Indi[a]e supra Gangem nuper inuentis. Rome, 1493. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC01427.
• Engagement [between] La Blanche and La Pare, ca. 1786-1805. Watercolor on paper. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC01450.800.
• Boazio, Baptista. Drake’s Attack on St. Augustine, Florida, May 28–29, 1586. St. Augustine Map. 1589. Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.
• Schenk, Peter. Nieu Amsterdam, een Stedeken in Noord Amerikaes Nieu Hollant. s.l., 1702. Print. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC03022
• "An illustrated account of Aztec life-cycles" Codex Mendoza. ca. 1540. Manuscript on paper. Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.
• Martin, Johnson & Company. Landing of Columbus. New York, 1856. Engraving based on a painting by John Vanderlyn. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC08878.0001.
• Visscher, Nicholas. Novi Belgi Novaeque Angliae [Map of New Netherland and New England]. Amsterdam, 1682. Map. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC03582.
• Kemmelmeyer, Frederick. First Landing of Christopher Columbus. 1800/1805. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art.
• Montanus. Insulae Americanae in Oceano Septentrionali, cum Terris adiacentibus [Map of the Americas]. s.l., 1671 Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC09789.
• Johnson, Fry & Company. Landing of Roger Williams.  New York, 1867. Engraving based on a painting by Alonzo Chappel. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC08878.0006 
• Alexander VI. Copia de la bula del decreto y concession q[ue] hizo el papa [Inter caetera]. [Valladolio], 1493. Broadside. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC04093.
• Roiz, Pascoal. A portolan chart of the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent continents. 1633. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/2008621738/.
• Las Casas, Bartolomé de. Aqui se contiene una disputa . . . Seville, 1552. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC04220.
• García de Loaysa, Francisco. Letter to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, June 21, 1540. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC04883.
• Cliff Palace. Ancestral Puebloan (formerly Anasazi), 450–1300 C.E. Sandstone. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. Photo courtesy of Sara Charles.
• "The March of the Spaniards into Tenochtitlan." Codex Azcatitlan. ca. 1530. Manuscript on paper. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
• Carol Highsmith. African Burial Ground National Monument. New York, 2008. Photograph.  Carol Highsmith Archive. Library of Congress.
• Wood, Samuel. Injured Humanity; Being a Representation of What the Unhappy Children of Africa Endure from Those Who Call Themselves Christians. New York, 1805. Broadside. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC05113.

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Brilliant Maps

Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time

Map Of The Columbian Exchange

Last Updated: August 19, 2024 1 Comment

Map found on reddit This map illustrates the Columbian Exchange, a significant event following Christopher Columbus’s voyages to the Americas.

The exchange represents the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and diseases between the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Key Points in the Graphic:

• Crops: Potato, Corn, beans, squash, tomato, peanut, cassava, avocado, sweet potato, peppers, pineapple, and pumpkin.
• Livestock/Animals: Turkey.
• Other: tobacco, cacao bean, vanilla, and quinine (a treatment for malaria)
• Crops: Wheat, rice, barley, oats, sugar cane, banana, coffee bean, peach, pear, olive, citrus fruits, grape, onion, and turnip.
• Livestock/Animals: Livestock like cattle, sheep, pig, and horse; honeybee.
• Diseases: Smallpox, influenza, typhus, measles, malaria, diphtheria, and whooping cough.

Significance:

1. the americas:.

• Before the Columbian Exchange, the Americas lacked domesticated animals like cattle, pigs, and horses. The arrival of these animals introduced new sources of protein and fundamentally changed agricultural practices.
• Wheat, rice, and barley became staple crops in many regions, especially in North America, influencing the development of bread-based diets and cuisines.
• New Culinary Traditions: European grains and livestock combined with Indigenous crops like corn, beans, and potatoes led to the development of hybrid cuisines, such as dishes that blended European techniques with Native American ingredients.
• The introduction of staple crops like potatoes, tomatoes, maize (corn), and beans revolutionized European diets. The potato, in particular, became a crucial food source in countries like Ireland and Russia, leading to population growth and improved nutrition.
• Tomatoes transformed Mediterranean cuisine, leading to dishes like Italian pasta with tomato sauce and Spanish gazpacho. Chocolate (from cacao beans) and vanilla became luxury items and later integral parts of European desserts.
• Expansion of Global Trade: The demand for sugar from the New World led to the establishment of large plantations in the Caribbean, reshaping global trade and cuisine through the widespread availability of sweetened foods.
• Introduction of New Crops: Maize (corn), cassava, and peanuts became essential crops in many parts of Africa, where they adapted well to local climates. Cassava and maize, in particular, became staple foods in West and Central Africa, significantly impacting local cuisines and diets.
• Dietary Changes: The introduction of these calorie-dense crops led to population growth in certain regions. Traditional African dishes like fufu and various porridges started incorporating these new ingredients.
• Adoption of New Ingredients: Crops like chili peppers, sweet potatoes, and peanuts were introduced from the Americas and quickly integrated into Asian cuisines. Chili peppers, for example, became integral to Indian, Thai, and Chinese cooking, transforming spice blends and flavor profiles.
• Expansion of Staple Crops: The introduction of maize, potatoes, and sweet potatoes in China helped sustain large populations, especially in areas where rice or wheat cultivation was difficult.

General Impact Across Continents:

• Globalization of Ingredients: Foods that were once region-specific became global staples. For instance, Italian, Indian, and Thai cuisines are unimaginable without tomatoes or chili peppers, which originated in the Americas.
• Fusion and Hybrid Cuisines: The blending of indigenous and introduced ingredients led to new culinary traditions. For example, Creole cuisine in the Caribbean is a mix of African, European, and Native American influences.
• Increased Food Security and Population Growth: The introduction of high-calorie crops like potatoes and maize led to better food security in Europe, Asia, and Africa, fueling population booms and the growth of cities.

The Columbian Exchange didn’t just introduce new foods; it transformed global diets, led to new agricultural practices, and laid the foundation for many of today’s culinary traditions.

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Tony Glaser says

August 20, 2024 at 9:36 pm

Items transferred from Europe, Asia, and Africa to the Americas: what about chattel slavery, guns, and syphilis?

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Home — Essay Samples — History — Colonialism — The Columbian Exchange

Essays on The Columbian Exchange

When it comes to writing an essay on The Columbian Exchange, choosing the right topic is crucial. The Columbian Exchange was a period of significant cultural, biological, and ecological exchange between the Old World and the New World following Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas in 1492. This historical event had a profound impact on global history and continues to be a relevant topic for academic study. In this article, we will discuss the importance of The Columbian Exchange, provide advice on choosing a topic, and offer a detailed list of recommended essay topics divided by category.

The Columbian Exchange was a transformative period in human history that reshaped societies, economies, and ecosystems around the world. It facilitated the exchange of crops, animals, diseases, and ideas between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, leading to significant cultural and environmental changes. The exchange of goods and pathogens had a profound impact on population demographics, agriculture, and global trade. Studying The Columbian Exchange allows us to understand the interconnectedness of the world and its long-term effects on human societies.

When selecting a topic for an essay on The Columbian Exchange, it's essential to consider your interests, the scope of the assignment, and the availability of credible sources. You may want to focus on a specific aspect of The Columbian Exchange, such as the exchange of diseases, the impact on indigenous populations, or the of new crops. Narrowing down your topic will help you to develop a focused and well-researched essay. Additionally, consider the availability of primary sources and scholarly articles to support your arguments.

Below is a list of recommended essay topics on The Columbian Exchange, divided into categories for easy reference:

Economic Impact

• The impact of The Columbian Exchange on global trade
• The of new crops and their effects on European economies
• The role of silver and gold in the exchange between the Old World and the New World
• The impact of The Columbian Exchange on the development of capitalism

Cultural Exchange

• The exchange of languages and cultural practices between continents
• The impact of The Columbian Exchange on art, literature, and music
• The spread of Christianity and other religions as a result of The Columbian Exchange
• The exchange of knowledge and technology between different societies

Ecological Consequences

• The exchange of flora and fauna between the Old World and the New World
• The impact of invasive species on local ecosystems
• The role of deforestation and land use changes in The Columbian Exchange
• The long-term effects of The Columbian Exchange on biodiversity and environmental sustainability

Impact on Indigenous Populations

• The spread of diseases and their impact on indigenous communities
• The forced labor and enslavement of indigenous peoples as a result of The Columbian Exchange
• The cultural and demographic changes within indigenous societies
• The resistance and adaptation of indigenous populations to the changes brought by The Columbian Exchange

Global Health

• The exchange of diseases and the impact on global population demographics
• The role of medicine and public health in response to the spread of new diseases
• The long-term effects of The Columbian Exchange on global health and epidemiology
• The ethical implications of disease transmission and public health policies during The Columbian Exchange

Political Impact

• The influence of the Columbian Exchange on global politics
• The impact of the Columbian Exchange on the rise of European empires
• The effect of the Columbian Exchange on the power dynamics between nations
• The role of colonization in the Columbian Exchange
• The impact of the Columbian Exchange on indigenous governance

Social Impact

• The effects of the Columbian Exchange on population demographics
• The impact of the Columbian Exchange on social hierarchies
• The influence of the Columbian Exchange on family structures
• The role of slavery in the Columbian Exchange
• The impact of the Columbian Exchange on gender roles

Choosing a compelling and well-researched topic is essential for writing a successful essay on The Columbian Exchange. These essay topics provide a comprehensive overview of the various aspects of the Columbian Exchange, allowing students to explore the historical, economic, cultural, ecological, political, and social impacts of this pivotal event in world history. By selecting a topic that aligns with your interests and the assignment's requirements, you can delve into the complexities of The Columbian Exchange and its lasting impact on human history.

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The Effects of The Columbian Exchange

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The Global Impacts of The Colombian Exchange

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Christopher Columbus: Legacy and Impact

How the columbian exchange benefited europe and north america, positive effects of the columbian exchange, columbian exchange: negative effects, economic effects of the columbian exchange, the impact of corn in the columbian exchange.

c. 1400 - c. 1600

The Columbian exchange moved plants, animals, culture, ideas, ​commodities, people, and diseases across the Atlantic in the late 15th and following centuries. Indigenous populations across the Americas were replaced by African slaves and European colonists.

Along with the people and animals of the Old World came their diseases. Such as: measles, mumps, smallpox, influenza, typhus, and whooping cough. Those infections spread as epidemics among Native American populations. The most known deadly disease that spread from the Americas to Europe was syphilis

Horses, pigs, goats, cattle, sheep, and several other species were brought to the New World. Those species adapted readily to conditions in the Americas and became a new sources of hides, wool, and animal protein. The turkey, guinea pig, and Muscovy duck were New World animals that were brought to the Old World.

The Americas farmers brought to the Old World such goods as: corn, potatoes, tobacco, cassava, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, pumpkins, squashes, pineapples, and chili peppers.

Relevant topics

• Louisiana Purchase
• Christopher Columbus
• Great Depression
• Pearl Harbor
• Manifest Destiny
• Jack The Ripper
• Ancient Rome
• Articles of Confederation

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