The Columbian ExchangeThe Columbian Exchange

Essential Questions:1.What was the Columbian Exchange?2.What was its impact on the old and new worlds?3.What are some examples of the impact of the Columbian Exchange?

The introduction of beasts of burden to the Americas was a significant development from the Columbian Exchange. The introduction of the horse provided people in the Americas with a new source of labor and transportation.

• Explorers created contact between Europe and Americas.

• Interaction with Native Americans led to big cultural changes.

• Contact between the two groups led to the exchange of plants, animals, and disease—the Columbian Exchange.

• Plants, animals developed in very different ways in hemispheres

• Europeans—no potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, turkeys

• People in Americas—no coffee, oranges, rice, wheat, sheep, cattle

The Exchange of Goods

The Columbian Exchange

• Arrival of Europeans in Americas changed all this

• Previously unknown foods taken back to Europe

• Familiar foods brought to Americas by colonists

Sharing Discoveries

Different Foods Exchange of foods, animals had dramatic impact on later societies Over time crops native to Americas became staples in diets of

Europeans Foods provided nutrition, helped people live longer

Italian Food Without Tomatoes? Until contact with Americas, Europeans had never tried tomatoes Most Europeans thought tomatoes poisonous By late 1600s, tomatoes had begun to be included in Italian

cookbooks

Economics and Gastronomics Activities like Texas cattle ranching, Brazilian coffee growing not

possible without Columbian Exchange; cows, coffee native to Old World

Traditional cuisines changed because of Columbian Exchange

Effects of the Columbian Exchange

Impact on Native Impact on Native AmericansAmericans

Colonization brought the spread of disease Europeans brought

measles, mumps, chicken pox, and small pox

Diseases devastated Native American communities

Nearly 1/3 of Hispaniola’s approximately 300,000 inhabitants died during Columbus’s time there

By 1508 fewer than 100,000 survivors lived on the island

The European disease was the ultimate conqueror of America

Impact on AfricaImpact on Africa The Slave Trade Begins

With disease devastating the native workforce Europeans turned to Africa for slaves

African Losses African slave trade

devastated many African societies

Before the slave trade ended in the 1800s Africa lost at least 12 million people

Impact on EuropeImpact on Europe New types of food and

animals were brought back to Europe

This had both positive and negative aspects:◦ Positive because they

served as a valuable source for food

◦ Negative because they destroyed their croplands

Plants carried back to Europe enriched nutrition in the Old World and this resulted in major population explosions

Effects of Columbian Exchange felt not only in Europe, Americas

China◦ Arrival of easy-to-grow, nutritious corn helped

population grow tremendously◦ Also a main consumer of silver mined in

Americas Africa

◦ Two native crops of Americas—corn, peanuts—still among most widely grown

Scholars estimate one-third of all food crops grown in world are of American origin

Horse

Turkey

Chicken

Tomato

Maize

Potato

Syphilis

Smallpox

Old World

Old World

Old World

New World

New World

New World

New World

New World

Allowed Native Americans to shift to a nomadic

lifestyleProvided new food source

for Europeans

Provided new food source for New World inhabitants

Staple of Italian cuisine today, world wide use

World’s most important cereal crop (plant with

edible seeds)World staple crop; failure

of Irish crop lead to massive American

migrationFirst outbreak after 1492 believed to have killed

more than 5 million EuropeansDevastated Native

populations who were not resistant