Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Exchange

Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Exchange

1.  What was the Columbian Exchange all about?

2.  Who was Christopher Columbus and what was he known for?

Millions of years ago, continental drift separated the Old World [Europe] and New World [the Americas]. That separation lasted so long that it encouraged the development of different types of animal and plant life as well as diseases. After 1492, European explorers in part reversed this separation. When Europeans first touched the shores of the Americas, Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice, and turnips had not traveled west across the Atlantic, and New World crops such as maize, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, and manioc had not traveled east to Europe. Through the exchange and commingling of Old and New World plants, animals, and bacteria, commonly known as the Columbian Exchange, a spectacular and significant ecological event occurred that dramatically and significantly changed both worlds.

The Columbian Exchange involved the transfer of crops and animals between the Americas and Europe. This transfer dramatically impacted the population of both worlds. The Columbian Exchange was a stimulant to population growth in the Old World/Europe. The infusion of new crops and animals increased the amount of food grown leading to a population explosion for the Old World/Europe. European explorers did encounter distinctively American illnesses but these did not have much effect on Old World/European populations. Overall, the Columbian Exchange was very beneficial to Europeans. The New World’s great contribution of crops such as maize, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, various squashes, chilies, and manioc have become essentials in the diets of hundreds of millions of Europeans, Africans, and Asians. The introduction of these foods goes far to explain the population explosion of the past three centuries in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

In the Americas, there were no horses, cattle, sheep, or goats, all animals of Old World origin, except for the llama, alpaca, dog, a few fowl, and guinea pigs, the New World had no equivalents to the domesticated animals associated with the Old World. The animals of the Old World have been beneficial to the future peoples in the Americas but the diseases of the Old world have been disastrous to the peoples that Columbus discovered for Europeans. The diseases of the Old World, smallpox, measles, chickenpox, influenza, malaria, and yellow fever proved devastating to the populations of the Americas. While European populations were increasing the populations of the peoples of the Americas were decimated by the plague of Old World diseases.

Without a doubt the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Exchange became a turning point in the history of the world. The Columbian Exchange, named after Christopher Columbus changed the balance of power in Europe. Because of the voyages of Columbus, Spain became the dominant world power for decades. The transfer of wealth, in the form of silver and gold from the Americas to Spain fueled the power of the Catholic Spanish monarchs. Historians have argued that the transfer of wealth from the Americas to Spain fueled the religious wars that Spain fought against Protestants in Europe.

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