U.S. History INative America and Contact (1491 to 1607)D2.His.14.9-12

The Columbian Exchange

After 1492 plants, animals, people and diseases crossed the Atlantic both ways: horses, wheat and cattle to the Americas; maize, potatoes and tomatoes to Europe, Africa and Asia; and diseases such as smallpox that killed a large share of Native peoples.

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Columbus's voyages (Why Europeans Explored) did more than open a sea route. For millions of years the two hemispheres had developed separate plants, animals and germs. After 1492, ships carried them across the ocean in both directions. The historian Alfred Crosby named this the Columbian Exchange in 1972.

Key idea

After 1492, plants, animals, people and diseases crossed the Atlantic both ways. Horses, cattle, pigs, wheat and sugarcane came to the Americas; maize, potatoes, tomatoes, cacao and tobacco went to Europe, Africa and Asia. Diseases such as smallpox killed a very large share of Native peoples.

Why it works

Native peoples had never been exposed to smallpox, measles or influenza, so their bodies had no defenses against them. Epidemics swept through towns, often ahead of the Europeans themselves. The crops moved the other way and changed diets around the world: the potato fed northern Europe, maize spread through Africa and China, and the tomato became central to Italian cooking.
Which way did each one travel?

Worked example: Why did the population fall so far?

Estimates of how many Native people died in the first century after contact range from about half to about 90 percent. What was the main cause?
  1. War and forced labor killed many, but they cannot explain deaths in places Europeans had not yet reached.
  2. Diseases new to the Americas spread from person to person and town to town.
  3. People had no immunity, so death rates were very high.

Answer: Epidemic disease was the main cause, made worse by war, forced labor and hunger.

Worked example: An effect far away

How did the Columbian Exchange help cause the Atlantic slave trade to grow?
  1. Sugarcane, brought to the Caribbean and Brazil, grew well there.
  2. Sugar plantations needed huge amounts of hard labor.
  3. With Native populations collapsing, planters bought enslaved Africans by the millions.

Answer: Sugar and the loss of Native workers drove demand for enslaved labor from Africa.

People crossed too. Europeans came as settlers and soldiers, and millions of Africans were carried across the Atlantic in chains. Scholars debate some details, such as whether syphilis traveled from the Americas to Europe (recent studies of ancient DNA support that view) and how large the 1491 population was. The broad pattern is not in doubt.

Common mistake

Two errors are common. One: thinking the exchange went only one way, from Europe to America. Crops from the Americas changed the whole world's food. Two: thinking Native peoples died mostly in battle. War mattered, but disease caused most of the deaths.

Practice

Pass with 3 right answers, the last 2 in a row. Each right answer earns 2 XP.

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