The Columbian Exchange

1. What is the Columbian Exchange?

2. What was exchanged?

3. How did the Columbian Exchange affect society?

Questions of the Day

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?

What was the Columbian What was the Columbian Exchange?Exchange? Most significant event in the

history of world ecology, agriculture, and culture

Term used to describe the widespread exchange of:◦ Plants◦ Animals◦ Foods◦ Human populations (including

slaves)◦ Communicable diseases◦ Ideas between the Eastern and

Western hemispheres after 1492

To America, Europeans introduced crops◦ Crops would later serve as

cash crops for export by the colonists

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

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

The Columbian ExchangeThe Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange