AP Euro - 1.8 - Columbian Exchange

Columbian Exchange

The global transfer of goods, flora, fauna, cultural practices, and disease between the Old World and the New World as a result of European imperialism

What kinds of things were exchanged?

• Diseases - smallpox came from the Europeans to the Americas

• Food

  • Europe received maize, tomatoes, potatoes, and cacao from the Americas

  • The Americas received rice and wheat from Europe, which created a healthier diet

• Minerals - Europe received gold and silver from the Americas, which attracted European colonizers and hastened the transition from feudalism into capitalism

• Enslaved People - enslaved Africans were taken to the Americas

Great Dying

Indigenous populations plummeted

• In some cases, this was by about 90%

• For example, when the Spanish reached the island of Hispaniola, both the Arawak and Taino populations lost 300,000 of their men, women, and children to smallpox

• In 1530 the Incas had a population of ~9 million, which fell to 500,000 one hundred years later

feudalism

Peasants lived and worked on the land of a noble for armed protection from the nobles

capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership and a free and open exchange of goods between property owners

What happened to economic power due to the exchange?

Power shifted from the Mediterranean states toward the Atlantic states that were building empires across the sea

Antwerp

Located in the Netherlands, it became a primary trade port in Europe during the globalization of the economy and exploration

• It became prosperous due to its central location to Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English trade routes

What would replace Antwerp?

Amsterdam

What other Atlantic trading cities also prospered?

London and Bristol

What was an effect of the exchange in the Americas

People were subjugated

• The Spanish imposed the casta system, as well as a system of coerced labor known as the encomienda

Casta System

Organized societies hierarchically based on race and origin of birth

1. Peninsulares - Born in Spain

2. Criollos - Spaniards born in the AMericas

3. Mastizos - Spanish/Native Blood

4. Mullattos - Spanish/African Blood

5. Indigenous Americans

6. Enslaved Africans

encomienda

An economic and social system in which Spaniards could legally exact tribute and labor from indigenous Americans

• They were required by law to offer protection to their coerced laborers, but this was difficult for Spain to enforce due to being far away, which helped the encomienda system resemble slavery