1.4: Columbian Exchange

1. What was the Columbian Exchange? Why was it so significant to world history?

• The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of food, animals, minerals, people, and diseases between Africa, Europe, and the Americas

• REALLY BIG DEAL, is changed the societies, culture, and politics of these continents

• Transfer of Disease

1. Tenochtitlan: Has a lot of inhabitants and Tenochtitlan fell to Hernan Cortez and he only had about 1000 (somethings wrong!!)

2. The fall of Tenochtitlán was a significant event in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Cortés's arrival in the Aztec capital on November 8, 1519, was less than two years before the city's defeat, which led to its decline

Smallpox

1. Spanish showed up and made contact with everybody and they built immunity. But people in the Americas were not immune so they were greatly affected.

• Transfer of Food

1. America to Europe: maize, tomatoes, potatoes (New World Crops)

2. Europe/Africa to Americas: Rice wheat, lemons, oranges, horses, pigs, cattle, and chickens (Old World crops)

Minerals

1. All the gold and stuff got sent back to Spain homeland and they became really rich and everybody wanted to go back

Europe

1. Western Europe experienced a huge economic growth

Feaudalism

peasants lived and work on land of a nobel in exchange of protection but later got replaced by capitalism

Capitalism

1. economic system based on private ownership 

People

1. Native Americans were enslaved and taken back to Spain as a result of COlumbus

Middle passage

enslaved africans, many died during this ride

• How did SPanish fund for this exploration

mercantilism and joint stock companies

Mercantilism

depended on heavy governemnt intervention

joint stock companies