4.3 Columbian Exchange

What led to the columbian exchange?

-european conquest decimated Native groups- superior weapons + disease
-new connections developed between Eastern and Western Hemispheres
-europeans, Native Americans, and Africans created new ways of life
-the birth of a global economy

how did disease impact the americas?

-europeans brought germs and diseases, which indigenous people had not been previously exposed
-smallpox killed the largest amount of the indigenous people
-rats and insects brought other diseases
measles, influenza, and malaria

What led to the columbian exchange?

-european conquest decimated Native groups- superior weapons + disease
-new connections developed between Eastern and Western Hemispheres
-europeans, Native Americans, and Africans created new ways of life
-the birth of a global economy

how did disease impact the americas?

-europeans brought germs and diseases, which indigenous people had not been previously exposed
-smallpox killed the largest amount of the indigenous people
-rats and insects brought other diseases
measles, influenza, and malaria

what did the old world (aurope, africa, asia) send to the new world?

-sugar cane
-horses (& other animals similar)
-disease
-grains

what did the new world send to the old world?

-tobacco
-chocolate
-potatoes
-tomato
-corn
-beans
-peppers

how did the introduction on animals and food affect the new world?

-indigenous peoples ate little meat before Europeans arrived, pork and beef brought from Europe
-europeans introduce the horse to the Americas, made hunting easier, better combat.
-wheat and grapes became staple of american diet

cash crops

crops, such as tobacco, sugar, and cotton, raised in large quantities in order to be sold for profit

what initiated the slave trade?

-sugarcane production led to increased need for labor (many indigenous people died from disease, so there was a need to import labor)
-european countries needed the labor hence the increase in the import of slaves to the Americas
-most slaves came from West Africa and the Swahili coast

transatlantic slave trade

trading of slaves from africa to the americas
-increased need for slave labor on sugar plantations
~98 percent of slaves went to Caribbean and South America
-plantations produced so much:
5 to 10 percent of slave workers died each year, due to heat, disease, and exhaustion

why were cash crops so important?

-spanish imported so much silver, it damaged the Spanish economy- began to look for alternatives to boost economy
-spanish settlements in Americas started to grow sugar and tobacco to compete with Portugal
-sugar became the chief money-maker for European empires