1.8 The Columbian Exchange and Colonial Expansion

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 were some things that were exchanged during the Columbian Exchange

• Diseases

• Food

• Minerals

• Enslaved people

effects of diseases being exchanged during the Columbian exchange

• Small pox that was brought to America from Europe (African, Europeans, and Asians had contact w each other so they had been immune to most of their diseases that circulated but the Americans hadn’t been exposed to any of it yet)

• resulted in the Great Dying where indigenous populations plummeted by 90%. (also there were other diseases like measles but those weren’t the only ones)

common foods being exchanged during the Columbian exchange

• Americas —> Europe: maize, tomatoes, potatoes, cacao.

• Europe and Africa —> America: rice and wheat

effects of minerals being exchanged during the Columbian exchange

• the trade of Gold and silver from the Americas to Europe

• Spain conquered the Incan and Aztec land and took tons of Gold and Silver making them really wealthy

• even though the trade was one way, it transformed the Americas and Europe: more people (European colonizers) came to America and Europe became richer

causes of enslaved people being exchanged during the Columbian exchange

• feudalism was being replaced by early forms of capitalism ( mercantilism was still the main system though)

• the rise of capitalism started which mean more labor is needed

examples of the Spanish bringing their diseases to the Americas and wiping out their populations (the Great Dying)

• the Spanish landing on the island of Hispaniola —> the Arawak and Taino populations lots 300,000 people by small pox

• in 1530 to one hundred years later, the Incas’s population dropped from 9 million to 500,000

feudalism

a system where peasants lived and worked on the land of a noble in exchange for armed protection from the nobles

capitalism

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

economic system of europe before + during the age of exploration (before 1440s)

feudalism (before the age of exploration) + more wealth (from the age of exploration) which caused feudalism to be replaced by early forms of capitalism combined with mercantilism

effects in Europe of the Columbian exchange

economic power:

• shifted from Mediterranean states to Atlantic states that had colonies overseas

• for example: during the globalization of the economy and exploration one of the main trade ports of Europe was Antwerp in the Netherlands because it was a central location to Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English trade routes

effects in Americas of the Columbian exchange

the spanish taking control of the people

• set up a whole new societal structure on the people, called the Casta System, based on race and origin of birth (basically people born in Spain were at the top, Spanish born in America and spanish mixed with Natives, Africans were in the middle, Indigenous Americans were 2nd to the bottom, and Enslaved Africans were at the very bottom)

• they also set up another system of coerced labor, called the Encomienda, an economic and social system in which Spaniards could by law use indigenous Americans for labor but were required to offer protection to their coerced laborers but they didn’t do that part —> so basically the encomienda system turned into a system of slavery because they didn’t give anything back to their laborers