The Columbian Exchange (Lecture)

The Great Dying

The period when the indigenous population of the Americas fell from about 60 million to 6 million.

Asante Empire

African empire from 1701 to 1901 that held massive territory military power and wealth. Heavily involved in the slave trade.

Subsistence Farming

All crops and livestock are used to maintain the farmer and their family with little surplus for sale or trade

The Columbian Exchange

Encomienda System

A system where Spanish and Portuguese colonizers were given land. And the indigenous people on the land were given as tenets and used for labor.

Scientific revolution

Ideas, plants, and animals from the New World helped spur scientists to ask questions about the world around them.

Potosí

A silver deposit in Peru

Afro-Eurasia

  1. Contact through the Indian ocean

  2. Isolated from the Americas and Australia

What difference did Europeans make in the Americas?

What was the impact of the Columbian Exchange on the people in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia?

Americas: The Great Dying

  1. Diseases

    1. Smallpox

      1. Easier for children than adults

      2. Causes some level of immunity

      3. Indigenous people had no immunity

    2. Black Death (bubonic plague)

      1. Spread through fleas on rats from boats

      2. Spread through trade routes

      3. Affected mostly Europeans

    3. Leptospirosis

      1. Argued that imported domestic animals with diseases caused this

      2. Domesticated animals went one way so Europeans did not suffer from this

    4. Syphilis

      1. From Americas to Europe

      2. Sexually transmitted

      3. Hinting to sexual (nonconsensual) relations between Europeans and Amerindians.

  2. Large land for farming now turning wild with plant regrowth and carbon pulled from the air. Earth's temperature dropped due to the sudden decrease of people.

  3. Depopulated, wild land caused Europeans to believe the land was uninhabited.

    1. Believed the had a God given right to the “empty” land.

  4. Depopulated, wild land caused Europeans to believe the land was uninhabited.

    1. Believed the had a God given right to the “empty” land.

  5. Indigenous Population used as a labor source

    1. Encomienda System

    2. Europe: Potatoes

  1. Subsistence Farming

    1. Kept population down

    2. Bad economy in lower classes

  2. Potatoes

    1. Helped solve this problem

    2. Decreased scurvy when spanish sailors ate potatoes

    3. Europeans are hesitant to eat and don’t know how to eat it.

    4. Eventually in 1620, Frederick the Great of Prussia ordered his people to eat potatoes so they would not starve. They did.

    5. Spread to France and the UK

    6. Helped get farmers out of Subsistence farming

      1. Built wealth and led them to the industrious revolution

    7. Peasants switched to potatoes as food and sold wheat

  3. Scientific Revolution

    1. Found produce in the new world that was not mentioned by ancient figures or the Bible

    2. Shook up their understanding of perceived authority

    3. Science

Africa: Slavery

  1. Enslaved Africans in the Americas

    1. 12 million Africans pulled from their continent

    2. Massive depopulation and many died resisting and on the boats.

    3. African Smallpox spread as well

    4. Everyday people

      1. Were not engaged in slavery as much

      2. Villages raided impacted on those enslaved (men) and those left behind (women children)

      3. Women and children had to take up masculine agricultural jobs

      4. Famine brought about.

  2. 1680-1780, Africa Atlantic Trade route worth rose 6x

  3. Slaves were Africa biggest transport

  4. Europeans traded guns for slaves

    1. Significant technological change for Africa

    2. 20 million guns transported

    3. Power balance changed between African kingdoms

    4. Tribes and kingdoms would go to war to collect slaves to trade for guns

  5. Asante Kingdom

    1. Intro to the slave trade and guns caused people to undermine sovereignty and hierarchy in African politics.

  6. Impact

    1. Reallocation of resources away from trade and agriculture toward slave raids

    2. Undermined economic development of African states

    3. Produced a culture of political violence

    4. Created ethnic and social division

    5. Racism

Asia: Silver

  1. Potosí

    1. A city in Peru with a rich silver deposit

    2. Process of pulling out silver done by enslaved Indigenous people and Africans.

      1. Many died from gas and mercury

    3. Became a wealthy mining town with global ties

    4. 60% of the world’s silver

    5. Important to Spain in trade

    6. Helped Europe enter the Indian Ocean trade because they now had trade other continents wanted.

    7. China wanted silver because they moved away from paper money to silver

  2. Spanish colony called Manila

    1. Held the silver to allow it to circulate for trade

  3. A scandal occurs that causes Potosí silver not to be considered trustworthy.