The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange

• columbian exchange: transfer of plants, animals, disease, and technology between old world and new world

  • old world: where Columbus came from
  • new world: where he found and conquered

• after 1490s, an intermingling of life-forms long separated by geography

• people, mostly in one direction

  • about 2.6 million europeans
  • about 12 million africans

• crops and domesticated animals

  • horse changed the lifestyles of native americans
  • old world animals expanded food base in new world

• invasive plant and animal species

• epidemic diseases

  • smallpox, influenza, typhus, measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever

• native american populations collapsed

  • shorter history of large urban centers that breed disease
  • up to 90% losses in first 150 years
  • compounded by other factors, especially violence and instability
  • european brutality

• 3 causes for why the europeans wanted to migrate and expand:

  1. god
  2. gold
  3. glory