Columbian Exchange + Spanish Colonies

Columbian Exchange

• The exchange of ideas, food crops, and populations between the New World and Old World

• The Old World brought over many plants and animals like sugar and pigs, as well as many deadly diseases that wiped out about 90% of the native populations

• The New World provided many new plants (potatoes, beans, corn) and animals like turkeys, and also syphilis

Spanish Colonial America

• The Spanish enforced the Encomienda System on the native peoples, which was basically slavery— they were forced to work long hours to search for gold, and often died from harsh working conditions or torture

• Because almost 90% of the native populations were killed, Spain began to send enslaved people from Africa to work in the colonies

• This led to the beginning of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Triangle Trade), in which Europe would sell textiles, brandy, and weapons to Africans in return for slaves who would be sent to the Spanish colonies to produce sugar, coffee, and tobacco for the Europeans

  • The section of the triangle trade from Africa to the colonies was called the Middle Passage

• Two opposing viewpoints on the matter: Bartolome de Las Casas believed that the harsh treatment of the native peoples needed to be stopped (was against the orders of both the monarchs and God), while Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda thought that it should continue (the natives were an inferior people and deserved to be treated as such)