4.3D: The Columbian Exchange

windmills

AP Theme

Humans and the Environment

Learning Objective 4D

Explain the causes of the Columbian Exchange and its effects on the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

Historical Development 1

The new connections between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres resulted in exchanging new plants, animals, and diseases, known as the Columbian Exchange.

Historical Development 2

European colonization of the Americas led to the transfer of disease. Some of these diseases substantially reduced the indigenous populations. 

 

Historical Development 3

Populations in Afro-Eurasia benefited nutritionally from the increased diversity of American food crops.

Key ideas

The Columbian Exchange was a trade and exchange network across the Atlantic.

The exchange of goods across the Atlantic began following Europe’s conquest of the Americas and the construction of European-controlled societies and economies.

The Columbian Exchange resulted in the diffusion of plants and animals, people, and diseases across the new Atlantic trade routes.

The benefits of the Columbian Exchange largely went to European peoples and societies.

Native societies were decimated by disease transfer and forced labor in labor systems created to satisfy European demands for goods and precious metals.

Contents

What Was the Columbian Exchange

Main idea

The Columbian Exchange was a trade and exchange network across the Atlantic.

The Columbian Exchange was the spread of animals, cultures, diseases, ideas, plants, and people between the Americas, Western Africa, and Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. The term describes the early centuries of trans-Atlantic trade and everything that moved across these new maritime trading routes.

The Columbian Exchange was 

named after the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus

controlled by Europeans and European colonists

a wealth creator that enriched Europe and European colonists

built on the mass exploitation of indigenous Americans and enslaved Africans

Causes of the Columbian Exchange

Main idea

The exchange of goods across the Atlantic began following Europe’s conquest of the Americas and the construction of European-controlled societies and economies.

The Columbian Exchange resulted from Europeans’ exploration, conquest, and settlement of the Americas.

Once Europeans were in the Americas, the following secondary causes increased the amount of exchange in goods and people across the Atlantic.

The rapid expansion of European ancestry populations in the Americas

The development of a commercial economy in the Americas

The increased production of agricultural products on cash crop plantations

The forced relocation of enslaved Africans into the Americas

Effects of the Columbian Exchange

Main idea

The Columbian Exchange resulted in the diffusion of plants and animals, people, and diseases across the new Atlantic trade routes.

The Columbian Exchange changed the natural environments, cultures, and societies of the old and new worlds.

Plants and animals transferred across the Atlantic

The transfer of plants and animals between the old and new worlds began with the voyages of Christopher Columbus.

The transfer of crops: The Columbian Exchange resulted in the diffusion of thousands of varieties of plants across the Atlantic.

Crops that moved through the Columbian Exchange had many uses:

Food

Citrus

Wheat

Squash

Enjoyment

Coffee 

Chocolate 

Tobacco 

Production

Cotton 

Hemp

Decorative 

Tomatoes (not originally food) 

Medical  

Cinchona tree (malaria medication)

  • Crops to the Americas: The earliest European explorer and conquerors brought crops native to their homelands to the Americas to have access to familiar foods from home. The Spanish initially introduced wheat and grapevines to produce bread and wine typical in the Spanish diet and used in Catholic rituals. Imported sugarcane became one of the major crops across the Caribbean islands and along coastal regions of South America, where it was grown on large plantations using African slave labor. Enslaved Africans also introduced crops into the Americas that were common in their African diets—bananas, lemons, plantains, and rice.
  • Crops to Europe, Africa, and Asia: New foodstuffs also moved from the Americas into Africa, Asia, and Europe. Maize, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, peanuts, tobacco, and cacao (chocolate) were among the plants that journeyed eastward. Tobacco, which Native Americans smoked or inhaled, became popular in Europe and resulted in the opening of large tobacco plantations in the Southern United States and the Eastern coast of Brazil.

The transfer of animals: Before the Europeans arrived, the Americas had few domesticable animals for labor, transportation, or to use as a food source. Europeans quickly began importing domesticated animals to serve those purposes. On Columbus’s second voyage (1493-1496), cattle, horses, and pigs were introduced into the Americas. Initially, most animals went from Europe to the Americas. Eventually, American animals like Alpacas, llamas, turkeys, and guinea pigs made their way to Europe.

Environmental impacts of the spread of plants and animals in the Americas: The introduction of new plants and animals in the Americas resulted in rapid ecological changes.

Deforestation increased as trees were cut down to make room for plantations.

Soil depletion increased as over-farming stripped lands of their nutrients.

Water pollution increased as waste from cash crop agriculture entered water supplies.

Invasive species like wild hogs took over habitats from native plants and animals.  

Populations moved across the Atlantic

Millions of people crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

Voluntary European migration: European migration into the region was largely voluntary, aside from some indentured servants.

6 million Europeans migrated to the Americas between 1492 and 1820

40% 

were Portuguese or Spanish

5%

were French 

50%

were British

The forced relocation of Africans: The importation of enslaved Africans into the Americas began soon after the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Most enslaved people worked on agriculture plantations growing cash crops like sugar, cotton, and tobacco. Others worked as domestic servants in mines or on building projects.

400

The number of years enslaved Africans were trafficked into the Americas 

10 million

The number of enslaved people sold out of Africa 

1.5 million

The number of enslaved Africans that died crossing on the Atlantic

Millions

The number who died in dangerous jobs and from overwork

Diseases transferred across the Atlantic

Diseases brought by Europeans to the new world had devastating effects on indigenous populations.

These diseases included

  • diphtheria
  • influenza
  • measles
  • typhus
  • smallpox

The impacts of disease on native populations: Within two hundred years of Europeans’ arrival in the Americas, millions of natives died from diseases. Afro-Eurasian populations had developed some genetic protection from these diseases from hundreds and thousands of years of exposure. Because they remained unexposed to these diseases before European arrival, Native Americans had no genetic protection. Some scholars say syphilis may have spread from the Americas to Afro-Eurasia, possibly by one of the crews of Christopher Columbus. However, this theory is controversial, with many medical historians arguing that syphilis was present in Afro-Eurasia before contact with the Americas.

1520: Smallpox epidemic (8 million deaths) 

1545: exact causes are debated by scholars, but DNA evidence points to typhoid fever 

1576: similar to 1545 outbreak and DNA evidence also points to a potential typhoid outbreak 

Population Collapse of Indigenous Natives in Mexico 16th Century

The Columbian Exchange Primarily Benefited Europeans

Main idea

The benefits of the Columbian Exchange largely went to European peoples and societies.

The Columbian exchange’s benefits went to Europeans in Europe and those in the Americas of European ancestry. Indigenous Americans and African populations had their lands, resources, and labor stolen to create the wealth generated by the Columbian Exchange.

Economic
Environmental
Cultural
EUROPEAN GAINS from the Columbian Exchange
  • Europeans controlled the economies of the Americas, creating an explosion in European wealth.
  • Europeans financed wars, further conquests, and the Industrial Revolution with American resources and wealth.
  • Europeans took over the land and resources of the Americas, allowing them to mine large amounts of silver and gold and build large agricultural plantations.
  • Europeans gained access to a wider variety of foods that increased their calorie intake and made their diets more nutritious.
INDIGENOUS AMERICAN AND ENSLAVED AFRICAN LOSES from the Columbian Exchange
  • Europeans exploited American natives’ labor in mines and on agricultural plantations preventing them from gaining wealth and killing countless from overwork.
  • Brutal systems of slavery trafficked millions of Africans to the Americas for financial profit, weakening the African societies the enslaved people left behind.
  • European conquerors took control of native Americans’ land, impoverishing future generations of indigenous peoples.
  • Diseases that arrived with Europeans killed millions of natives weakening their cultural, social, and family systems.
  • Europeans forced natives to adopt European cultural practices like Christianity, which destroyed native cultures and traditions.
European Gains and Native Loses from the Columbian Exchange