Questions of the Day
1. What is the Columbian
Exchange?
2. What was exchanged?
The Columbian Exchange
3. How did the
Columbian Exchange
affect society?
The Columbian Exchange
Essential Questions:
1. What was the Columbian Exchange?
2. What was its impact on the old and new worlds?
3. What are some examples of the impact of the
Columbian Exchange?
What was the Columbian Exchange?

Most significant event in the
history of world ecology,
agriculture, and culture

Term used to describe the
widespread exchange of:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦

Plants
Animals
Foods
Human populations (including slaves)
Communicable diseases
Ideas between the Eastern and
Western hemispheres after 1492
To America, Europeans
introduced crops
◦ Crops would later serve as cash
crops for export by the colonists
Impact on Native Americans

Colonization brought the spread of disease

Europeans brought measles, mumps,
chicken pox, and small pox

Diseases devastated Native American
communities

Nearly 1/3 of Hispaniola’s approximately
300,000 inhabitants died during
Columbus’s time there

By 1508 fewer than 100,000 survivors
lived on the island

The European disease was the ultimate
conqueror of America
Impact on Africa

The Slave Trade Begins


With disease devastating the
native workforce Europeans
turned to Africa for slaves
African Losses

African slave trade devastated
many African societies

Before the slave trade ended
in the 1800s Africa lost at least
12 million people
Impact on Europe

New types of food and
animals were brought back
to Europe

This had both positive and
negative aspects:
◦ Positive because they served
as a valuable source for food
◦ Negative because they
destroyed their croplands

Plants carried back to
Europe enriched nutrition
in the Old World and this
resulted in major
population explosions
Where did it
originate?
Impact
Animal
Horse
Old World
Allowed Native Americans to
shift to a nomadic lifestyle
Animal
Turkey
New World
Provided new food source for
Europeans
Animal
Chicken
Old World
Provided new food source for
New World inhabitants
Plant
Tomato
New World
Staple of Italian cuisine today,
world wide use
Plant
Maize
New World
World’s most important cereal
crop (plant with edible seeds)
New World
World staple crop; failure of
Irish crop lead to massive
American migration
Disease
Syphilis
New World
First outbreak after 1492
believed to have killed more
than 5 million Europeans
Disease
Smallpox
Old World
Devastated Native populations
who were not resistant
Plant
Plant,Animal, and Disease
Potato
The Columbian Exchange
The Columbian Exchange