THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE:
PLANTS & ANIMALS FROM EUROPE
History 2010: The U.S. to 1877, Dr. Houston
Plant or Animal
Impact or Importance
Banana
Brought in from Canary Islands in 1516
1. Thrived in tropical climes
Sugar
Sugar cane plantations
1. Provided exports:
a. By 1610 Brazil may have had 400 mills
b. Producing 57,000 tons for export to Europe
2. Demanded labor
Food staple crop: 87% carbohydrates and 13% protein
1. Probably originated in India about 10,000 B.C.
2. Archaeology proved grown in Thailand in 4,000 B.C.
3. Spread to Middle east and Africa by 400 B.C.
4. Alexander the Great (d. 323 B.C.)’s conquering army
brought back to Greece
5. Brought to American colonies in the 1600s
6. India and China produce 55% of world’s crop
Grown throughout Spanish holdings by 1600
1. Indians consistently refused to eat wheat bread
Rice
Wheat
Wine Grapes
First Peruvian vintage 1551
Olives
First olive tree seedlings to Peru in 1560
1. Wheat wine and olive oil were basic to Spanish cuisine
2. Grew in irrigated valleys of Spanish Pacific coast
Pigs
Pigs, horses, and cattle arrived with Columbus 2nd visit in 1493
1. Pigs increased to 30,000 in Cuba in 1514
2. Not huge modern animal but more like a speedy wild boar
3. 13 De Soto brought to Florida 1539 were 700 3 years later!
4. Pigs came to Peru with Pizarro in 1531: mobile
commissary for conquistadores
Multiplied rapidly both domestically and in the wild
1. Islanders often lived off abandoned livestock gone wild
2. Smoked and grilled meat on a grate called a boucan
3. When turned to pirating in 17th century, called buccaneers!
4. More cattle by 17th c. than any other vertebrate immigrant
5. More killed for hides and tallow than for meat!
a. 64,350 hides exported to Spain in 1587
6. Huge herds destroyed Indian crops by trampling
Cattle
(To Mexico in
1521)
1
Horse
Spain the most equestrian culture in Europe
1. 1501 Espanola had 20 or 30 despite high mortality at sea
2. Excellent beast of burden
3. Most valued as an instrument of war: terrified Indians!
4. Pizarro shod his horses in silver when iron was lacking!
5. Three large grasslands where horse multiplied in the wild
a. Pampas of Argentina: biological explosion
b. Llanos of Venezuela and Columbia
c. Central plains of American West stretching from
central Mexico to Canada
6. Horse basic to ranches which supplied meat for miners
a. Ecological interdependence essential for industry
7. Horse revolutionized Indians’ life on the plains
a. Allowed them to hunt buffalo, etc. with “meat,
hides, bones, and sinew
b. Made commercial trade possible with surplus
c. Greatest effect to fight the Europeans!
Came with Columbus in 1493
1. More vulnerable to predators thus multiplied more slowly
2. Wool was basis of first American factories:
a. Mexican textile mills with forced Indian labor
b. 1571-New Spain had 80
4. Carried diseases that decimated llamas and alpacas
Often went wild on islands
Sheep
Goat
Donkeys & Mules
Camels
Black rat
Burro a popular beast of burden
1. Never as plentiful as horses
2. Large mule ranches did exist
Never popular; extinct in New World by 1615
1. Killed for food by escaped slaves
Carrier of bubonic plague and typhus
1. Stowaway on ships coming to colonial ports
2. New to Bermuda, literally ate colonists out of house and
home and almost destroyed colony
LARGER IMPACT
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
(Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, 107-113)
Dependable supply of familiar food crucial for continued large-scale
immigration: Crosby says more important than religion or ideology (108).
By doubling or tripling number of cultivatable food plants, arrival of Old
World varieties created a more stable and reliable food supply vs. famine
Rice meant lowland swampy soil could now produce food.
Horse, ass, and ox revolutionized power available for work: ox allowed
plowing tough soil of plains
Cattleman crucial figure for rapid expansion of the frontier vs. slow farmer
Widespread overgrazing by enormous herds, esp. sheep, transformed
grasslands
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THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE: FOODS FROM THE NEW WORLD
New World Plant
Avocado
(alligator pear)
Beans
Chile Pepper
Description and Value
Tree fruit native to tropical America and rich in protein
Staple food crop. Many new varieties of nutritional legumes.
1. Maize, squash, & beans formed 3-fold food basis of the
Meso-American civilization
2. Soybean from East single most important food variety
Source of paprika and hot seasonings, etc.
Papaya (pawpaw)
Beans of Cacao Tree dried, shelled, & roasted for chocolate flavor
1. Has as much as 20% protein, 40% carbohydrate, 40% fat
2. Mixed with milk to form beverage with caffeine-like effect
White or yellow fruit the size of an orange
1. Source of jellies and preserves.
Staple food crop grown for human and livestock consumption.
Currently largest crop in the U.S.A.
1. Will grow in land too dry for rice and too wet for wheat
2. Valuable for its high yield per unit of land
3. Valuable for its short growing season
Staple food crop. Nutritional root 2 ft long and 6” in diameter
1. Chief source of tapioca (mostly starch and some vitamins)
2. Resistant to drought and pests
3. Extremely high yield in soil too poor for any other crop.
Tree fruit can weigh 20 pounds
Peanuts
Legume originated in South America
Pineapple
Fruit originated South America with 1/3 crop grown in Hawaii
Potato
Staple food crop. Starchy tuber originated in the Peruvian Andes,
brought to Europe in the 16th c., then to N.A. in the 18th
1. Produces higher yield of food per unit of land than wheat
or any other grain
2. Grows well in tiny plots of poor land at high altitude
Gourd related to squash
Cocoa
Guava
Maize (corn)
Manioc (cassava)
Pumpkin
Squashes
Sweet Potato
Tomato
Gourd related to pumpkin with summer and winter varieties
Staple food crop is a root vegetable produced by a trailing herb.
1. High yields equal 3-4 times that of rice
2. Tolerant of poor soils and resists drought
3. Important second food crop in rice lands like Indonesia
Fruit of a vine-like herb
1. valuable as source of minerals and vitamins A and C
2. Europeans originally believed it to be poisonous!
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THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE: OLD & NEW WORLD DISEASES
History 2010: The U.S. to 1877, Dr. Houston
Conveyors
Item Conveyed
Deaths
Destination
French?
(1550s)
Pleurisy and the
bloody flux
1,000s
Tupinamba Indians
of Brazil
Portuguese
(1562-1563)
Smallpox
10s of 1,000s
Indians of Brazil
English
(1580s)
Typhus
?
Indians of
Caribbean & Florida
English Puritans
(1616/1617-1622)
Pestilence?
“heapes”
Indians of New
England
Spanish
(1531)
Measles
?
Indians of Central
America
Spanish
(1518-1519)
Smallpox
1 million (in Santo
Domingo alone)
Arawak Indians of
Santo Domingo
(Greater Antilles &
Bahamas)
Cortez & Spanish
(1519-1530)
Smallpox
8.2 million
Maya Indians of the
Yucatan and Aztec
Indians of Mexico
Spanish
(1514-1530)
Smallpox (probably
also measles,
pneumonia and
typhus)
2 million
Panama
Alvarado & Spanish
(1520-1521)
Influenza
?
Cakchiquel Maya
Indians of
Guatemala
Pizarro and Spanish
(1520s)
Smallpox (?)
200,000
Inca Indians of
Andes & South
America
Columbus’ Crew –
1493
Syphilis:
Millions got it; they
called disease by
different names (ff.)
India=Dis of Franks
Ch=Ulcer of Canton
Jp=Tang (Chn) Sore
Jpn = Portuguese dis
Called Fren, Naples,
Bordeaux, Spanish,
German, Polish, Dis
ME=Eur. Pustules
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Sources Consulted
Note: The above document was developed for classroom use by college students in an
introductory survey course on early American history.
Carr, Ian. “Plagues and Peoples: the Columbian Exchange.” In Hippocrates on the Web:
History of Medicine. Manitoba: Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba,
1998. Available online (cited 2003):
<http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/medicine/history/histories/plagues.html >
Crosby, Alfred W., Jr. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences
of 1492. Contributions in American Studies, 2, ed. Robert H. Walker. Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Co., 1972.
________ . “The Columbian Exchange: Plants, Animals, and Disease between the Old
and New Worlds.” In The Columbian Exchange, Native Americans and the Land,
Nature Transformed. Research Triangle Park, North Carolina: TeacherServe
Project of the National Humanities Center, Available online (cited 2003):
<http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us:8080/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/columbian.htm>
Crouthamel, Steven. “Columbian Exchanges: Corn, Potatoes, Sugar, the Horse,
Disease.” Anthropology Department of Palomar College. Available online (cited
2003): <http://daphne.palomar.edu/scrout/colexc.htm >
Divine, Robert A., et al. “Ecological Revolution.” In America Past and Present. 5th
edition, 10-11. New York: Longman, 1999.
McNeill, William H. Plagues and Peoples. New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books,
1998.
Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2002, s.vv. “Avocado,” “Banana,” et al.
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