THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW ERA
The Columbian Exchange is the global transfer of foods, plants, and animals during the
colonization of the Americas.
Ships from the Americas brought back a wide array of items that Europeans, Asians, and
Africans had never seen before. They included such plants as tomatoes, tobacco, and
cacao beans (for chocolate). They also included animals such as the turkey.
Traffic across the Atlantic did not flow in just one direction.
Europeans introduced various livestock animals into the Americas. Foods from Africa
migrated west in European ships.
Some aspects had a tragic impact on many Native Americans.
Disease was just as much a part of the Columbian Exchange as goods and food. The
Europeans brought with them diseases, which led to the deaths of millions of Native
Americans.
THE TRIANGULAR TRADE
The triangular trade is a repetitive trade route involving three ports: In Europe (Liverpool);
In Africa (West Coast); In the Americas;
FIRST STEP .
The Triangular Slave Trade always began in West Africa, where slave ships
acquired slaves to transport and sell in the New World.
SECOND STEP.
The second stage was sometimes the West Indies, where the slaves were
sold and either sugar or molasses taken on board. At other times, it was the American Southern
colonies , where the products taken aboard was cotton.
THIRD STEP.
It was a manufacturing area, either New England or Britain, where the raw
materials were unloaded and sold, and exchanged with manufactured goods received. Ships then
voyaged to West Africa to exchange those goods for slaves and the cycle continued.
There were four sets of winners: the original slave sellers, the slave buyers, the
manufacturers, and the slave traders themselves and only one relatively impotent set of
losers, the slaves.
GLOBAL REVENGE
One of the most important legacies of the transatlantic slave trade and also of colonial rule
in Africa and the Caribbean has been the creation of the modern African diaspora which is
the dispersal of millions of people of African origin all over the world but especially in
Europe and the Americas.
The African diaspora has had a considerable impact on global culture, especially during
the 20th century, in the fields of science and medicine, music and popular culture.
The African diaspora has contributed in important ways to the economic development of
many countries, as well as to social, cultural and political innovations of global
significance. In Europe and North America, it is now common to speak of a 'brain drain' of
well-educated people from Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere, which has led to further
changes in the composition of the diaspora in the years following World War II.
In recent years, the African Union (AU) has defined the diaspora as 'consisting of people of
African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality
and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of
the African Union'.