The Columbian Exchange

429 Words2 Pages
There was a “Columbian Exchange,” and there was a Columbian exchange. In 1972 Alfred Crosby characterized the meeting of Europe and the Americas during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries as an exchange that affected both regions. His “Columbian Exchange” was a transfer (interchange) of organisms. From Europe migrated not only conquerors with superior military technology but also such animals as horses, cattle, goats, and sheep; grain plants and sugar cane; and fateful diseases like smallpox, dysentery, and diphtheria. For its part the New World provided a host of sustaining crops that could be cultivated in Europe, such as potatoes, maize (corn), tomatoes, squashes, and varieties of beans; foods that appealed to European tastes, such as cacao (chocolate), avocados, and chilies; and other products that served a growing demand, such as tobacco, indigo, and cotton. Few New World animals of consequence migrated to Europe during this period, but possibly the venereal disease syphilis first reached Europe from the Americas. Before and since the publication of Crosby’s work, students of European expansion have not neglected his factors but have also pointed to the interregional migration of people and their cultures and metals (iron from Europe and silver and gold from the Americas). The student must discuss the impact of the Columbian exchange on the population and economies of Europe. For example, this might include the effects of transferred food crops on diet and population growth in Europe, potatoes and corn as factors in the agricultural revolution, the economic effect of cane sugar and tobacco production on European economies (e.g., wealth produced by the New World plantation systems for Europe, the stimulation that agriculture gave to international commerce and later industrialization, the need for large-scale labor for sugar

More about The Columbian Exchange

Open Document