Cultural Consequences Of The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange, beginning in 1492 with Christopher Columbus’s first voyage, was a global trading standoff between the Old World and the New World. Plants, animals, and diseases were being traded fervently between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The global and social changes made during this exchange would leave a lasting impression on the Americas in the years that followed.

The term “Columbian Exchange” refers to the massive transfer of life between the Afro-Eurasian and American hemispheres that was precipitated by Columbus’ voyage to the New World . It was known as the widespread interchange of plants, animals, diseases, culture, human populations and technology between Europe and the Americas. After Columbus’ arrival to the Americas, the plant, animal and bacterial life began to mix between the Americas, which was also referred to as the “New World” and Europe, which was also referred to as the “Old World”. But how did the Columbian Exchange influence the Americas? The Columbian exchange had a huge effect, biologically, culturally, and demographically.

The Columbian Exchange, derived from the voyages of Columbus to the Americas, was a chapter in history that connected the Old World to the New World by exchanging crops, culture, and technology. The Columbian Exchange in the Western Hemisphere resulted in extensive demographic, social, economic, and environmental changes. The arrival of Europeans to Native American land produced an intense mixture of culture and population fluctuation. Not only did this exchange affect the social aspect between the two nations, it changed the way people engaged in trade and proprietary interests, which would lead to a massive destruction and transformation of the environment.

The long-term effects of the Columbian exchange included the swap of food, crops, and animals between the New World and Old World, and the start of the transoceanic trade. In order to produce a profit, Portuguese explorers were the first to established sugar cane plantations in Brazil. They then sold this crop to the Old World where it was a popular commodity because it provided Europeans with a sweetener for foods. In addition, European produce was brought to the New World, including “…wheat, vines, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and chickens… Where they sharply increased supplies of food and animal energy.” This fusion of crops between the Old and New World became fundamental in enhancing the diets and food of both populations.

The Columbian Exchange is a huge exchange of goods and ideas between the old world and the new world. The old world is considered Europe, Asia and Africa and the new world is considered America. Their colonies started to trade with each other and that’s when they formed the Columbian Exchange. Many countries were involved in this trade, including China, Africa and Italy. The exchange of the new ideas, traditions, food, religion and diet changed cultures everywhere. The Natives gave and received many items. Even though Europeans and American Indians saw some similarities in each other, their words differed. The introduction of plants into the new world extended a process that had been taking place for centuries in the Old World. Trade

The Columbian Exchange took cultural diversities and made America. It introduced biological, economic and cultural impact with drastic consequences. It is considered too had changed years of evolution.

The transition from the Old World to the New World, commonly classified as the Columbian Exchange, was the basis of European expansionism and imperialism. In reference to previous and future endeavors in history involving expansionism and imperialism, were notoriously implemented in inhumane ways. Evidently, the Columbian Exchange, named after the founder of the New World, Christopher Columbus, was the introduction of numerous things such as: technologies, plants, animals, diseases, and cultures. As the Columbian Exchange is a significant event is history, despite the demise of numerous Native American tribes and Europeans, the Columbian Exchange is the beginning of modernization in terms of socio-economics in the Western hemisphere.

When you are sitting in a fancy restaurant in Texas, tasting a delicious steak with a nice cup of coffee, do you know that before 1492, American people don’t even know what is beef and coffee. Nowadays, people’s diet is abundant. People in every part of the world can taste the food originated in other side of the world. This is due to one of the most significant ecological events in human history called the Columbian Exchange. According to Nunn Nathan and Qian Nancy, “the Columbian Exchange refers to the exchange of diseases, ideas, food crops, and populations between the New World and the Old World following the voyage to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492” (Nathan and Nancy, 2010). It was so spectacular that has left both positive and negative impacts in each side of the world.

In 1492 the explorer Columbus set out on his first voyage for Spain in search of a direct water route across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to Asia. Instead though, he found the Americas. Once in the New World Columbus ran into a native people and decided to name them Indians. This accidental finding of the Americas ignited the first contact ever between the Western and Eastern hemisphere. The result of this was The Columbian Exchange in which there was a large trade of animals, plants, technology, culture, slaves, diseases, and even new religions. This exchange effected the way Europeans, Americans, Asians, and Africans lived their daily lives. The Columbian exchange was by far one of the most paramount events in the history of world technology, agriculture, culture, and ecology. In this research paper the following will be answered:

The Columbian Exchange helped the advancements of societies internationally with the exchange of food. Food like maize and potatoes coming from America became staple crops throughout Europe. (Document 1) Europeans vastly depended on these foods so much that the Great Famine resulted in the failure of the potato crop in Ireland. Other traded items like sugar, tobacco, coffee and various spices benefitted both sides of the world. The New World gained new types of crops and the rest of the world like Europe and Asia obtained money from trade.

The Columbian Exchange began after the voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Western Hemisphere across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492. The Columbian exchange is the exchange of people, animal, plants, and diseases between the Old World and New world. Many of those things went to the Old World which was Europe conversely many things came to the New World, the Americas, as well. Although both worlds benefitted from the Columbus Exchange, in reality the Old world benefitted more.

After the Spanish settled in America, many new foods and species of plants were introduced to the people of Eurasia, none of which they had said before. Although most of the exchange of food was from the New World to the Old World, Eurasia also introduced the America’s to wheat and grapes, two very important foods for mass. Potatoes and corn were a major part of the Columbian Exchange as they provided a lot of nutrition and were very easy to grow. They could grow in soil that was previously useless for agriculture. Other foods that spread across Europe were tomatoes, peppers, chocolate, beans, pineapples, avocados and blueberries. This exchange of food was the main reason that the worlds population doubled from 545,000,000 in 1600 to 1,128,000,000 in 1850 and historians often describe this massive increase in the nutritional value and variety of

In 1492, when the first of many Europeans arrived to the Americas, a new era had begun. The great leaders and trades between the old and new worlds have changed humanity for the better and worse. To understand how we should view the Columbian Exchange, it must be understood by its impact on the history of trade, change in civilization, and diseases.

The Columbian exchange was passed through the old, new worlds, and Africa (Columbian Exchange). The geography of these three places and their downfalls and rises all work together to import and export goods and species (Columbian Exchange). They exported goods, slaves, and animals (Columbian Exchange). Europeans all together were the best at trading for goods and exporting goods to making themselves have such an early advantage (Columbian Exchange). The Columbian exchange refers to the exchange of diseases, ideas, food crops, and populations between the new world and old world following the voyage to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492, by the old world meaning the eastern hemisphere (Columbian Exchange). The discoveries of new supplies and metals is the best known, the old world also gained staple crops, sugar and coffee (Columbian Exchange). The exchange of disease occurred such as smallpox, measles, and typhus. Some cuisines of countries were altered by the Columbian exchange; it introduced a wide range of new calorically rich staple crops to the old world –namely potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize, and cassavas. The Europeans adapted tobacco. Sugar cane was extremely important for the European masses (Columbian Exchange). The potato provided a large supply of calories and nutrients, it had a positive growth on the population by 12%, and it effected urbanization by 47% as well (Columbian Exchange). Slaves were also imported into the Americas because of the spread of old world diseases to native Americans, the cultivation of highly priced old world crops such as sugar and coffee(Columbian Exchange). Over all, the Columbian exchange helped form Europe and guided it to conquer the Americas (Columbian Exchange). Furthermore, in the tables written by Jared Diamond and

”(Source A). Without the Columbian Exchange there was no tomato, or cocoa in Old World, and many thing that we see in our everyday life. Because the crops America never went in to famine. If it wasn’t for Columbian Exchange their wouldn’t be Pizza or spicy Chicken