How the Columbian Exchange Changed Our World Forever

on the New World was both beneficial and destructive. An example of both was the trade of new plants and agriculture. The trade of these items worked two ways. First, new plants and ideas were shipped outside to Europe from the New World. Accounts from explorers and travelers such as Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortez explain that the crops and animals in the New World were fulfilling and plentiful, exactly what they needed in their homelands. (Doc 1 and 2) Second, Europe brought their own agriculture and goods to the New World; things they could not live without. In an illustration from the Codex Florentino, ships of Hernando Cortez are being eagerly unloaded onto the shores of Mexico, signifying the trade from the Old World to the New. (Doc 5) The trade of such goods was important to the diet and changing society of the natives living in the New World. However, the trade was possibly more destructive than good. In Alfred Crosby’s description of plant exchange, he finds that most plants that are invasive ad destructive to the natural environment of

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 trade of biological and cultural aspects defines The Columbian Exchange, also called the Great Biological Exchange, for the first time Europeans decided to connect with the Western Hemisphere. This was important because the Europeans actually gained more by taking advantage of the Indians; animals, plants, and diseases, these transactions marked a whole new beginning in the history of America. Two isolated parties explored their differences, and by that, they enriched their biological and cultural lives.

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.

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 “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas,” the authors point out that there were two channels in the transfer of food crops. One are unknown tropical spcies from the New World, which has affected on the growth of local cuisines. They are rich in calories and improving taste and vitamin intake. Otherwise, the Old World also brought certain crops. America gave a plenty of land that helped response the high food demand, and became the main supplies for Old World markets. In this way, they unknowingly carried many Old World diseases, such as smallpox, meales, and other diseases. They were unfamiliar to the Native America and they never had developed immunity to such disease. By the early 1600’s, the population of Indians decreased nearly 90%. Furthermore, Columbus’ sailors encountered sexually with native women Indians so that they brought the deadly bacteria unwittingly back to Europe. This reason led slavery system traded from Africa for labor requirement for cotton and tobacco plantation

What many people only know about Christopher Columbus’s expedition is that he found the Americas. While this is true, he did find a completely new frontier that was unknown to the Old World, his findings re-shaped global consumption patterns from the seventeenth century. He found a New World filled with resources that the old world hasn’t seen before. When he found the new world he brought with him European plants and animal species that were foreign to the citizens of the New World. The Columbian Exchange introduced many foods that are still essential to consumption in today’s world along with the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The potato is a prime example of how the Columbian Exchange changed global consumption patterns because it was nutritious and had an abundant amount of calories in it and caused a mass population increase in areas where the potato was available. The use of slaves also increased exponentially when sugar cane was introduced. This was a very cheap, productive way to produce a large amount of sugar and it was used by many Old World countries. The findings of these new world products created a rise in global consumption and production because products were introduced to the both the New World and the Old World and there instantly became a large spike in the availability of products. Along with this, the old world decided to go out and get themselves involved in the New World because they saw an opportunity

- The Columbian Exchange was a worldwide transfer of plants, animals, and diseases. Before Columbian Exchanged certain foods were not in European meals such as, corn, potatoes, and different kinds of beans – (kidney, lima), peanuts, and peppers. The same for the Native Americans, certain foods were not a part of the culture such as, rice, wheat, barley, oats, melons, Kentucky bluegrass, and dandelions. The diseases the European’s as well as the slaves carried over, they effected the Native Americans greatly and caused millions to die. These diseases consisted of smallpox’s,

After Columbus' 'discovery' of America in 1492, an began exchange between the 'Old World', the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, and the 'New World', the continents of what today is North America and South America. Historian Alfred Crosby called this exchange the 'Columbian Exchange'. The spread of new foods and animals benefited both the Old and New worlds, although the exchange of disease devastated the New World. Historians estimate that as many as 100 million people died as a result of the spread of diseases such as Small Pox and Influenza. This exchange changed world history and created the world that we live in today.

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 European explorers began the exchange of plant and animal species. In William and Jackson’s writing, they explained how the Europeans helped to increase the food production in America. (Doc #3) This document states, “… cultivation of corn, manioc, and the potato … a process that ultimately brought benefits…” in the Americas. This process was known as the Columbian Exchange. It had an effect on the Eastern and Western Hemisphere. Furthermore, the Columbian Exchange had both good and bad effects on the world. Although it helped increase exchange, it caused many diseases to spread and kill many people.

And also during that time slavery was a common thing many native were slaves to other natives. Overall the columbian Exchange has a great impact on many Europeans and gave them many opportunities. “Crops introduced to old world include potato,tomato,maize,cacao, tobacco. Crops introduced in new world include rice,wheat,apples,bananas,and coffee. Before the Columbian Exchange there was no coffee in Columbia, no chocolate in Switzerland,and no pineapple in Hawaii.

The plants in the Columbian Exchange impacted both the economic and ethnic aspects of both sides of the Atlantic. The plants that were unknown to the Europeans were Maize also known as corn, potatoes (sweet and white), and many different varieties of beans including snap, kidney, lima and others. The plants that were obscure to the Americans were rice, wheat, barley, oats, wine grapes, melons, coffee, olive, bananas, “Kentucky” bluegrass, daisies and dandelions. This had a big impact on their day to day diet, which affected the way they developed physically because the different amount of calories in the new

The spreading of new crops and cattles affected the reshaping of local landscapes. This gave way for the introduction of new crops in different climates. Crops like wheat came from Europe and spread through the America’s and domestic animals like pigs, cattle, and horses. This shift in landscape was eminent in the Caribbean islands, where many indigenous animals went extinct along with the native people of the Island. Pigs, rats, sugarcane , coffee, and slave populations became the new inhabitants of the Caribbeans.

When Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of the Caribbean, it changed the world forever. The repercussions of this would ricochet off of both shores of the Atlantic and drastically alter the cultures and environments. This series of events is referred to as “The Columbian exchange” by many historians. For brevity’s sake the term “The Columbian exchange,” will be used in place of saying some variant of “The ways that both Europe and Africa influenced the environment, population, and cultures of the new world and vice versa during the late fourteen hundreds and beyond.” This essay is to show how the Columbian exchange benefited Europe, at the expense of Africa and the Americas, and will do so in the following ways, nutrition, health, population, and money.