The Impacts 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 is one of the greatest exchanges in foods, animals, plants and diseases between Europe and the Americas. In 1492 Christopher Columbus came to America. He saw things he had never seen before so then he decided to take some of them with him to Europe. He started trading routes to initiated an interchange of plants between Eastern and Western, as a result it doubled the resources of the food crop on both sides.

The Columbian Exchange started after Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” in 1942 of a New World. This discovery lent to the entire Western world to gain and to grow with years of expansion and discovery. The Columbian Exchange was a worldwide phenomenon that transfer plants, animals, technology, ideas and specially culture from Europe to America and vice versa. This exchange will

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.

One consequence of the exchange was mass death. In the search for new routes for trade, people of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas came in contact with each other, causing the spread of disease. Columbus's colonization brought a host of new diseases to the populations of the Americas. Europeans exported their diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis and smallpox. In return, European traders and colonizers returned the Europe with syphilis and typhus from the Americas. The slave trade caused the spread of malaria and yellow fever from Africa to the Caribbean and North America, and yellow fever to Europe.

Columbian Exchange- The Columbian Exchange was a way exchanging new resources between the new world and the old world. This impacted Europeans and Native Americans positively with the new materials now available, like technology, plants, and animals. There were some negative effects from these exchanges too, such as diseases. Made it easier to interact with other cultures.

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

Europeans and Native Americans were first introduced to each other when Europeans arrived at the New World, the northeastern side of North America. Native Americans were originally perceived as noble savages through writings because humans were not tempted by the narcissism of the modern world. Other times, Native Americans were perceived as devils since they did not have churches or religions and men often changed wives many times (Berkin 19). Europeans traded goods such as glass beads, mirrors, and brass bells for the furs and land of the American Indians. While Native Americans and European immigrants increased contact with each other, Europeans’ attitudes and perceptions towards American Indians began to decline as they took over the land

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.

The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of food and crops, disease, ideas and people that involved Africa, the Americans and Europe. Explorers had found a new world which is commonly known as North America today. People wanted to travel to the New World to start fresh and be given freedom and rights that they did not receive in their present countries. It also helped discover new foods and revolutionary materials. The Columbian Exchange transformed the standards of living and had positive and negative effects on both the natives and the explorers.

Christopher Columbus changed the Old World in 1492 by accidently sailing to a new land, which was thought to be India but was actually the Americas. He soon found that the goods in the New World were not found in the Old World, and that the New World didn’t have certain goods like the Old World did. People started to exchange goods from the New World to the Old World, and the Old World to the New World. This process was called the Columbian Exchange, and it continued to happen for centuries. When the term, “When Worlds Collide”, is used, it means the exchanging of goods through the Columbian Exchange between the peoples of the New and Old Worlds.

The Columbian Exchange is non-fiction book written by Alfred W. Crosby JR. It illustrates the important events that transpired when Columbus came to America in 1492. I initially chose this this book because I wanted to know more about Europe's effects on America, and how Columbus altered the flora and fauna of America for better and for worse. As I started to read further into the book I immediately was captivated by all the information that was hidden within the text.

The Columbian Exchange is about exchanging goods from the “New World” to the “Old World” and vise versa. During the Columbian Exchange, Europeans brought food, animals, technology, and also diseases to the New World.