The History Book

158

AS DIFFERENT

FROM OURS AS

DAY AND NIGHT

THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE (1492 ONWARDS)

T

he arrival in the 1490s of

the first Europeans in

North and Central America

reconnected ecosystems that had

developed in isolation from one

another for thousands of years. In

the so-called Columbian Exchange,

lives and economies that had altered

only gradually over centuries were

suddenly transformed by the influx

of new crops, animals, technology,

and pathogens. Many of the effects

were unforeseen and misunderstood

by both Europeans and American

Indians at the time, but once the

first landing had been made, there

was no turning back.

Food and farming

When Europeans began to settle

in the Americas, they brought with

them their own domesticated

animals and foods. The enormous

range included citrus fruits, grapes,

and bananas; coffee, sugar cane,

rice, oats, and wheat; and cattle,

sheep, pigs, and horses. To cultivate

their crops and pasture their

animals, the settlers cleared huge

areas of woodland, destroying the

habitats of some native wild species

in the process, and unintentionally

contaminating American fields

with the seed of weeds such as

dandelion and sow thistle. The

exchange in the other direction

brought potatoes, tomatoes, sweet

corn, beans, pumpkins, squash,

and tobacco to the Old World, as

well as turkeys and guinea pigs.

The introduction of new staple

crops transformed lives on both

sides of the Atlantic. Potatoes and

maize, carbohydrate-rich and easily

grown, helped overcome chronic

food shortages in Europe and, along

with manioc and sweet potatoes,

spread on to Africa and Asia. In the

New World wheat, which thrived in

the temperate latitudes of North

and South America and in the

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Ecological change

BEFORE

Pre-1492 American and

Eurasian ecosystems exist

in complete isolation.

AFTER

1518 Charles V of Spain grants

a license to sell African slaves

in America’s Spanish colonies.

1519 Spanish conquistadors

bring horses to Mexico.

c.1520 Spanish settlers

introduce wheat to Mexico.

c.1528 Spanish traders

introduce tobacco to the

Old World.

c.1570 Spanish ships bring

the first potatoes to Europe.

1619 Dutch traders bring

Africans from a captured

Spanish slave ship to

Jamestown, Virginia.

1620 The Pilgrims bring

livestock such as chickens

and pigs to Massachusetts.

[The lands are]

very suitable for

planting and cultivating,

for raising all sorts

of livestock herds.

Christopher Columbus

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159

See also: Christopher Columbus reaches America 142–47 ■ The Treaty of Tordesillas 148–51 ■

The voyage of the Mayflower 172 –73 ■ The Slave Trade Abolition Act 226–27

THE EARLY MODERN ERA

highlands of Mexico, eventually

became a fundamental food crop

for tens of millions of settlers. The

arrival of horses in the New World

was also revolutionary, permitting

more effective and selective

hunting, as well as facilitating

travel and transport.

Biological catastrophe

The most immediately devastating

impact of the Columbian Exchange

followed the introduction of new

diseases into the Americas. The

settlers and the chickens, cattle,

black rats, and mosquitoes that

accompanied them introduced

contagious diseases to a people

who had no biological defense

against them. American Indians’

immune systems were not adapted

to cope with alien diseases such

as smallpox, measles, chickenpox,

influenza, malaria, and yellow fever.

Once they were exposed to them,

they began to die in the hundreds

of thousands. Half the Cherokee

nation died in a smallpox epidemic

in 1738, and some other tribes

were wiped out entirely. European

explorers encountered and brought

back American illnesses such as

Chagas Disease, but the effect

on Old World populations was

negligible compared with the

consequences of Old World

pathogens in the New World.

Exchange economics

From the start, the Columbian

Exchange had a strong economic

driver. Commodities ranging from

gold and silver to coffee, tobacco,

and cane sugar were transported

on a vast scale, mostly to the

benefit of European traders and

plantation owners.

Very soon, slave trading became

a key part of this network too. The

movement of people from continent

to continent in vast numbers

provided a continual supply of labor

for expanding new economies at the

cost of unspeakable oppression,

misery, and early death to many

generations. The dramatic and

irrevocable changes brought about

on both sides of the Atlantic by the

Columbian Exchange continued

to shape lives for centuries. ■

Europeans seek

precious metals.

Crops, livestock, and

diseases flow in

both directions.

Europeans introduce

technology, weapons,

and literacy.

The Old

World

imports

and exports

via explorers

and settlers.

The New

World imports

and exports

via Old World

explorers

and settlers.

Columbus’s

arrival in

America

marks the

beginning

of the

Columbian

Exchange.

Cultural exchange

New World peoples were using

stone-age tools, had no wheeled

vehicles, and few domesticated

animals when they encountered

Old World societies, who used

guns and alphabets, farmed

pigs, sheep, and cattle, and kept

bees. The huge cultural changes

that ensued, especially in the

Americas, were complicated by

the two societies’ very different

attitudes to the “ownership” of

nature and property; attitudes

that would have significant

consequences for future

American Indian–European

relations. The arrival of the

horse led to the emergence of a

new, nomadic American Indian

tribe that came to dominate the

southern Great Plains.

Christianity started to spread in

the New World, some elements

of which fused with pre-

Columbian beliefs in the old Inca

and Aztec territories. West

African religion also arrived,

while introductions such as

literacy and metal tools and

machines, brought advances in

education, agriculture, and the

evolution of warfare.

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