The 'Columbian Exchange' (also sometimes known as 'The Grand Exchange') has been one of the most significant events in the history of world
ecology,
agriculture, and
culture. The term is used to describe the enormous widespread exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including
slaves),
communicable diseases, and ideas between the
Eastern and
Western hemispheres that occurred after
1492. Many new and different goods were exchanged between the two hemispheres of the Earth, and it began a new revolution in the Americas and in Europe. In 1492,
Christopher Columbus' first voyage launched an era of large-scale contact between the
Old and the
New World that resulted in this ecological revolution: hence the name "Columbian" Exchange.
The Columbian Exchange greatly affected almost every society on earth, bringing destructive diseases that depopulated many cultures, and also circulating a wide variety of new crops and livestock that, in the long term, increased rather than diminished the world human population. Maize and potatoes became very important crops in Eurasia by the 1700s. Peanuts and
manioc flourished in tropical southeast Asian and west African soils that otherwise would not produce large yields or support large populations.
Examples
This exchange of plants and animals transformed European,
American, African, and Asian ways of life. Foods that had never been seen before by people became staples of their diets, as new
growing regions opened up for crops. For example, before
AD 1000, potatoes were not grown outside of
South America. By the
1840s,
Ireland was so dependent on the potato that a diseased crop led to the devastating
Irish Potato Famine. The first European import, the
horse, changed the lives of many
Native American tribes on the
Great Plains, allowing them to shift to a
nomadic lifestyle based on hunting
bison on horseback.
Tomato sauce, made from New World tomatoes, became an
Italian trademark, while coffee from Africa and sugar cane from Asia became the main crops of extensive
Latin American
plantations. Also the
chili /
Paprika from South America was introduced in
India by the Portuguese and it is today an inseparable part of
Indian cuisine.
Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no
oranges in
Florida, no
bananas in
Ecuador, no
paprika in
Hungary, no
tomatoes in
Italy, no
pineapples in
Hawaii, no
rubber trees in
Africa, no
cattle in
Texas, no
burros in
Mexico, no
chile peppers in
Thailand and
India, no
cigarettes in
France and no
chocolate in
Switzerland. Even the
dandelion was brought to
America by
Europeans for use as an
herb.
Before regular communication had been established between the two hemispheres, the varieties of domesticated animals and infectious diseases were strikingly larger in the Old World than in the New. This led, in part, to the devastating effects of Old World diseases on Native American populations. The
smallpox epidemics probably resulted in the largest death toll for Native Americans.
Scarcely any society on earth remained unaffected by this global ecological exchange.
Table of comparison
See also
Articles
★
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
★
Population history of American indigenous peoples
★
Domestication
★ ''
Guns, Germs, and Steel''
★
Alfred Crosby
Lists
★
List of domesticated plants
★
List of domesticated animals
★
List of vegetables
★
List of herbs
★
List of fruit
Sources
★
The Columbian Exchange: Plants, Animals, and Disease between the Old and New Worlds in the Encyclopedia of Earth by
Alfred W. Crosby
★
Worlds Together, Worlds Apart by Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, et al.
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