Columbian Exchange

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Columbian Exchange

• AP World History
• 1450-1750

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What is the Columbian Exchange?

• The term was created by Al Crosby
• A historian at the University of Texas
• Defined as
• the contact between any two people
  geographically separated from one another results
  in an exchange of physical elements.
• The 3 main elements are
• Animals
• Plants
• Microbes

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Animals

• The only domesticated animal in Latin America
  before Europeans arrived was the llama.
• Turkeys were the only domesticated animal in
  North America.
• Europeans brought
• Cattle, chickens, donkeys, goats, horses, pigs,
  rabbits, and sheep.
• Not all animals that Europeans brought came
  directly from Europe.
• Some animals came from Africa and Asia

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Animals

• New animals completely changed the use of land.
• Significant environmental impact.
• European livestock multiplied quickly.
• Destroyed land with their hooves
• The introduction of cattle and horses provided
  new forms of transportation and mobility in
  warfare.
• Also provided hides and meat

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Animals

• Animal fertilizer became an important part of
  agricultural system.
• European horses, cattle, and pigs also affected
  American lives.
• Beaver and other fur-bearing animals
  significantly influenced the exchange between the
  Americans and Europeans.

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Plants

• Europeans brought cash crops to the Americas and
  took new cash crops back.
• To Europe
• Avocados, beans, cashews, chili peppers, cacao,
  corn, cotton, papayas, peanuts, pecans,
  pineapples, potatoes, rubber, squash,
  strawberries, sweat potatoes, tobacco, tomato,
  and vanilla.
• To the Americas
• Bananas, black pepper, citrus fruits, coffee,
  grapes, garlic, oats, onions, lettuce, peaches,
  pears, sugar, rice, rye, and wheat.

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Plants

• Like the animals, some came from Africa and Asia.
• New crops flourished in the Americas.
• Many indigenous plants were crowded out by new
  crops and weeds.
• Old world crops were stronger.
• Had a more competitive original environment.
• Economy shifts to large scale agricultural
  production.
• Very labor intensive.
• Europeans adopted crops from the Americas.

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Plants

• Foods such as bananas and wheat that diversified
  American diets.
• Other crops like sugar cane were intended for
  cultivation through exploited labor.
• American crops such as maize and potatoes had a
  big impact on European agriculture.

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Old World Microbes

• European diseases were particularly harsh.
• The most common diseases exchanged were
• Smallpox, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough,
  chicken pox, bubonic plague, scarlet fever, and
  influenza.
• Nearly all of the European diseases were
  communicable by air and touch.
• The pathway for these diseases was invisible to
  both Native Americans and Europeans.

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European Beliefs Regarding Disease

• At the time when Europeans arrived in the
  Americas, they had no theories about germs.
• Illness in Europe was considered to be the
  consequence for sinning.
• Native Americans were seen as heathen or
  non-Christian.
• Therefore, they were regarded as sinners and
  subjected to illness as a punishment.

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Rapid Spread of Disease

• In most cases, Native Americans became sick even
  before they had direct contact with Europeans.
• Trade goods traveling from tribe to tribe through
  middlemen were often the vehicle for the spread
  of disease.
• There is no creditable evidence that Europeans
  intentionally infected trade items in order to
  infect Native Americans.

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Smallpox

• Deadliest disease that the Europeans brought to
  the Americas.
• Central Mexicos population decreased from
• 25 million in 1510 to less than 1 million in
  1605.
• Hispaniolas population decreased from
• 1 million in 1492 to 46,000 in 1512.
• North Americas population decreased.
• 90 of Native Americans were gone within 100
  years of the landing on Plymouth Rock.

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Why were Europeans Immune?

• Has everything to do with their original
  environment.
• Most pathogens originate with animals or insects.
• Domesticated animals and plants were more
  numerous in Europe.
• Greater diversity meant more ecological
  protection.
• However, Europeans did bring home some American
  diseases such as syphilis.

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Demographic Shift

• Native American population decreases.
• Diseases were a major factor.
• This assisted European conquest and accelerated
  cultural change.
• Europeans need labor.
• Import African slaves.
• Mixing of all three populations
• occurred in varying degrees.

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Demographic Shift

• Europeans moved to the Americas to oversee
  economic production.
• Focused economic efforts on mineral wealth or
  producing cash crops.
• American economic system was changes to met the
  needs of Europeans.
• Traditional forms of hunting/gathering and
  agriculture were disrupted.
• Native Americans became dependent on European
  manufactured goods.

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Demographic Shift

• European settlements introduced Christian
  institutions and new forms of government.
• Disrupted traditional Native American cultural
  and political processes, suppressed them, or
  destroyed them.

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Columbian ExchangeClass Questions

1. Why, and in what ways, was the Columbian Exchange
   a particularly significant case of global
   contact?
2. Was western Europe the chief beneficiary of the
   exchange? Explain why or why not.
3. What balance was there between the economic
   dependency of the Americas and the ideas,
   technology, and goods they received from Europe?
4. How is the Columbian Exchange seen as an
   ecological frontier?
5. How did microbial exchanges shape human history?