"The seams of Pangaea were closing, drawn together by the sailmaker's needle. Chickens met kiwis, cattle met kangaroos, Irish met potatoes, Comanches met horses, Incas met smallpox

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• With the discovery of the new world came an
  expansion in the global economy.
• Plants, animals, human populations, and diseases
  were swapped across the Atlantic between the
  continents of South America, North America,
  Europe, Africa, and soon spread to Asia.
• These foreign elements changed the world in
  dramatic and historical ways.

"The seams of Pangaea were closing, drawn
together by the sailmaker's needle. Chickens met
kiwis, cattle met kangaroos, Irish met potatoes,
Comanches met horses, Incas met smallpoxall for
the first time." Alfred W. Crosby, historian
and author of The Columbian Exchange
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The Columbian Exchange
The New WORLD
The OLD WORLD
Corn
Cat
Squash
Potatoes
Wheat
Sun Flower
Tea
Pineapple
Llama
Pig
Banana
America or BUST!
America or Bust
Tomato
Coffee
Tobacco
Joe
Rabbit
Rubber
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P L A N T s
Coffee
Cotton

• Europeans would introduce plants to the new
  world bearing sugar, cotton, coffee, and Tobacco.
• These plants were often labor intensive to grow
  and harvest.
• Slaves from Africa would be shipped to North
  America and the Caribbean to work on vast cash
  crop plantations.

Sugar
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A quick note on Potatoes

• Crops such as Potatoes and carrots allowed for
  larger cultivation on less land adding to
  population expansion in Europe.
• The poor of Ireland relied heavily on potatoes
  for their subsistence (some eating 19 a day).
• When a fungus attacked the potatoes in 1845 a
  famine starved at least one million people in
  Europe.

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A N I M A L s

• Livestock such as chickens, cows, sheep, and
  pigs were brought to the new world for food and
  resources.
• Many of these animals adapted and prospered in
  the new world especially the pig, whose
  population exploded to become a problem for the
  American environment.
• Horses also adapted to the warmer climates of
  the Central Americas soon thriving to become a
  companion to settlers and natives alike.

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Pests

• Rats arrived in the Americas as an unwelcome
  guest on Oceangoing vessels.
• These European rats could carry dangerously
  infective diseases to the unprotected populations
  of Native Americans.
• Cats were brought along to suppress the rat
  population aboard ships.
• Both of these animals flourished in the Americas
  with no natural predators to halt their exploding
  numbers. This hurt indigenous populations of
  animals.

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"For the natives, they are neere all dead of
Small poxe, so as the Lord hathe cleared our
title to what we possess." John Winthrop, first
governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony
Disease

• Native Americans lacked immunity to severe
  European diseases which desolated their
  populations.
• Small pox and influenza took a heavy toll on
  Empires such as the Incas and the Aztecs (1/3-1/2
  of the Aztec pop.)

This is quite an understatement
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Stats and Facts
Major diseases transmitted from the Old World to
the New World after 1492 smallpox, influenza,
typhoid fever, cholera, scarlet fever, yellow
fever, malaria, measles, tuberculosis, bubonic
plague

• Rank of the Inca among largest empires in the
  world in 1492 1

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East Africa
South America
Slave Markets
North America

• People were also moved across the Atlantic,
  willing and unwilling as free men or as
  possessions.
• Slaves were one of the most profitable
  commodities out of Arica.
• As the shortage of workers to grow cash crops in
  the Caribbean and North America grew so did the
  slave trade.
• Natives were plucked from their normal lives and
  found themselves in strange and unforgiving lands.

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• Slaves who arrived at the Mediterranean coast
  after traveling north usually were sent to Muslim
  holdings.
• Those who arrived in the northeast were taken
  through the Red Sea to Asia.
• Those who arrived in the east were bound for
  Asia or the Americas
• In the west slaves were taken to the Americas or
  Europe.

African Diaspora Map