1. The Columbian Exchange
Essential Questions:
1. What was the Columbian Exchange?
2. What was its impact on the old and new worlds?
3. What are some examples of the impact of the
Columbian Exchange?

2. The Columbian Exchange
• Explorers created contact between Europe and Americas.
• Interaction with Native Americans led to big cultural changes.
• Contact between the two groups led to the exchange of plants, animals,
and disease—the Columbian Exchange.
The Exchange of Goods Sharing Discoveries
• Plants, animals developed in very • Arrival of Europeans in Americas
different ways in hemispheres changed all this
• Europeans—no potatoes, corn, • Previously unknown foods taken
sweet potatoes, turkeys back to Europe
• People in Americas—no coffee, • Familiar foods brought to
oranges, rice, wheat, sheep, Americas by colonists
cattle
The introduction of beasts of burden to the Americas was a significant
development from the Columbian Exchange. The introduction of the horse
provided people in the Americas with a new source of labor and transportation.

4. Effects of the Columbian Exchange
Different Foods
 Exchange of foods, animals had dramatic impact on later societies
 Over time crops native to Americas became staples in diets of Europeans
 Foods provided nutrition, helped people live longer
Economics and Gastronomics
 Activities like Texas cattle ranching, Brazilian coffee growing not possible
without Columbian Exchange; cows, coffee native to Old World
 Traditional cuisines changed because of Columbian Exchange
Italian Food Without Tomatoes?
 Until contact with Americas, Europeans had never tried tomatoes
 Most Europeans thought tomatoes poisonous
 By late 1600s, tomatoes had begun to be included in Italian cookbooks

5. Impact on Native Americans
 Colonization brought the
spread of disease
 Europeans brought
measles, mumps, chicken
pox, and small pox
 Diseases devastated Native
American communities
 Nearly 1/3 of Hispaniola’s
approximately 300,000
inhabitants died during
Columbus’s time there
 By 1508 fewer than 100,000
survivors lived on the island
 The European disease was
the ultimate conqueror of
America

6. Impact on Africa
 The Slave Trade Begins
 With disease devastating
the native workforce
Europeans turned to Africa
for slaves
 African Losses
 African slave trade
devastated many African
societies
 Before the slave trade
ended in the 1800s Africa
lost at least 12 million
people

7. Impact on Europe
 New types of food and
animals were brought
back to Europe
 This had both positive
and negative aspects:
◦ Positive because they
served as a valuable
source for food
◦ Negative because they
destroyed their croplands
 Plants carried back to
Europe enriched
nutrition in the Old World
and this resulted in
major population
explosions

8.  Effectsof Columbian Exchange felt not only
in Europe, Americas
 China
◦ Arrival of easy-to-grow, nutritious corn helped
population grow tremendously
◦ Also a main consumer of silver mined in Americas
 Africa
◦ Two native crops of Americas—corn, peanuts—still
among most widely grown
 Scholarsestimate one-third of all food crops
grown in world are of American origin

9. Where did it
Plant, Animal, and Disease Impact
originate?
Animal
Horse Old World Allowed Native Americans to
shift to a nomadic lifestyle
Animal Provided new food source for
Turkey New World Europeans
Animal
Chicken Old World Provided new food source for
New World inhabitants
Staple of Italian cuisine today,
Plant
Tomato New World world wide use
World’s most important cereal
Plant
Maize New World
crop (plant with edible seeds)
World staple crop; failure of
Plant
Potato New World Irish crop lead to massive
American migration
First outbreak after 1492
Disease
Syphilis New World believed to have killed more
than 5 million Europeans
Disease
Smallpox Old World Devastated Native
populations who were not
resistant