THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE
The Columbian Exchange refers to a period of cultural and biological exchanges between the New World and Old World. Exchanges of populations, animals, plants, diseases, technology and ideas transformed European and Native American ways of life. Many of these exchanges had positive impacts, but the impact of some exchanges was negative.
The New World’s greatest contribution to the Old World was in crop plants. Maize, white potato, sweet potato, manioc, chili peppers, tomatoes, avocado and various squashes became essentials in the diets of hundreds of millions of Europeans, Africans, and Asians. The corns from the New World helped to feed the Old World, thus driving up birth rates and longevity rates for European and
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Common Old World diseases included: smallpox, Measles, Malaria, Yellow fever, Influenza, Chickenpox. This is the most important impact because the introduction of these diseases is what killed off huge percentages of the Native American population. These dramatic population changes weakened native peoples’ capacity for resistance and facilitated the transfer of plants, animals, and related technology. The New World disease “Syphilis” reached epidemic proportions throughout Europe, Africa, Russia and other nations. The transmission of diseases during the Columbian Exchange had a profound effect on the world then and continues to affect our world today.
African Slave Trade caused massive demographic shifts. The enslavement of millions of Africans who were separated from their families and shipped to a far-off world lived in deplorable, inhuman conditions. African music, dress, dance, and mannerisms mixed with Spanish and indigenous cultures in the Americas. Native Americans had no formal written language before the Columbian Exchange. The written Syllabary is a key step in the technology movement and the intellectual growth of the Native Americans by way of the Columbus Exchange. In the Americas, there were no horses, cattle, sheep, or goats, all animals of Old World origin except for the llama, alpaca, dog, a few fowl, and guinea