What Is The Columbian Exchange Essay

Columbian Exchange Essay

A distinguished historian named Alfred Crosby first coined the name “Columbian Exchange” to describe the exchange that happened from 1492 to early to late 1800. The term “Columbian Exchange" means the exchange of many different commodities, ideas, diseases, people, and colonization for many centuries around the globe. The Columbian Exchange was one of the most important events to ever happen in history. It shaped today's world in many ways. (Mcneil Britannica, 2023)

Christopher Columbus

Cristoforo Colombo was born on October 31, 1451 in Genoa, Italy. His name translated into English is Christopher Columbus. Columbus’ father, Deminico Colombo, labored as a wool weaver in Genoa, Italy. His mother, Susanna Fontanarossa,

The Spanish brought many new things back to the old world from the new world. Gold and silver were brought to Europe from the Americas as well. (Horgan, 2023) Some of the animals from the new world include turkeys, alpacas, ducks, and llamas. There were many different crops taken from the Americas back to europe. Some of the fruits and vegetables included sweet potatoes, maize, chili peppers, squash, tomatoes, pumpkins, peanuts, vanilla, pineapple, eggplant, tobacco, cassava, cashews, carrots, corn, and potatoes. Some other crops included, cacao beans, sunflower seeds and sunflowers, soybeans, and green beans. When corn was brought back to Europe, Asia, and Africa it affected them the most. Because it grew in unfitting places for grains and tubers. They could also use corn to feed livestock such as pigs. It also produced several harvests a year. (McNeil Britannica, 2023) Potatoes changed many Europeans' lives when they were introduced to them. Potatoes produce faster, and because they grow in the ground unlike wheat and rice, they don’t topple over when they grow too big, which can be fatal to the crop. (Smithsonian Magazine, 2023) Some of the worst food crises in Europe's recent history were caused by an overreliance on potatoes in later years. A potato blight brought on by an airborne fungus spread through northern Europe between 1845 and 1852, with Ireland, western

It then soon spread to Central America. Many native peoples died due to lack of immunity to the diseases transmitted by them. A number of diseases were brought over to the Americas from Eurasia and Africa. Native Americans were free of the acute infectious diseases, such as measles, smallpox, influenza virus, mumps, typhus, chicken pox, scarlet fever, swine flu, pneumonia, bubonic plague, syphilis, and whooping cough. Those diseases had long plagued the majority of Eurasia and Africa before 1492. These childhood illnesses had grown widespread in most regions other than remote villages, killing one fourth to one half of all children before they turned six years old. However, with the notable exception of influenza, survivors carried some level of immunity, and frequently absolute protection, to the majority of these illnesses. Yellow fever and falciparum malaria likewise made their way across the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas. Falciparum malaria is by far the most severe form of that plasmodial infection. These illnesses circulated throughout Native American communities as epidemics in the centuries following 1492. Mass violence, along with physical and mental stress, exacerbated their effects. The Caribbean suffered the greatest, with most islands' Native American populations having fallen by more than 99 percent by 1600. Populations decreased by fifty to