The Columbian Exchange

“European Immigrants are all over the place, which requires

explanation”

Alfred Crosby

The Columbian Exchange• “The Columbian

Exchange” is the sharing of cultures that transformed the lives of two continents.

• Its was a two-way process with people, goods, and ideas moving back and forth.

• The three main elements are: Plants, animals and disease

• Plants• Animals• Diseases • Demographic• Mineral Wealth• Trade Items• Technology• Language• Religion• Economy• Government

The “Columbian The “Columbian Exchange”Exchange”

The “Columbian The “Columbian Exchange”Exchange” Squash Avocado Peppers Sweet

Potatoes

Turkey Pumpkin Tobacco Quinine

Cocoa Pineapple

Cassava POTATO

Peanut TOMATO Vanilla MAIZE

Syphilis

Olive COFFEE BEAN Banana Rice

Onion Turnip Honeybee Barley

Grape Peach SUGAR CANE

Oats

Citrus Fruits Pear Wheat HORSE

Cattle Sheep Pigs Smallpox

Flu Typhus Measles Malaria

Diptheria Whooping Cough

Trinkets

Liquor

GUNS

The Exchange can be positive or negative in its effects

• In the exchange that was made widespread by Columbus, Disease was the most negative for Indian peoples

• Fatality rate over a period of two to three generations was 95% for many tribal groups

• In some cases, as in the Mohegans case, the fatality rate could be 100%

Europeans believed that it was God’s will that Indians died

• There was no germ theory at the time of contact

• Illness in Europe was considered to be the consequence of sin

• Indians, who were largely “heathen” or non-Christian were regarded as sinners and therefore subject to illness as a punishment

New World Diseases

• Not all pathogens traveled from Europe to the Americas

• Syphilis, polio, hepatitis and encephalitis were new world diseases

• African slaves were less vulnerable to European diseases than were Indians

• Europeans succumbed to Malaria easily

Old World Diseases

• European disease was particularly virulent• Smallpox, measles, diphtheria, whooping

cough, chicken pox, bubonic plague, scarlet fever and influenza were the most common diseases exchanged

• Nearly all of the European diseases were communicable by air and touch.

• The pathway of these diseases was invisible to both Indians and Europeans

Disease raced ahead of people

• In most cases, Indian peoples became sick even before they had direct contact with Europeans

• Trade goods that traveled from tribe to tribe though middlemen were often the vector of disease

• There is little or no evidence to think that Europeans intentionally infected trade items for trade with Indians to kill them

Mainland outbreaks• Diseases, especially smallpox, were transported

from the Caribbean to the mainland by the Cortez expedition in the 1630s

• A sick African infected the Aztecs of Mexico City• Incubation of smallpox is 14 days—this causes

the disease to spread over great distances• Smallpox killed half the Iroquois populations in

1738 and again in 1759• Entire tribe of Mandans died in the winter of

1837-38

Why were Europeans immune?

• Has everything to do with their original environments

• Most pathogens originate with animals or insects

• Domesticated animals and plants were more numerous in Europe

• Greater diversity meant more ecological protection

Disease• “The greatest genocide in human history.”

• Central Mexico:– Indigenous population decline from 25 million to less than

one million with a century. Around Mexico and Central America population decline by as much as 90 percent.

• Caribbean:– In the island of Hispaniola population declined from one

million to 1492 to 46,000 by 1512.

• North America– 90 percent of the Indian population where gone within a

century of the Puritan landing on Plymouth Rock.

Demographic Impact

1) Indian population decrease

2) African Diaspora

3) European Migration

4) Mixing of Populations (miscegenation)

Indian Population Decrease• Diseases:

– In Europe an outbreak of small pox would kill 30 percent of those infected. In the American the small pox death rate was nearly 50 percent.

• War:– The battle of Tenochtitlan lasted eight-day where

240,000 natives perished.

• Labor:– Many Natives are worked to death

African Diaspora

• A decrease of Native America population prompted to import labor from Africa.

• They worked in mines, agriculture, port towns, and sugar mills.

• African slaves were imported to all parts of America.

European Migration• A relative small number of European males migrated

Latin America and the Caribbean during colonial period.

• To give an example from Mexico and Central America in 1570 only about 60,000 or 2 percent of the total population 3,096,000, was classified as white.

• By 1650 that white population had doubled to 120,000 roughly 6 percent of the depleted total of 1,880,000.

• At the close of the colonial era in 1825 about 1 million or 14 percent of the total population of just over 7 million was white.

Miscegenation• The intermixing of Indians, Africans, and

Europeans created a multi-racial society.• Color became status symbol.• Complex race structure.

– Peninsulares: Europeans born in the the Iberian Peninsula.

– Creoles: Children of European descent born in America.

– Mestizo: Offsprings of European and Indian unions.

– Mulatto: Children of European and African unions.– Zambos: Indians and Black.– Coyotes: Mestizos and Indian…..

PLANTSAmericas

• Maize• Potato• Tomato• Tobacco• Beans• Cacao• Cotton

Europe

• Sugar• Rice• Wheat• Coffee• Banana• Grapes

The silent invasion of America

• Plants were brought by Europeans to the New World to see how they would flourish as cash crops

• Plants and seeds also harbored old world weeds (pathogens)

• Old world plants, weeds and animals were all more opportunistic because of their original, more competitive environments

• Crowded out indigenous plants and animals

Animals

Americas

• Turkey

Europe

• Cattle

• Horse

• Pigs

• Sheep

Missions

What was the importance of the Missions?• Missions played a key role in the colonizing the

United States.• Foundation of American cities:

– Founders of key USA cities such as San Antonio, El Paso, Santa Fe, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles, Monterrey, and San Francisco.

– Franciscans founded 40 thriving mission in Florida and the Southwest.

• Acculturation Center- agricultural practices, cultural, and religious.

TreasuresTreasuresfrom the Americas!from the Americas!

TreasuresTreasuresfrom the Americas!from the Americas!

MercantilismMercantilismMercantilismMercantilismThe economy and trade

are essential to the health and safety of the nation.

1.Get as much gold and silveras you can.

2.Establish a favorable balance of trade.

3.Get colonies.