• the exchange, or transfer, or plants, animals, disease, people, and cultures to and from the Americas and the rest of the world
    • followed the European discovery of the Americans by Christopher Columbus in 1492.
  • the Columbian Exchange marks a dramatic turning point in world history with tremendous consequences upon world interactions and outcomes

Background

Columbus

Ultimate & proximate factors analysis for Eurasia and Americas

Spanish conquest

  • a core question about the Columbian exchange is:
    • why did the Spanish invade and conquer the Native Americans and the Native American empires did not invade and conquer Spain?
  • Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" explores this question
  • Diamond's analysis shows that the "broad" or very long-term causality of the outcome that that Spanish conquered the Americas and not the other way around is due to geography, notably:
    • continental axis:
      • east-west axis of Eurasia allowed for exchange
      • north-south axis of the Americas limited exchange
    • domesticable plants
      • both regions had an abundance of domesticable plants
      • but Eurasia had more available plants
        • and given the east-west axis of Eurasia, those plants were spread
        • therefore, Eurasian populations arose earlier than those in the Americas
        • and centralized societies that might want to attack one or the other arose earlier in Eurasia
    • domesticable animals
      • the Americas lacked animals that are appropriate for food consumption and transport
        • especially the horse
      • many contagious diseases originated from human proximity to domesticated animals
      • lacking those animals, the Americans had no immunity to Eurasian diseases
    • these combinations yielded advantages to Eurasian societies that the Spanish used in their conquest of the Americas, including
      • technologies of guns and steel (used for weapons and tools)
      • horses (war horses provided a considerable military advantage)
        • especially for mounting soldiers and those metal weapons
      • disease, which killed off a tremendous number of Native Americans and weakened their centralized states
      • writing system which effectively transmitted information about other people and technologies
        • ex. Marco Polo's journeys were tremendously helpful to Europeans as they learned details about China and other places
        • Inca and Aztec writing systems existed
          • but Inca system of “quipu" beads and strings effectively recorded information but not words

Plants

  • the most important exchange was
  • deepest impacts include:

animals from the Americas

  • turkeys

plants from the Americas

  • beans
  • chocolate
  • maize (corn)
  • potatoes
  • sweet potatoes
  • tomatoes

diseases from the Americas

  • syphilis


animals to the Americas

  • chickens
  • cows
  • horses
  • pigs

diseases to the Americas

  • malaria (from Africa)
  • small pox

plants to the Americas

  • apples
  • coffee (from Africa)
  • wheat

Animals

  • the most important exchange was:
    • introduction of farm animals to the Americas
  • deepest impacts include:

from the Americas

to the Americas

Insects

  • the most important exchange was:
  • deepest impacts include:
    • European honey bees
    • English earth worms
      • the ice sheet and tundra climat killed the earthworms across northern North America
      • introduction of English worms re-worked the soil and changed the ecosystem

from the Americas

to the Americas

Disease

  • the most important exchange was:
  • deepest impacts include:

from the Americas

to the Americas

Technologies

  • the most important exchanges were:
    • iron
    • gunpowder
    • horses
  • deepest impacts include:
    • increase in deadliness of Native American tribal warfare
    • mass killing of North American buffalo herds via horse and firearms use
    • North American Native American armed resistance to European encroachment

from the Americas

  • rubber
    • rubber is a natural latex
      • it is a milky-substance, like sap, that is derived from certain tropical trees
      • various latex-producing, rubber trees exist around the world
      • however, the Brazilian "Rubber Tree" is the primary source of industrial-use rubber
    • the Rubber Tree is a native plant of the Amazon (can grow to 140 feet)
    • earliest documented use of natural latex (rubber) was by the Olmec civilization in Mesoamerica (central America)
    • the Olmec and, later, Maya and Aztec, used rubber for balls for sports
    • the Aztec added rubber to cloth to make it waterproof
    • see
  • canoes
    • from the Tiaino word <<
  • farming techniques

to the Americas

  • horses
  • iron
  • alcohol

Language

  • the most important exchange was:
  • deepest impacts include:

from the Americas

to the Americas

Other cultural, political and religious exchange

  • the most important exchange was:
  • deepest impacts include:

from the Americas

to the Americas