The Columbian Exchange | BRI’s Homework Help Series
Have you ever looked at your teacher with a puzzled face when they explain history? I know we have. In our new Homework Help Series we break down history into easy to understand 5 minute videos to support a better understanding of American History. In our first episode, we tackle the Columbian Exchange and early contact between Europeans, Natives and Africans.
0:00 Welcome to Homework Help. Whether you’re studying for the AP US history exam or any other exam that your teacher is inflicting upon you, we’ve got you covered. Today we are discussing the Colombian Exchange. So what is the Colombian exchange? Exchange? The Colombian exchange refers to the exchange of ideas, technologies, food, disease and peoples that occurred between Europe and the Americas following
0:25 the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492. When one civilization interacts with another, both cultures always experience some level of change. This is called cultural diffusion. If the differences between the two cultures are extreme, as was the case between the Europeans and the Native American civilizations during the Colombian Exchange,
0:48 then the changes that follow will be equally extreme. So, in short, the Colombian Exchange resulted in a lot of change for all involved, and these changes had both positive and negative effects for the Native Americans, the cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa and Europeans. When two cultures interact for the first
1:08 time, cultural diffusion is felt most by the culture with the least developed collective knowledge base, or in this case, the Native American civilization. They experienced far greater social and economic changes than the Europeans. Animals were an important part of the Colombian Exchange. Did you know that horses didn’t exist in the Americas?
1:30 Prior to European exploration, europeans introduced horses, pigs, sheep, goats and chickens to the Americas. Some continued to be domesticated, while others, such as wild pigs, escaped and roamed wild in the New World, often destroying agricultural crops. The Plains Indians quickly embraced
1:51 the horse for domesticated use and used them to hunt buffalo herds more easily, especially when they later acquired firearms from the Europeans. Europeans brought plants to the New World as well. These included sugar, bananas, wheat and coffee, all of which later became major sources of American trade goods.
2:12 As the slave trade increased contact between Africa and the Americas, africans introduced rice and yams to the Americas. In return, the Europeans and Africans gained access to new crops, including corn, potatoes, cocoa, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins and turkeys.
2:33 Europeans also discovered cane sugar growing in the tropics, which had a dramatic impact upon sweetening the European diet. Interestingly, potatoes later became a main food source for many European regions, including Ireland and Eastern Europe. If you’ve never heard of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, you should go check it out.
2:55 The exchange of food was extremely important. Access to new food significantly changed diets of both peoples and altered the crops that were grown in both the Old World and the New World, which ultimately contributed to a population explosion in Europe by year 1800. The Colombian exchange is also notorious
3:16 for expanding African slavery into the Americas through a new transatlantic slave trade, resulting in the forced migration of 11 million Afghans over the course of 350 years. The most notorious and unintended exchange between Europeans and the Americas were the microbes. European diseases arrived with little mercy.
3:38 As native immune systems were unable to defend against European disease such as smallpox, measles and chicken pox. These diseases spread rapidly, resulting in unintended decimation of millions. The international slave trade of Africans also introduced new diseases such as yellow fever and strains of malaria to the New World.
4:01 Smallpox was by far the biggest culprit, as up to 95% of some Native American populations were wiped out from this single disease. It devastated Native American populations and cultures. In addition to physical goods, disease and people, the Colombian exchange also resulted in the widespread growth
4:22 of Christianity in what is now modern South America. Catholicism was spread through the conversion efforts of Spanish explorers and conquistadors, while North America saw the spread of Christianity through the relocation of European Protestants fleeing religious persecution. Clearly, European countries experience
4:43 more immediate benefits from the Colombian exchange. They develop more sophisticated joint stock companies and banking institutions as a result of the newly developed transatlantic trade. Also, the need to manage colonies across oceans resulted in the development of more sophisticated political bureaucracies.
5:03 The knowledge exchanged between all parties of the Colombian Exchange eventually led to more complex social, political and economic systems for all. Some view this period as one solely of invasion, while others see it merely at the time of widespread economic and political growth. In reality, it is not one or the other,
5:25 but rather a complex time period that sent the world into a new age.