Columbian exchange

The Columbian Exchange was a dramatically widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations (including slaves), communicable disease, and ideas between the Eastern and Western hemispheres (Old World and New World). It was one of the most significant events concerning ecology, agriculture, and culture in all of human history. Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas in 1492 launched the era of large-scale contact between the Old and the New Worlds that resulted in this ecological revolution, hence the name "Columbian" Exchange.

The Columbian Exchange greatly affected almost every society on Earth. New diseases introduced by Europeans, to which the indigenous peoples of the Americas had no immunity, depopulated many cultures. Data for the pre-Columbian population in the Americas is uncertain, but estimates of its disease-induced population losses between 1500 and 1650 range between 50 and 90 percent.^[1] Trees that filled large areas of cleared land left untended pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which may have diminished the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere. Though phenomena such as decreases in solar activity, increases in volcanic activity and colder oceans better explain regional climate patterns, this massive forest regeneration has been hypothesized to have contributed to the Little Ice Age.^[2]

On the other hand, the contact between the two areas circulated a wide variety of new crops and livestock which supported increases in population in both hemispheres. Explorers returned to Europe with maize, potatoes, and tomatoes, which became very important crops in Eurasia by the 18th century. Similarly, Europeans introduced manioc and the peanut to tropical Southeast Asia and West Africa, where they flourished and supported growth in populations on soils that otherwise would not produce large yields.

Influence

Portuguese trading animals in Japan; detail of Nanban panel (1570-1616)

In the biological and ecological exchange that took place following Spanish establishment of colonies in New World, people of Europe and Africa settled in the New World, and animals, plants and diseases of Eurasia and the Western Hemisphere were introduced to each area in an interchange.

This exchange of plants and animals transformed European, American, African, and Asian ways of life. New foods became staples of human diets, and new growing regions opened up for crops. For example, before AD 1000, potatoes were not grown outside of South America. By the 1840s, Ireland was so dependent on the potato that a diseased crop led to the devastating Irish Potato Famine.^[3] Since being introduced by 16th-century Portuguese traders, who brought them from the Americas,^[4] maize and manioc replaced traditional African crops as the continent’s most important staple food crops.^[5] New staple crops that were introduced to Asia from the Americas via Spanish colonizers in the 16th century, including maize and sweet potatoes, contributed to the population growth in Asia.^[6]

One of the first European exports, the horse, changed the lives of many Native American tribes on the Great Plains, allowing them to shift to a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting bison on horseback.^[7] Tomato sauce, made from New World tomatoes, became an Italian trademark and tomatoes were widely used in France, while coffee from Africa and sugar cane from Asia became the main commodity crops of extensive Latin American plantations. Introduced to India by the Portuguese, chili/paprika from South America is today an integral part of Indian cuisine, as are potatoes.

Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no paprika in Hungary, no tomatoes in Italy, no potatoes in Germany, no coffee in Colombia, no pineapples in Hawaii, no rubber trees in Africa, no cattle in Texas, no donkeys in Mexico, no chili peppers in Thailand and India, and no chocolate in Switzerland. The dandelion was brought to North America by Europeans for use as an herb.

Of the world's top 20 crops, measured by weight of production in 2007, five (maize, potato, cassava, tomato and sweet potato) originated in the Americas while a sixth, grapes, is most commonly a European plant grafted onto an American rootstock.^[8] The remaining Old World-origin agricultural commodities in the top twenty are all grown throughout the world today (cow milk, soybeans, wheat, sugar beet, sugar cane, rice, oranges, onions, sorghum, hen eggs, barley, lettuce, chicory and apples). One-half of the top crops by weight within the United States depends on foods that were first grown in the Americas (but only 39% by value).^[9]

Before regular communication had been established between the two hemispheres, the varieties of domesticated animals and infectious diseases that jumped to humans, such as smallpox, were strikingly larger in the Old World than in the New. Many had migrated west with animals or people, or were brought by traders from Asia, so diseases of two continents were suffered by all. While Europeans and Asians were affected by the Eurasian diseases, their endemic status in those continents over centuries caused many people to acquire immunity. By contrast, "Old World" diseases had a devastating impact on Native American populations because they had no natural immunity to the new diseases. The smallpox epidemics are believed to have resulted in the largest death tolls among Native Americans, surpassing any wars.^[10]

Examples

Post-Columbian Transfers of Native Organisms with Close Ties to Humans
Type of organism	Old World to New World	New World to Old World
Domesticated animals	cat (domestic - wild species already present) camel chicken cow donkey ferret goat (domestic - wild species already present) goose (domestic - wild species already present) honey bee horse rabbit (domestic) pig (domestic - wild species already present) rock pigeon sheep (domestic) silkworm water buffalo guineafowl	alpaca American Mink (fur farming) guinea pig llama Muscovy Duck turkey
Domesticated plants	ackee almond apple apricot artichoke asparagus banana barley beet bilberry ("blueberry", "blaeberry") bitter melon black pepper Brassica oleracea-derived vegetables kale and collard greens broccoli cabbage brussels sprouts cauliflower cantaloupe carambola cardamom carrot cinnamon clove coffee citrus (orange, lemon, etc.) cucumber date palm eggplant fig flax garlic hazelnut hemp (including cannabis/marijuana) kiwifruit kola nut lettuce mango millet nutmeg oats okra olive onion opium peach pea pear pistachio radish rhubarb rice rye soybean sugarcane taro tea turnip wheat walnut (English) watermelon Wine grape yam (sometimes misnamed "sweet potato")	agave amaranth (as grain) arrowroot common beans (pinto, lima, kidney, etc.) black raspberry bell pepper blueberry (not to be confused with bilberry, also called blueberry) canistel cashew chia chicle chirimoya chili peppers cranberries (large cranberry, or bearberry species) coca cocoa cotton (long staple species) custard apple guava (common) grape (fox grape and other species used as rootstocks) huckleberry Jerusalem artichoke jicama maize (referred to in North America as "corn") manioc (cassava, tapioca, yuca) papaya passionfruit peanut pecan pineapple potato pumpkin quinoa rubber sapodilla squash strawberry (commercial varieties) sugar-apple sunflower sweet potato tobacco tomato vanilla wild rice (Indian rice, not directly related to Asian rice) yerba maté yucca zucchini (courgette)
Infectious diseases	bubonic plague chicken pox cholera common cold influenza leprosy malaria measles pertussis scarlet fever smallpox typhoid typhus yellow fever yaws	bejel Chagas disease pinta

Unintentional introductions

Plants that arrived by land, sea, or air in "ancient" times (or before 1492 in the U.K.) are called archaeophytes, and plants introduced to Europe after those times are called neophytes. In addition to the diseases mentioned above, many species of organisms were introduced to new habitats on the other side of the world accidentally or incidentally. These include such animals as brown rats, earthworms (apparently absent from parts of the pre-Columbian New World), and zebra mussels, which arrived on ships.^[11]

Invasive species of plants and pathogens also were introduced by chance, including such weeds as tumbleweeds (Salsola spp.) and Wild oats (Avena fatua). Some plants introduced intentionally, such as the Kudzu vine introduced in 1894 from Japan to the United States to help control soil erosion, have since been found to be invasive pests in the new environment. Fungi have been transported, such as the one responsible for Dutch elm disease, killing American elms in North American forests and cities, where many had been planted as street trees. Some of the invasive species have become serious ecosystem and economic problems after establishing in the New World environments.^{[citation needed]} Note that most of these detrimental invasions were from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western.

A beneficial, although probable unintentional, introduction is Saccharomyces eubayanus, the yeast responsible for lager beer now thought to have originated in Patagonia.^[12]

Introduced feral populations

Escaped and feral populations of non-indigenous animals have thrived in both the Old and New Worlds, often displacing native species.

Gray squirrels have been particularly successful in colonising Great Britain and populations of raccoons can now be found in some regions of Germany, the Caucasus and Japan. Fur farm escapees such as coypu and American Mink have extensive populations in the Old World.

In the New World, populations of feral European cats, pigs, horses and cattle are common.

References

^ Shepard Krech, John Robert McNeill, Carolyn Merchant (2004). Encyclopedia of world environmental history, Volume 3. Routledge. p. 1011. ISBN 978-0-415-93735-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Devin Powell (October 13th, 2011). "Columbus blamed for Little Ice Age". ScienceNews. Retrieved October 16, 2011. Depopulation of Americas may have cooled climate {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ "The Impact of the Potato", History Magazine
^ "Super-Sized Cassava Plants May Help Fight Hunger In Africa", The Ohio State University
^ "Maize Streak Virus-Resistant Transgenic Maize: an African solution to an African Problem", Scitizen, August 7, 2007
^ "China's Population: Readings and Maps", Columbia University, East Asian Curriculum Project
^ This transfer reintroduced horses to the Americas, as the species had died out there prior to the development of the modern horse in Eurasia.
^ Top Production - world - 2007, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Template:WebCite
^ Top Production - United States of America - 2007, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Template:WebCite
^ "The Story Of... Smallpox – and other Deadly Eurasian Germs", Guns, Germs and Steel, PBS Template:WebCite
^ Hoddle, M. S. "Quagga & Zebra Mussels". Center for Invasive Species Research, UC Riverside. Retrieved 2010-06-29.
^ Elusive Lager Yeast Found in Patagonia, Discovery News, Aug 23, 2011

External links

The Columbian Exchange: Plants, Animals, and Disease between the Old and New Worlds in the Encyclopedia of Earth by Alfred W. Crosby
Worlds Together, Worlds Apart by Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, et al.
New study blames Columbus for syphilis spread from Reuters Jan 15, 2008
Foods that Changed the World
The Columbian Exchange study guide, analysis, and teaching guide
NBC News piece on Columbian Exchange

v t e Pre-Columbian North America
Periods Lithic Archaic Formative Classic Post-Classic
Archaeological cultures	Adena Alachua Ancient Beringian Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) Anishinaabe Avonlea Baytown Belle Glade Buttermilk Creek complex Caborn-Welborn Cades Pond Calf Creek Caloosahatchee Clovis Coles Creek Comondú Deptford Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Walton Fremont Glacial Kame Glades Hohokam Hopewell List of Hopewell sites La Jolla Las Palmas Maritime Archaic Mississippian List of Mississippian sites Mogollon Monongahela Old Cordilleran Oneota Paleo-Arctic Paleo-Indians Patayan Plano Plaquemine Poverty Point Red Ocher Safety Harbor Santa Rosa-Swift Creek St. Johns Steed-Kisker Suwannee Valley Tchefuncte Troyville Weeden Island
Archaeological sites	Angel Mounds Anzick site Bandelier National Monument Bastian Benson Blue Spring Shelter Bluefish Caves The Bluff Point Stoneworks Brewster Cahokia Candelaria Cave Casa Grande Chaco Canyon Coso Rock Art District Crystal River Cuarenta Casas Cueva de la Olla Cutler Eaker El Fin del Mundo El Vallecito Effigy Mounds Etowah Indian Mounds Eva Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Center Fort Juelson Four Mounds Gila Cliff Dwellings Glenwood Grimes Point Helen Blazes Holly Bluff Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Horr's Island Huápoca Key Marco Kimball Village Kincaid Mounds Kolomoki Mounds Lake Jackson Mounds Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site L'Anse aux Meadows Lynch Quarry Site Marksville Marmes Rockshelter Meadowcroft Rockshelter Mesa Verde Moaning Cavern Moorehead Circle Morrison Mounds Moundville Mummy Cave Nodena site Ocmulgee Mounds Old Stone Fort Orwell site Paquime Painted Bluff Parkin Park Pinson Mounds Plum Bayou Mounds Portsmouth Earthworks Poverty Point Pueblo Bonito Rassawek Recapture Canyon River Styx Roberts Island Rock Eagle Rock Hawk Rosenstock Village Russell Cave Salmon Ruins Serpent Mound Sierra de San Francisco Shell ring sites Spiro Mounds Stallings Island SunWatch Taos Pueblo Town Creek Indian Mound Turkey River Mounds Upward Sun River Velda Mound West Oak Forest Earthlodge Wickiup Hill Windover Winterville Wupatki
Human remains	Anzick-1 Arlington Springs Man Buhl Woman Kennewick Man La Brea Woman Leanderthal Lady Melbourne Man Minnesota Woman Peñon woman Spirit Cave mummy Vero man
Miscellaneous	Aridoamerica Ballgame Black drink Ceremonial pipe Chanunpa Chunkey Clovis point Container Revolution Eastern Agricultural Complex Eden point Effigy mound Falcon dancer Folsom point Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Kiva Medicine wheel Metallurgy Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing Mound Builders N.A.G.P.R.A. Norse colonization of North America Oasisamerica Piasa Projectile point Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stickball Three Sisters agriculture Thunderbird Transoceanic contact Underwater panther Water glyphs
Related Genetic history Pre-Columbian era