The Columbian Exchange
The Columbian Exchange is one of the most copious examples of biological globalization that led to the transoceanic voyaging in the 15th and 16th century. It brought together the continents that got torn apart by the continental drift, thereby causing an exchange of culture, diseases, food, and people between the old and the new countries. It’s consequences profoundly shaped world history in a lot of countries, especially in Aisa, Africa, and Europe.
The term “Columbian Exchange “ was first used in 1972 by American historian Alfred W. Crosby in his environmental book “The Columbian Exchange .” It took place in 1492 when Christopher Columbus voyaged to America. It resulted in a dramatic exchange of humans, plants, cultures, food and animals between the Afro-Eurasian hemispheres and America.
The motivation for migration mainly centred around God, Gold and Glory.
The European colonizers had a desire to spread Christianity to the new world. They wanted that the world should come to know about their religion. They had a strong desire to extract natural resources like gold and sugar from the Americans as these resources were not readily available in the European countries. Most importantly, they wanted to increase their nation’s status as a world power and gain military strength through colonization. Still, the primary factor responsible for this event was the discovery of America by Columbus.
However, this had a severe impact on the New World, diseases being the major one. This disease aspect of the Columbian Exchange was utterly one-sided. Acute infectious diseases like measles, smallpox, influenza etc. which had long bedevilled the European countries, almost took over America. In most places other than the isolated villages, these had become endemic childhood diseases that almost killed one-half of the children before the age of six. The impact was most severe in the Caribbean, whereby 1600, the native American population on most of the islands plummeted by more than 99 per cent, and by 50 per cent throughout America.
Where diseases resulted in the downfall of population, animals, on the other hand, proved useful for the Americans in several ways. They adapted readily to climatic conditions of the New World. Herbivores, especially cattle and horses, ran wild and produced prolifically in the broad grasslands of the North and South America. With new animals, native Americans acquired new sources of hide, wool and animal protein, horses and oxen made ploughing, transportation feasible, thereby resulting in economic advancement, making the American hemisphere more similar to Europe and Africa in its economy.
The exchange was more evenhanded when it comes to crops. Staples such as corn, potatoes, cassava and sweet potatoes along with secondary food crops such as tomatoes, peanuts, pumpkins etc. are the gift of America’s farmers to the rest of the world. Some of these had a revolutionary impact in Africa and Eurasia, e.g. corn had the most significant effect, altering agriculture in Asia, Africa and Europe. It underpinned population growth and famine in parts of China and Europe.
So, it is this “Columbian Exchange” because of which there is so much of diversity in the world. It’s because of the exchange that we can eat corn, tomatoes, peanuts etc. and a lot of other things without which our life would have been so unornamented.
