1.4: Columbian Exchange
1.4: Explain causes of the Columbian Exchange and its effect on Europe and the Americas during the period after 1492.
In the last set of notes, we went over the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas and the beginning of the Columbian Exchange, and now, we’re going to talk about what the Columbian Exchange exactly was.
Essentially, the Columbian Exchange was the mutual sharing of animals, food, minerals, goods, people, and diseases between the New World (Americas) and the Old World (Europe and Africa), between the east and the west. This exchange resulted in the drastic transformation of the societies, economies, demographics, and environments of all three continents. So let’s take each of these categories one at a time!
Animals, Minerals, and People
Animals: The Europeans brought horses, pigs, cattle, and chickens to the Americas. Pigs and cattle transformed the native diet while horses transformed farming and warfare because now, the ones with horses could hunt and move faster and also outcompete other groups for resources.
Minerals: The Spanish looted the Incan and Aztec Empires of their plentiful gold and silver after conquering them. This immense wealth sent back to Spain greatly enriched the Spanish and encouraged European colonizers to repeatedly visit the Americas. The influx of gold and silver not only attracted more colonizers but also transformed Europe, starting in 1500, into a period of unprecedented economic growth that revolutionized European society. Before this time, European society was mainly characterized by feudalism, where peasants worked and lived on a noble's land in return for armed protection. However, the abundance of wealth put an end to this system and ushered in an early version of capitalism, an economic system centered on private ownership and the unrestricted exchange of goods.
People: Native Americans were enslaved and taken to Spain by Christopher Columbus, but in comparison, many more enslaved Africans were brought over to the Americas. Africans were captured and sold on the African coast, cramped into ships at Points of No Return, transported across the Atlantic Ocean through the Middle Passage in cramped ships in which many died of disease, suffocation, or starvation; and then many were sold on arrival to the highest bidder in bondage.
Disease and Food
Disease: During this time, the Native American populations of North American and South America dropped by the millions due to diseases, making it easy for the Spanish and other Europeans to topple the already-existing empires. Each empire had millions of people and Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec or Mexican Empire, housed somewhere between 200 thousand and 400 thousand inhabitants. And yet, due to disease, Tenochtitlan fell in just two years to the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes and just a few thousand men. So why was disease, especially smallpox, so effective at killing? Put simply, for thousands of years, the Americas and Europe had been kept separate from each other and as a result, the natives did not have immunities to any of the diseases the Europeans had. So when the Europeans arrived, they brought smallpox, which they had built some immunity to, with them, and this disease spread rapidly, killing millions. Some of the early mass deaths involved the native Arawak and Taino peoples with roughly 300,000 dead. In the Incas, they went from a population of 9 million in 1530 to just half a million a century later. The Aztecs and all the surrounding regions, namely Central America, had 40 million people but 150 years later, there were only 3 million left.
So how did the Spanish finance all of this exploration and exchange? The Spanish financed their exploration and exchange through government funding and mercantilism. Mercantilism was an economic ideology that aimed to maximize profits and exports while minimizing imports. Mercantilists viewed wealth as being limited and being measured in gold and silver, meaning that a nation’s goal should be to acquire as much of this gold and silver as possible.
And lastly, after the Columbian Exchange began and got its start, many western European nations would later join the Spanish in this new era of colonization and take part in it. But these nations would privatize exploration and use a new model of funding called joint-stock companies.
Food: As a result of the connection between Europe and the Americas, many different types of food were transferred between the two. The Americas provided Europe with maize, tomatoes, potatoes, cacao, and tobacco, while Europe brought rice, weed, soybeans, rye, oats, and citrus to the Americas. The introduction of these grain crops became a crucial component in feeding the growing European population in both Europe and the Americas.