The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

1. The Columbian Exchange:Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 -Alfred W. Crosby, Jr. Greenwood Press, Inc. Heather J. Eckels History 20, FA 2008

2. A great mixing of peoples, cultural influences, and disease… a transatlantic flow of goods and people that reversed millions of years of evolution.

3. Why were the Europeans able to conquer America so easily? • Asians were able to hold out against Europeans, and the African continent did not succumb to European conquest until the 19th Century. • Indians were inferior in ____________, ___________ ____________, ____________and resistance to _____________. • Even the most advanced Indians were barely out of the Stone Age. • European Advantages: _________ over __________, canon and firearms over bows, arrows and slings, soldiers on horseback, lack of unity among the Indians themselves, prophecies in Indian mythology about the arrival of __________________.

4. Land Bridges Course of ____________ profoundly influenced by the emerging and submerging of land bridges. ___________________– if water level today fell 40 meters (131 feet); land-bridge would reappear. Isthmus of Central America Could migrate south to warmer climate Of the 110 million people in the Americas at the time of colonization, 90% lived in Central and South America.

5. Continental Isolation Natural divide of Atlantic and Pacific Oceans • Between _________ and _________years ago Asians began to cross into America. • ______________years ago, end of the Ice Age; land link became submerged under water permanently separating the Western Hemisphere from Asia. • One great migration of like-blooded peoples over a short period of time, then complete isolation from the rest of the world.

6. Isolation & its effect on spread of disease • Asian immigrants and those who followed them were _______ in number. • Climate of __________, the Bering Strait and ___________ screened out many diseases. • Immune systems weakened by lack of exposure to major illness. • Rendered native population powerless against diseases both New and Old. • Migration of humankind and its maladies is the leading cause of epidemics. • Those in isolation the longest suffer the __________.

7. Voyage of Columbus • Arrival of Columbus to the Antilles instigated an ____________ and ___________ collision between Old World and New. • Greatest obstacle to “Indian” success was ______________, not technological superiority. • European maladies that were most prevalent: • _____________, ____________, and ____________. • _____________ was the first to arrive is attributed as the cause of the 1st ____________ in the recorded history of the Americas.

8. Smallpox • Its influence on the New World is equivalent to that of the __________________in the Old World. • A very old disease, which for most of the last millennium was one of the _____________________ in Europe. • Communicated through the ________; enters the respiratory tract – talking, coughing, breathing - extremely communicable. • In Europe it was usually thought of as a necessary evil of childhood (i.e. chicken pox) • * Populations untouched by smallpox for generations tend to resist the disease less successfully than those populations in at least occasional contact with it.

9. Devastation of Disease • Greatest mortality rate occurred in the first _______ years of contact with Europeans and Africans. • The population of North and South America at the time of colonization was ____ to ____ million, with 90% living south of the Rio De Grande. • Death of perhaps 80 million people, close to _______ of mankind – the single, greatest loss of life in human history. • The population of Mexico fell by more than _________.

10. Epidemic Proportions • ___ recorded epidemics between 1520-1600. • Began in the ________ _________ around 1519. • First and most virulent; killed 1/3-1/2 population • Traveled quickly from the Antilles to the Yucatan. • Covered entire area from Cuba to Mexico to Peru. • Smallpox reached Peru, killing the Incan King _______________, before the first conquistador was ever seen. • Killed leaders, disrupted political life.

11. Psychological Effect • Psychological effect of epidemic disease is enormous, especially if an unknown disfiguring disease strikes quickly. • Indians had never seen smallpox before and did not even have the European’s meager knowledge of how to deal with it. • Indians found it impossible to bury their dead – tossed bodies into rivers and streams. • Kneaded infected blood in their master’s bread and tossed corpses into Spanish wells, but to no avail.

12. Irish Potato Famine 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. Gypsy Moth Originally ranging from Europe to Asia, was introduced to N.A. in1860s. Native silk spinning caterpillars susceptible to disease; gypsy moth eggs introduced to create a caterpillar hybrid that could resist diseases. Since 1980, the gypsy moth has defoliated over 1,000,000 acres of forest each year. Examples of Exchange Tomatoes • Tomato sauce, made from New World tomatoes, became an Italian trademark .

13. Conclusion • The increase in mortality among the Indian population in North and South America during the 16th Century was due more to the Indians lack of resistance to imported maladies than to the brutal treatment by Europeans. • This catastrophic loss of life is chiefly responsible for the Europeans capacity to conquer North and South America.

14. Future Ramifications • Smallpox has been successfully quarantined in industrialized nations of the 21st Century. • Few have seen it. • But as one of the world’s oldest, most common diseases, can it really be controlled? • What would happen if there were an outbreak today? • Those in isolation the longest suffer the greatest. • Without access to vaccination and medicine the mortality rate could be as high as 1/3 of the population infected. • Would we be ready?