The Columbian Exchange

1. The Columbian Exchange Dr. Greg O’Brien Department of History UNC - Greensboro

2. Happy Thanksgiving(a little early) • What are you going to eat? • Where did it come from?

3. Biological and Ecological Invasions of America • A New World for All • The “Columbian Exchange” • Transfer of flora, fauna, and microbes across the Atlantic Ocean • The exchange of peoples • Language • Culture

4. From Europe: From Africa: Plant Invasions

5. Europe & Africa to the Americas--Plants

7. From the Americas to the rest of the World: Plants in the Other Direction

8. America to rest of the World--Plants

9. From Europe: From the Americas: Animal Invasions

10. Europe to New World America--Animals

13. Impacts of Food Exchange: World Population Explosion Spread of agricultural foods – examples?

14. Diseases • Smallpox • Bubonic plague • Measles • Influenza • Whooping cough • Cholera • Malaria • Yellow fever • “Virgin Soil Epidemics” • Syphilis? Indians in Mexico with smallpox Smallpox pustules

15. 1520-24 smallpox SW 1531-33 measles SW 1545-48 bubonic SW 1616-19 bubonic East 1633-34 measles NE 1639 smallpox NE 1649-50 smallpox NE 1658-59 measles NE 1669-70 smallpox NE 1677-79 smallpox NE 1779-84 smallpox – all of North America • 1837 smallpox – Missouri River - Impact on the Mandans • Impacts of diseases on Native communities? Known Epidemics

16. Examples of Population Loss in the Americas--Disease Arawak Indian Population -- Caribbean Islands Pre-1492 8,000,000 (8 Million) 1550 few hundred to a few thousand American Indian Population -- North & South America Pre-1492 60,000,000 (60 Million) ca. 1900 4,000,000 (4 Million) 90%-95% Loss (Today: ~2.5 million in U.S. with millions more claiming some Native ancestry)

17. Southeastern Indian Roots of Contemporary Southern Cuisine • Gathered foods: • Berries, yaupon (black tea emetic), sassafras, etc. • Field & garden crops: • Corn (maize), beans (lima, pinto, navy, kidney, snap, pole), gourds (squash, pumpkins), sunflowers, tobacco, maygrass, chenopods NC Algonquian village

18. Closer look: Note the fields of corn & tobacco

19. Southeastern Indian Traditional Crops ca. 1600

20. Animals • Food • Clothing • Shelter • Ceremonial objects • Deer, bear, elk, rabbit, fox, turkey, turtles, fish, shellfish, birds, raccoon, skunk, squirrel, frog, wolf, etc. • Domesticated animals? NC Algonquian fish barbeque

21. Southern Cuisine • A mixture of Native, European, and African • Gumbo • filé from Choctaws? • Corn • hominy, grits, corn bread, ashcakes, hoecakes, johnnycakes • Fried food • from bear grease to hog fat • Cooked vegetables • Jambalaya → • French, African and Indian origins? • Jambon = ham (French) • falaya = “to stretch out” (Choctaw) • Jambalaia = a “mix-up of rice” (French) • ya = rice (West Africa)

22. The original gumbo: NC Algonquian cooking in a pot, 1580s -corn, fish, beans, shellfish, etc.

23. Additional Sources: Books: Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Praeger, 2003) Alfred W. Crosby, EcologicalImperialism: TheBiological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1993) Wiliam H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (Anchor Press, 1976) Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 1990) Jayme A. Sokolow, Great Encounter: Native Peoples and European Settlers in the Americas, 1492-1800 (M.E. Sharpe, 2003) John Kelly Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 1992) Internet: Foods that Changed the World: (http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/Ethnobotany/page5.php) Columbian Exchange via the National Humanities Center: (http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/columbian.htm)