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The Columbian Exchange: Impact on Society and Culture

Explore the profound effects of the Columbian Exchange, the widespread exchange of plants, animals, foods, and ideas between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. Discover how this exchange transformed societies and shaped world history.

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The Columbian Exchange: Impact on Society and Culture

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  1. Questions of the Day What is the Columbian Exchange? What was exchanged? How did the Columbian Exchange affect society? The Columbian Exchange

  2. The Columbian Exchange Essential Questions: What was the Columbian Exchange? What was its impact on the old and new worlds? What are some examples of the impact of the Columbian Exchange?

  3. What was the Columbian Exchange? • Most significant event in the history of world ecology, agriculture, and culture • Term used to describe the widespread exchange of: • Plants • Animals • Foods • Human populations (including slaves) • Communicable diseases • Ideas between the Eastern and Western hemispheres after 1492 • To America, Europeans introduced crops • Crops would later serve as cash crops for export by the colonists

  4. Impact on Native Americans • Colonization brought the spread of disease • Europeans brought measles, mumps, chicken pox, and small pox • Diseases devastated Native American communities • Nearly 1/3 of Hispaniola’s approximately 300,000 inhabitants died during Columbus’s time there • By 1508 fewer than 100,000 survivors lived on the island • The European disease was the ultimate conqueror of America

  5. Impact on Africa • The Slave Trade Begins • With disease devastating the native workforce Europeans turned to Africa for slaves • African Losses • African slave trade devastated many African societies • Before the slave trade ended in the 1800s Africa lost at least 12 million people

  6. Impact on Europe • New types of food and animals were brought back to Europe • This had both positive and negative aspects: • Positive because they served as a valuable source for food • Negative because they destroyed their croplands • Plants carried back to Europe enriched nutrition in the Old World and this resulted in major population explosions

  7. Allowed Native Americans to shift to a nomadic lifestyle Horse Old World Provided new food source for Europeans Turkey New World Provided new food source for New World inhabitants Chicken Old World Staple of Italian cuisine today, world wide use Tomato New World World’s most important cereal crop (plant with edible seeds) Maize New World World staple crop; failure of Irish crop lead to massive American migration Potato New World First outbreak after 1492 believed to have killed more than 5 million Europeans Syphilis New World Devastated Native populations who were not resistant Smallpox Old World

  8. The Columbian Exchange The Columbian Exchange

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