Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange, sometimes called the Grand Exchange was the exchange of goods, ideas, plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World (Europe, Africa, and Asia) and the New World (the Americas). It started in 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived in the West Indies (the Caribbean).

 Impact 
The Columbian Exchange drastically changed American, African, European, and Asian ways of life.

 Foods 
The Columbian Exchange greatly impacted the diets of people around the world. For example, before 1492, no potatoes were 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."The Impact of the Potato" , History Magazine 

Italy became famous for its tomato sauce, made from New World tomatoes, while coffee from Africa and sugarcane from Asia became the main crops of very large Latin American plantations. Chili and paprika from South America were introduced in India by the Portuguese; today, these are an important part of modern Indian cuisine.

Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no paprika in Hungary, no zucchini in Italy, no pineapples in Hawaii, no chili peppers in Thailand and India, and no chocolate in Switzerland.  Even the dandelion was brought to the Americas by Europeans for use as an herb.

 Animals 
The first European import to the Americas, the horse, changed the lives of many Native American tribes on the Great Plains, letting them change to a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting bison on horseback. The Columbian Exchange also brought cattle to the New World.

Before there was regular communication between the two hemispheres, the different types of domesticated animals and diseases were more numerous in the Old World than in the New.  This partly led to the horrible effects of Old World diseases on Native American tribes. Smallpox probably caused in the highest death toll for Native Americans.   

 Other goods 
Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no rubber trees in Africa and no cigarettes in France.

Table of comparison

 Pre-Columbian Distribution of Organisms with Close Ties to Humans Type of organism What the Old World Had What the New World Had Domesticated animalscamel
cattle
donkey
fowl (several species including chickens)
goat
horse
pig
rabbit
sheepalpaca
fowl (a few species)
guinea pig
racoon
llama
turkey Domesticated plantsblack pepper
bananas
barley
cabbage
coffee
cotton ("Egyptian" type)
citrus
garlic
hemp
lettuce
oats
onion
peach
pear
rice
rye
sugarcane
turnip
wheatamaranth
avocado
beans
cashew
chia
chicle (chewing gum base)
chili pepper (includes the bell pepper)
cocoa
cotton (90% of today's cotton production)
maize (corn)
manioc (cassava)
papaya
peanut
pecan
pineapple
potato
quinoa
rubber
squash (incl. pumpkin)
sunflower
strawberry (American species)
sweet potato
tobacco
tomato
vanilla Infectious diseasesbubonic plague
cholera
influenza
malaria
measles
scarlet fever
sleeping sickness
smallpox
tuberculosis
typhoid
yellow feverChagas' disease
syphilis (possibly)
yaws
yellow fever (American strains)

 References 

Category:History of Africa
Category:Trade
Category:History of Asia
Category:History of Europe
Category:History of North America
Category:History of South America