The Columbus Exchange

When I was a child, I remember celebrating Columbus day, learning about how he discovered America, and learning about everything that Columbus and the other pilgrims brought to the Native Americans.  Well, in the past 20-25 years, a lot has changed about how we view Columbus and the pilgrims.  Columbus day is no longer a real holiday and we acknowledge that Columbus did not discover America.  We still talk about what Columbus and the pilgrims brought to the Americas, but we recognize that it was not all Thanksgiving dinners or giving the Native Americans the "gift" of civilization. Today, we talk about the Columbus Exchange.

The term, Columbus Exchange, refers to the "network of communication, migration, trade, disease, and the transfer of plants and animals, all generated by Europeans colonial empires in the Americas." (p.625)  One of the main reasons that Europeans were able to colonize the Americas is that they brought with them diseases to which the natives had no immunity.  This diseases killed off large numbers of native people and after only a few decades, the European population outnumbers the native population in many areas.  In pre-Columbian  America, the population of the Western Hemisphere was around 60-80 million.  Once the Europeans arrived, the numbers of Native Americans that died because of these diseases was up to 90% in some areas.  Perhaps the worst part of this scenario is that, being that that Europeans were largely Christian, they believed that this great dies off was "the good hands of God's work" (p. 623)  They felt that they were superior to the Native Americans and, therefore, God was working to kill the Native people off so that he could make room for the Europeans to expand their empire.  To this day, the size and strength of Native American tribes have never completely recovered.

On the brighter side, Europeans also brought with them useful items.  They brought plants such as sugarcane, grapes, and many other vegetables and fruit.  These plants took hold in their new environment and the made it possible for the people to eat a largely European diet.  The Europeans also brought animals the multiplied quickly because they had no natural predators in the Americas.  These horses, pigs, cattle, goats, and sheep gave rise to ranching economies and a cowboy culture.  The Native Americans changed their hunting techniques, and many abandoned the crops they were growing, because they could now hunt on horseback.  This new emphasis on hunting created a more male dominated culture among the Native Americans.

The crops such as corn potatoes, and cassava that had already been grown in the Americas were sent back to the Eastern Hemisphere.  These foods are calorie dense and inexpensive and made possible the population growth of the modern area.  The corn, peanuts, and sweet potatoes sent to China also created a population boom.  Corn became very popular in Africa because it was an inexpensive way to feed people who were traveling the transatlantic trade routes.  Stimulants from America like tobacco and chocolate became very popular in China.  

Like most aspects of human history, the story of the Columbus exchange has some positives and some negatives.  It is funny to me that in my lifetime I have seen a huge shift in the way people perceive Columbus.  He has gone from being a hero to being responsible for destroying the environment and lifestyle of the native peoples.  Either way we look at it, the Columbus exchange was an important factor in creating the global network we know today.  Without Columbus' accidental "discovery", we could possibly live in a world in which people from different areas of the planet could not trade and communicate.  Maybe we wouldn't have made both corn and cows such a large part of the American diet.  The Columbus exchange helped create a world with a more global capacity for interaction among all people.