The Colombian Exchange

The Colombian Exchange

“In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue”.  This very iconic line commemorates Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World on October 12, 1492.  This is the day where Americans reflect on their roots and heritage and are thankful for Columbus who discovered the Americas, the land of the free and home of the brave.  However, not everyone viewed Christopher Columbus as the hero of the New World.  In the book, The Columbian Exchange, Alfred Cosby argues that Columbus is the cause of extinction of other various species because of the new plants and animals that he brought to the New World and that the Columbian Exchange has left a “more impoverished genetic pool”.  I will be discussing the pros of the Columbian exchange, particularly the growth of agriculture and livestock, and also the cons that came too, which includes disease and how the Columbian Exchange is a factor to global warming.  

        The Columbian Exchange began when Columbus discovered the Americas, or the New World in 1492.  Columbus built a relationship between the Old World and the New World by the exchange foods, technology, animals, plants and goods.  The exchange eventually led to a global trading network and economic prosperity.   One of the more positive effects of the Columbian Exchange is the growth of agriculture and livestock trades, which benefited both the Old and New Worlds.  The plants that were involved in the Columbian Exchange affected both cultures and economies.  The there was an abundance of new plant species, such as beans, sunflowers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and cacao, however, the two most important plants that was brought into the Old World by the New World were the potato and maize (Essays, UK, 2013).  Potatoes and maize became essential to European diet.  Potatoes are able to resist the cold weather and grow in thin soil and was affordable.   Maize is able to be stored almost indefinitely and was able to be cultivated in various regions due to maize’s adaptable nature.  These two power foods provided an abundance of nutrients that sustained life in both the Americas and Europe.  

        Not only did the Columbian Exchange include the interchange of crops, but also of livestock that was used for food, clothing, and energy in the New World.  The first kind of livestock that was introduced to the New World were horses, dogs, pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, and goats.  The use of livestock in the New World became very important, especially in the savanna regions since crop cultivation was not suitable in that climate region.  People used cattle for their hides and also their meat, which is why cattle became one of the biggest assets of the New World.  The meat from cattle supplied explorers with the nourishment that they needed, however, the downfall of cattle was that they destroyed the native’s crops because of grazing and trampling (Essays, UK, 2013).   Explorers brought over horses from Europe because horses were an essential part of their everyday lives because they were used as carriers of information for the explorers.  Eventually over time, the horses multiplied and became free in the wild.  

        Although the arrival of Columbus in the Americas brought many positive things to the New World such as the exchange of animals, foods, and plants, not all aspects of his arrival were positive.  The Columbian Exchange is responsible for the transmission of diseases, which affected both the Old World and the New World.  According to Crosby, “the migration of man and his maladies is the chief cause of epidemics”.  The Native population was immensely impacted by the diseases that Columbus and other Europeans brought over because the natives had no prior exposure to the disease, therefore, their immune systems could not handle it.  The spread of disease spread rapidly, killing many natives (Gray 2014).  One of the deadliest disease that affected the natives was smallpox, which caused high fever, vomiting, and eruptions formations on the skin.  Infectious diseases had the most impact on the natives following the arrival of Columbus and his men.  

        Through the Columbian Exchange, there were advantages, like crop cultivation and new animals, and disadvantages, like the spread of diseases.  Alfred Cosby argued that Columbus and the plants and animals that he brought to the New World is the cause of extinction of other various species that were native to the Americas, which eventually led to global warming, a problem that we are facing today.  Per Laymen’s journal entry in Feeding global warming: Assessing the impact of agriculture on climate change, most of the world’s crop diversity originated and evolved from the Columbian Exchange, however, because of new crops in the New World, some of the existing plants became extinct.  The natural evolution of plant species could have been compromised due to new species that came on the land.  Expanding the various crops to more regions of the world later resulted in deforestation and increased emissions of carbon dioxide.  The Columbian Exchange was identified as an important event in the world’s history, but in some ways, this event may have contributed to global warming.