Columbian Exchange

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Inca-era terraces on Taquile are used to grow traditional Andean staples, such as quinua and potatoes, alongside wheat, a European import.

The Columbian Exchange has been one of the most significant events in the history of world ecology, agriculture, and culture. The term is used to describe the enormous widespread exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and ideas between the Eastern and Western hemispheres that occurred after 1492. Many new and different goods were exchanged between the two hemispheres of the Earth, and it began a new revolution in the Americas and in Europe. In 1492, Christopher Columbus' first voyage launched an era of large-scale contact between the Old and the New Worlds that resulted in this ecological revolution: hence the name "Columbian" Exchange.

The Columbian Exchange greatly affected almost every society on earth, bringing destructive diseases that depopulated many cultures, and also circulating a wide variety of new crops and livestock that, in the long term, increased rather than diminished the world human population. Maize and potatoes became very important crops in Eurasia by the 1700s. Manioc and the peanut flourished in tropical Southeast Asian and West African soils that otherwise would not produce large yields or support large populations.

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This exchange of plants and animals transformed European, American, African, and Asian ways of life. Of the world's top 26 crops, measured by weight of production, eight originated in the Americas. One third of the crop value within the United States depends on foods that were first grown in the Americas.

New foods became staples of human diets and new growing regions opened up for crops. For example, before AD 1000, potatoes were not 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. One of the first European imports, the horse, changed the lives of many Native American tribes on the Great Plains, allowing them to shift to a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting bison on horseback. Tomato sauce, made from New World tomatoes, became an Italian trademark, while coffee from Africa and sugar cane from Asia became the main crops of extensive Latin American plantations. Also the chili / paprika from South America was introduced in India by the Portuguese and it is today an inseparable part of Indian cuisine.

Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no paprika in Hungary, no tomatoes in Italy, no pineapples in Hawaii, no rubber trees in Africa, no cattle in Texas, no burros in Mexico, no chili peppers in Thailand and India, no cigarettes in France and no chocolate in Switzerland. Even the dandelion was brought to America by Europeans for use as an herb.

Before regular communication had been established between the two hemispheres, the varieties of domesticated animals and infectious diseases were strikingly larger in the Old World than in the New. This led, in part, to the devastating effects of Old World diseases on Native American populations. The smallpox epidemics probably resulted in the largest death toll for Native Americans. Scarcely any society on earth remained unaffected by this global ecological exchange.

[edit] Table of comparison

Pre-Columbian Distribution of Organisms with Close Ties to Humans
Type of organism	From Old World to New World list (what they had)	From New World to Old World list (what they had)
Domesticated animals	bee cat camel chicken cow dog goat goose horse rabbit (domestic) pig rock pigeon sheep silkworm water buffalo	alpaca dog guinea pig llama turkey
Domesticated plants	almond apple apricot artichoke asparagus banana barley beet black pepper cabbage cantaloupe carrot coffee cotton (short staple "Egyptian" variety) citrus cucumber eggplant flax garlic hemp kiwifruit kola nut lettuce mango millet oat okra olive onion opium peach pea pear pistachio radish rhubarb rice rye soybean sugarcane taro tea turnip wheat walnut (common variety: Juglans regia) watermelon	amaranth avocado bean bell pepper blueberry cashew chia chicle (chewing gum base) chili pepper (includes the bell pepper) coca cocoa cotton (long staple variety, 90% of modern cultivation) huckleberry maize (corn) manioc (cassava) (yuca) papaya peanut pecan pineapple potato quinoa rubber squash (incl. pumpkin) sunflower strawberry (American species used in modern hybrids) sweet potato tobacco tomato vanilla
Infectious diseases	bubonic plague cholera influenza malaria measles scarlet fever sleeping sickness smallpox tuberculosis typhoid yellow fever	syphilis (possibly. See the syphilis article for details) Great Pox yaws yellow fever (American strains)

[edit] Unintentional introductions

In addition to the diseases mentioned above, many species of organisms were introduced to new habitats on the other side of the world accidentally or incidentally. These include such animals as brown rats, earthworms (apparently absent from parts of the pre-Columbian New World), and zebra mussels. Plants thus introduced include many weeds, such as tumbleweeds, wild oats, and kudzu. Even fungi were transported, such as the one responsible for Dutch elm disease. Some of these species became serious nuisances upon being established. Plants that were introduced to Europe after 1492 are so-called Neophytes, whereas plants that made it over the sea before that date are called Archaeophytes.