The Columbian Exchange

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The Columbian Exchange

• European Immigrants are all over the place,
  which requires explanation
• Alfred Crosby

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Why would the 'Columbian Exchange' be considered
the tsunami of unintentional "bio-terrorism"??
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The Columbian Exchange

• The Columbian Exchange is the sharing of
  cultures that transformed the lives of two
  continents.
• Its was a two-way process with people, goods, and
  ideas moving back and forth.
• The three main elements are Plants, animals and
  disease

• Plants
• Animals
• Diseases
• Demographic
• Mineral Wealth
• Trade Items
• Technology
• Language
• Religion
• Economy
• Government

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The Columbian Exchange
Squash Avocado Peppers Sweet Potatoes
Turkey Pumpkin Tobacco Quinine
Cocoa Pineapple Cassava POTATO
Peanut TOMATO Vanilla MAIZE
Syphilis
Trinkets
Liquor
GUNS
Olive COFFEE BEAN Banana Rice
Onion Turnip Honeybee Barley
Grape Peach SUGAR CANE Oats
Citrus Fruits Pear Wheat HORSE
Cattle Sheep Pigs Smallpox
Flu Typhus Measles Malaria
Diptheria Whooping Cough
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The Exchange can be positive or negative in its
effects

• In the exchange that was made widespread by
  Columbus, Disease was the most negative for
  Indian peoples
• Fatality rate over a period of two to three
  generations was 95 for many tribal groups
• In some cases, as in the Mohegans case, the
  fatality rate could be 100

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Europeans believed that it was Gods will that
Indians died

• There was no germ theory at the time of contact
• Illness in Europe was considered to be the
  consequence of sin
• Indians, who were largely heathen or
  non-Christian were regarded as sinners and
  therefore subject to illness as a punishment

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New World Diseases

• Not all pathogens traveled from Europe to the
  Americas
• Syphilis, polio, hepatitis and encephalitis were
  new world diseases
• African slaves were less vulnerable to European
  diseases than were Indians
• Europeans succumbed to Malaria easily

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Old World Diseases

• European disease was particularly virulent
• Smallpox, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough,
  chicken pox, bubonic plague, scarlet fever and
  influenza were the most common diseases exchanged
• Nearly all of the European diseases were
  communicable by air and touch.
• The pathway of these diseases was invisible to
  both Indians and Europeans

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Disease raced ahead of people

• In most cases, Indian peoples became sick even
  before they had direct contact with Europeans
• Trade goods that traveled from tribe to tribe
  though middlemen were often the vector of disease
• There is little or no evidence to think that
  Europeans intentionally infected trade items for
  trade with Indians to kill them

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Mainland outbreaks

• Diseases, especially smallpox, were transported
  from the Caribbean to the mainland by the Cortez
  expedition in the 1630s
• A sick African infected the Aztecs of Mexico City
• Incubation of smallpox is 14 daysthis causes the
  disease to spread over great distances
• Smallpox killed half the Iroquois populations in
  1738 and again in 1759
• Entire tribe of Mandans died in the winter of
  1837-38

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Why were Europeans immune?

• Has everything to do with their original
  environments
• Most pathogens originate with animals or insects
• Domesticated animals and plants were more
  numerous in Europe
• Greater diversity meant more ecological
  protection

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Disease

• The greatest genocide in human history.
• Central Mexico
• Indigenous population decline from 25 million to
  less than one million with a century. Around
  Mexico and Central America population decline by
  as much as 90 percent.
• Caribbean
• In the island of Hispaniola population declined
  from one million to 1492 to 46,000 by 1512.
• North America
• 90 percent of the Indian population where gone
  within a century of the Puritan landing on
  Plymouth Rock.

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Demographic Impact

1. Indian population decrease
2. African Diaspora
3. European Migration
4. Mixing of Populations (miscegenation)

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Indian Population Decrease

• Diseases
• In Europe an outbreak of small pox would kill 30
  percent of those infected. In the American the
  small pox death rate was nearly 50 percent.
• War
• The battle of Tenochtitlan lasted eight-day where
  240,000 natives perished.
• Labor
• Many Natives are worked to death

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African Diaspora

• A decrease of Native America population prompted
  to import labor from Africa.
• They worked in mines, agriculture, port towns,
  and sugar mills.
• African slaves were imported to all parts of
  America.

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European Migration

• A relative small number of European males
  migrated Latin America and the Caribbean during
  colonial period.
• To give an example from Mexico and Central
  America in 1570 only about 60,000 or 2 percent of
  the total population 3,096,000, was classified as
  white.
• By 1650 that white population had doubled to
  120,000 roughly 6 percent of the depleted total
  of 1,880,000.
• At the close of the colonial era in 1825 about 1
  million or 14 percent of the total population of
  just over 7 million was white.

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Miscegenation

• The intermixing of Indians, Africans, and
  Europeans created a multi-racial society.
• Color became status symbol.
• Complex race structure.
• Peninsulares Europeans born in the the Iberian
  Peninsula.
• Creoles Children of European descent born in
  America.
• Mestizo Offsprings of European and Indian
  unions.
• Mulatto Children of European and African unions.
• Zambos Indians and Black.
• Coyotes Mestizos and Indian..

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PLANTS

• Americas
• Maize
• Potato
• Tomato
• Tobacco
• Beans
• Cacao
• Cotton

• Europe
• Sugar
• Rice
• Wheat
• Coffee
• Banana
• Grapes

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The silent invasion of America

• Plants were brought by Europeans to the New World
  to see how they would flourish as cash crops
• Plants and seeds also harbored old world weeds
  (pathogens)
• Old world plants, weeds and animals were all more
  opportunistic because of their original, more
  competitive environments
• Crowded out indigenous plants and animals

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Animals

• Europe
• Cattle
• Horse
• Pigs
• Sheep

• Americas
• Turkey

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Missions

• What was the importance of the Missions?
• Missions played a key role in the colonizing the
  United States.
• Foundation of American cities
• Founders of key USA cities such as San Antonio,
  El Paso, Santa Fe, Tucson, San Diego, Los
  Angeles, Monterrey, and San Francisco.
• Franciscans founded 40 thriving mission in
  Florida and the Southwest.
• Acculturation Center- agricultural practices,
  cultural, and religious.

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Treasuresfrom the Americas!
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Mercantilism

• The economy and trade are essential to the
  health and safety of the nation.

1. Get as much gold and silveras you can.
2. Establish a favorable balance of trade.
3. Get colonies.