The Columbian Exchange

Beginning with Columbus in 1492, sustained contact between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres triggered a vast biological and cultural exchange. By 1750 the effects had reshaped diets, demographics, and economies on every inhabited continent.

From the Americas to the rest of the world: corn (maize), potatoes, tomatoes, cacao (chocolate), tobacco, vanilla, beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, turkeys, syphilis

From Europe/Africa/Asia to the Americas: wheat, rice, sugarcane, coffee, citrus fruits, bananas, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and diseases (smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus)

Demographic catastrophe: Old World diseases, especially smallpox, killed an estimated 80-90% of the indigenous population of the Americas in the centuries after 1492. This was one of the largest demographic collapses in human history. It is also why African slavery became central to the New World economy: indigenous labor had been decimated.

Notice how the Columbian Exchange illustrates the enduring issue of interconnectedness. The Irish potato dependency that would cause the 1840s famine, Italian tomato sauces, Chinese sweet potatoes, and African cassava are all downstream effects of the Exchange.