COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE

Columbian Exchange refers to the great changes that were initiated by Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) as he and other Europeans voyaged from Europe to the New World and back during the late 1400s and in the 1500s. When Columbus landed at Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic) in 1492, he brought with him horses and cattle. These were the first animals of their kind seen in the Western Hemisphere; the American Indians had no beasts of burden prior to the arrival of the Europeans. In subsequent trips Columbus and other explorers would introduce horses and livestock (including cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and chickens) throughout South and North America. Diseases were another early—albeit accidental—transport from Europe to the New World. Native inhabitants had no immunities to the foreign illnesses and, once exposed, died in numbers.

While Europe carried its seeds of change to the Western Hemisphere, the new lands yielded many plants unknown in Europe. On Columbus's 1492 voyage he became the first European to discover maize (corn), sweet potatoes, capsicums (peppers), plantains, pineapples, and turtle meat. Subsequent expeditions found potatoes, wild rice, squash, tomatoes, cacao (chocolate beans), peanuts, cashews, and tobacco. These plants, many of which had been developed and cultivated by the American Indians, were carried back to Europe and their cultivation spread to suitable climates throughout the world. Europeans later carried plants from the east back to the Americas where they took hold. These included rice, sugar, indigo, wheat, and citrus fruits.

The discovery of new lands in the west set off waves of migration which have ebbed and flowed ever since. But the discovery also resulted in exchanges of plants, animals, diseases, and even knowledge that brought dramatic changes to the world: it transformed the way people dressed, ate, traveled, and provided for themselves and their families.