Kistler, L. Multiproxy evidence highlights a complex evolutionary legacy of maize in South America. Science , , — Mann, C. How the Potato Changed the World. Smithsonian Magazine. McNeill, J.
The Columbian Exchange. Columbian Exchange. Nunn, N. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24 2 , Mokyr, J. Great Famine. Qu, D. How the Chinese Eat Potatoes. Agriculture and Food , Spencer, D. Cassava cultivation in sub-Saharan Africa.
Achieving Sustainable Cultivation of Cassava Volume 1 , — Skip to main content. You are here Home. The Native Americans preferred their own foods.
When it came to animals, however, the Native Americans borrowed eagerly from the Eurasian stables. The Columbian Exchange brought horses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and a collection of other useful species to the Americas. Before Columbus, Native American societies in the high Andes had domesticated llamas and alpacas , but no other animals weighing more than 45 kg lbs. And for good reason: none of the other 23 large mammal species present in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus were suitable for domestication.
In contrast, Eurasia had 72 large animal species, of which 13 were suitable for domestication. So, while Native Americans had plenty of good food crops available before , they had few domesticated animals. The main ones, aside from llamas and alpacas, were dogs, turkeys, and guinea pigs. Of all the animals introduced by the Europeans, the horse held particular attraction.
Native Americans first encountered it as a fearsome war beast ridden by Spanish conquistadors. However, they soon learned to ride and raise horses themselves. In the North American great plains, the arrival of the horse revolutionized Native American life, permitting tribes to hunt the buffalo far more effectively.
Several Native American groups left farming to become buffalo-hunting nomads and, incidentally, the most formidable enemies of European expansion in the Americas.
Cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats also proved popular in the Americas. Within years after Columbus, huge herds of wild cattle roamed many of the natural grasslands of the Americas.
Wild cattle, and, to a lesser degree, sheep and goats, menaced the food crops of Native Americans, notably in Mexico. Eventually ranching economies emerged, based variously on cattle, goats, or sheep. The largest ranches emerged in the grasslands of Venezuela and Argentina, and on the broad sea of grass that stretched from northern Mexico to the Canadian prairies. Native Americans used the livestock for meat, tallow , hides, transportation, and hauling.
Altogether, the suite of domesticated animals from Eurasia brought a biological, economic, and social revolution to the Americas. In terms of diseases, the Columbian Exchange was a wildly unequal affair, and the Americas got the worst of it. The flow of disease from the Americas eastward into Eurasia and Africa was either trivial or consisted of a single important infection.
Much less is known about pre-Columbian diseases in the Americas than what is known about those in Eurasia. Based on their study of skeletal remains, anthropologists believe that Native Americans certainly suffered from arthritis. They also had another disease, probably a form of tuberculosis that may or may not have been similar to the pulmonary tuberculosis common in the modern world. Native Americans also apparently suffered from a group of illnesses that included two forms of syphilis.
One controversial theory asserts that the venereal syphilis epidemic that swept much of Europe beginning in came from the Americas; however, the available evidence remains inconclusive. Before Columbus, the Americas had plenty of domesticated plants. By the time Columbus had arrived, dozens of plants were in regular use, the most important of which were maize corn , potatoes, cassava , and various beans and squashes.
Lesser crops included sweet potato, papaya, pineapple, tomato, avocado, guava , peanuts, chili peppers, and cacao, the raw form of cocoa. It spread to Egypt, where it became a staple in the Nile Delta, and from there to the Ottoman Empire, especially the Balkans. By , maize was the major grain in large parts of what is now Romania and Serbia, and was also important in Hungary, Ukraine, Italy, and southern France. It was often used as animal feed, but people ate it too, usually in a porridge or bread.
Maize appeared in China in the 16th century and eventually supplied about one-tenth of the grain supply there. In the 19th century it became an important crop in India.
Maize probably played its greatest role, however, in southern Africa. There maize arrived in the 16th century in the context of the slave trade. Southern African environmental conditions, across what is now Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and eastern South Africa, suited maize handsomely.
Over the centuries, maize became the primary peasant food in much of southern Africa. The potato had little impact in Africa, where conditions did not suit it. But in northern Europe the potato thrived. It had the most significant effect on Ireland, where it promoted a rapid population increase until a potato blight ravaged the crop in , bringing widespread famine to the area. After , Scandinavia, the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, and Russia also gradually accepted the potato, which helped drive a general population explosion in Europe.
This population explosion may have laid the foundation for world-shaking developments such as the Industrial Revolution and modern European imperialism. The potato also fed mountain populations around the world, notably in China, where it encouraged settlement of mountainous regions. While maize and potatoes had the greatest world historical importance of the American crops, lesser crops made their marks as well. In West Africa, peanuts and cassava provided new foodstuffs.
The Columbian Exchange has been an indispensable factor in that demographic explosion. All this had nothing to do with superiority or inferiority of biosystems in any absolute sense.
It has to do with environmental contrasts. Amerindians were accustomed to living in one particular kind of environment, Europeans and Africans in another. When the Old World peoples came to America, they brought with them all their plants, animals, and germs, creating a kind of environment to which they were already adapted, and so they increased in number.
Amerindians had not adapted to European germs, and so initially their numbers plunged. Quinn, ed. Samuel E. Morison New York: Knopf, , Alfred W. Crosby is professor emeritus of history, geography, and American studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Crosby's theory of the Columbian Exchange being mostly having to do with evironmental contrast makes a lot of sense due to all the evidence he gives while writing this article. What I think is most important is, Crosby also talks about the effect of disease in both the Old and New World.
Crosby states "Native American resistence to the Europeans was ineffective" and "The crucial factor was not people,plants,or animals,but germs. In my opinion,if the Amerinidians and Europeans hadn't encountered each other,then the decline of the Amerindians would be less or none without the disease brought by the Europeans. But, Crosby gives great evidence on this by talking about how smallpox was a huge part of the decline of the indians; also in a visualization map on this very website shows and states the disease's "Movement was vastly weighted in the direction of Old to New Crosby and what he has to say about the Columbian Exchange.
It is likely true that without the so-called "Columbian Exchange" the population of Native Americans would have remained more stable. While I would submit that changes in the climate had already lead to food scarcity and increased conflict, I admit that would not have been nearly as devastating as the various pathogens brought by the Europeans. While the tragedy of the Indians is just that, we must realize that it wasn't in vain. As the essay notes, some good did come of it, in the form of increased food production globally.
Despite their loss, their legacy lives on through the fact that those who remain are alive and flourishing, with poverty globally being steadily diminished, and standards across the world being raised. In this article the entire Colombian Exchange is addressed.
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