This is a fun way to think about differing perspectives and how a simple shift in viewpoint might completely change the meaning of something. Multiple historians looking at one event will often come up with very different interpretations of the same historical account. This can also be said about how any two people can have differing views of the same process or situation. This is often most noticeable in political debates, but also when there are different perspectives of an event, such as the interpretation or recounting of a war from the winning versus losing side.

Read the following poem.

Worst Day Ever?

by Chanie Gorkin

Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don’t try to convince me that
There’s something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
This world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don’t last.
And it’s not true that
It’s all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be attained
Only if one’s surroundings are good.
It’s not true that good exists
I’m sure you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It’s all beyond my control
And you’ll never in a million years hear me say that
Today was a very good day.
—
Now read it from bottom to the top, the other way,
And see what I really feel about my day.

Once you’re done reading the poem in both directions, think about how this poem can be an analogy for how historians (and people generally) often interpret the same event in a variety of different ways. Can you think of a more recent time when people had very different views of the same event or circumstances?

Christopher Columbus’s voyages to the Americas created new pathways of exchange between Afro-Eurasia and the Americas—for better or for worse. These exchanges gave the Irish potatoes and the Italians tomatoes, but also led to diseases and invasive species that decimated populations in the Americas. Overall, the global population rose, but for many communities in this region, the Columbian Exchange was a disaster.

This article introduces the Columbian Exchange: its effects on the population, environment, and labor after 1492. It’s your first deep look at the first global age, so it will be central to your response to the Unit 3 Problem: How did transoceanic connections transform global economic systems and societies in different parts of the world? It will highlight similarities and differences between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia before and after the Columbian Exchange, allowing you to analyze and compare its uneven effects.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What were indigenous communities like before the Columbian Exchange?
2. Why were indigenous Americans so vulnerable to diseases?
3. How did epidemic diseases affect the environment and the economy?
4. What animals were domesticated by humans in the Americas, before and after the Columbian Exchange?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following question:

1. The author of this article argues that the “Columbian Exchange completely changed the face of the world.” Based on the evidence in this article, do you agree with this assessment? Why or why not?

Plants play a major role in world history, and the plants that moved as a result of the Columbian Exchange are a great example. After 1492, plants moved across new channels, and they had monumental effects on populations, the environment, and production and distribution, decisively changing the face of the planet.

The Unit 3 Problem asks: How did transoceanic connections transform global economic systems and societies in different parts of the world? This article will give you evidence you can use to think about this question. Specifically, this article provides information on how the transfer of plants across the Atlantic impacted the populations and environments of different regions. You’ll build on this information in later articles and videos in this lesson.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What’s the difference between staple crops and cash crops? What different effects did they have?
2. How did European plantation owners maximize profits?
3. In what ways did European colonists impact networks and production and distribution?
4. How did European use of crops and animals affect the environment in the Americas?
5. What effect did the introduction of the potato have on European populations? How did this change over time?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following question:

1. The author of this article argues that the “Columbian Exchange completely changed the face of the world.” Based on the evidence in this article, do you agree with this assessment? Why or why not?

In this activity, you have an opportunity to be creative while considering the biological impact of the Columbian Exchange. By creating menus related to what was available on each side of the world and how this availability grew once the world zones connected, you will have a more concrete sense of how an everyday activity like eating was so drastically changed by globalization.

In this activity, you will create a café menu that represents different world zones and uses what was available in each zone, both before and after the Columbian Exchange.

In the article “Crops that Grew the World,” you learned about the biological impact of the Columbian Exchange. In the article “The Columbian Exchange,” you learned more about the details of what came from each world zone, the massive impact of the spread of disease, and a bit about how the movement of plants and animals impacted communities, networks, and production and distribution. In this activity, you’re going to zoom in and think more about the everyday lives of people—in particular, what those people ate.

Imagine that you are restaurant owners getting ready to open The World Zone Café. This café will not only serve delicious food, but will teach people about the origins of flora and fauna (plants and animals), and how the movement of these plants and animals changed people’s lives. To do this, you are going to create a small café menu with two appetizers, two entrées (main dishes), and two desserts. Two of the menu items must be made from ONLY plants and animals available in the Americas; two items must be made from ONLY plants and animals available in Afro-Eurasia; and two items must include ingredients from BOTH world zones. You can use the infographic from the article “The Columbian Exchange” to remind yourself of which plants and animals originated from which area.

Once you’ve created your menu, be prepared to share your meal ideas with the class. Do the things you enjoy eating most originate in the Americas or Afro-Eurasia, or do they mostly come from both places? How might your meals (and traditions associated with them) be different today if the world zones had not connected in this way? Also, do you think connecting the world zones was worth it, keeping in mind the legacy of destruction in the wake of Columbus’s explorations? Finally, if you could have a meal from any of the menus in class, which one would you choose and why?

People tend to focus on the benefits of global interactions, but the costs are just as important. Historians don’t know the exact number, but global interactions between 1500 and 1600 led to a staggering number of deaths to indigenous American and African populations. There were also negative consequences for regional cultures and economies. When we evaluate the impact of the Columbian Exchange, we need to consider them.

This article will build on earlier articles and videos about the Columbian Exchange. It has a special focus on the environment and population of the Americas and in Africa. While previous articles talked about both the good and the bad, this article is entirely about the disastrous results the Columbian Exchange had on some regions. This regional-level evidence will help you compare across contexts and switch scales from global to regional. It will also help you see an important world-historical pattern, which is that big changes lead to uneven results for different communities.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Why is it difficult for historians to determine the scale of the Great Dying?
2. What groups of people migrated to the Americas involuntarily?
3. What do the categories “mestizo” and “mulatto” mean? Who came up with these categories?
4. How did the population of sub-Saharan Africa change as a result of the Columbian Exchange? How did this affect production and distribution?
5. What was the plantation complex? Whom did it benefit?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following question:

1. The author claims that “demographic changes in both the Americas and Africa were mostly disastrous for indigenous peoples. European economies and communities were the ones that mostly benefited from their arrival in the Americas and from the Atlantic slave trade network.” Using this article and other articles and videos in this lesson, find evidence that supports, extends, or challenges this claim.

John Green explores the impact of the Columbian Exchange, tracing the monumental effects of the movement of diseases, plants, animals, and people across the globe. From totally new cuisines to demographic devastation and then explosion, the Columbian Exchange changed populations, cultures, labor, and the environment. But John Green poses the question: Did it leave us better off?

This video focuses on the major changes that happened after 1492, which will help you tackle the Unit 3 Problem: How did transoceanic connections transform global economic systems and societies in different parts of the world? You’ll be able to build on what you learned in earlier articles about the Columbian Exchange, and you’ll deepen your understanding of how the population and the environment changed in different regions. This information will help you compare across different contexts, and it will also help you understand how the uneven effects of the Columbian Exchange have shaped our present world.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. What effects did the Columbian Exchange have on the global biological landscape?
2. What were the demographic effects of the Columbian Exchange in the Americas?
3. In what context were Europeans able to take over Aztec and Incan lands?
4. How did animals from Afro-Eurasia impact the Americas?
5. Out of the four categories discussed—disease, animals, plants, and people—which had the biggest effect on Afro-Eurasia, according to John Green? What were some of those cultural and demographic effects?
6. Initially, the Columbian Exchange led to the decimation of the population of the Americas, mostly as a result of disease. How did this pattern of demographic decline change over time?
7. By the end of Era 5, what were the principal global effects of the Columbian Exchange?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. While the Columbian Exchange arguably made the world more similar and connected, its effects were unevenly felt in different parts of the globe. Use evidence from this video to think through these Era 5 Problems: How did changes in the environment, demographic changes, and new forms of coerced labor affect some regions of the world more than others? What were the impacts of the Columbian Exchange for people living in different regions and social classes around the world? Why and how were the impacts similar and different?
2. At the end of the video, John Green poses the question: “Are longer, healthier lives for more humans worth the sacrifice of an impoverished biosphere? And most importantly, how will your conclusions about those questions shape the way that you live your life?” How might the patterns and trends presented in the video have importance for other studies, later history, or your life more generally?

Understanding the causes and consequences of historical events and processes is an essential skill for historians. Sometimes, it’s easy to see how one event caused another, but usually, it’s far more complicated than that. Most historical events have multiple causes, and these can vary from short term, intermediate term, or long term. Without an understanding of historical causation, you may not correctly attribute why something happened. This is not only relevant when looking at history, but when looking at events in your own lives. In this activity, you will learn how to differentiate between short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term causes and classify the reasons why people began to migrate after the Columbian Exchange, and also why they migrate today.

Contextualization, claim testing
The focus of this activity is on causation, but in order to fully understand causal relationships, you must be able to place these historical events or processes in the context of their time and place. Use the language of contextualization in this activity whenever possible. Finally, claim test the assertions you make in the short writing assignment at the end of the activity.

In this activity, you will read the article “Transatlantic Migration Patterns” to determine the causes for the human migration that began during this period. You’ll add these causes to the Causation Tool, which is included in the Causation – Migration worksheet, and then respond to a causal prompt.

Have you ever moved? Maybe across town, or out of state, or even out of the country? What were the reasons for your move? There are all kinds of reasons for moving. Why do you think people decided to take a dangerous journey across the Atlantic Ocean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries? Be prepared to discuss your answers with the class to create a list of causes for why people migrated during this period. Your teacher will write the class’s list on the board.

Next, download and read the article “Transatlantic Migration Patterns.” As you read, underline or highlight information that relates to reasons why people began to migrate. Once you’ve read the article, you’ll review your information in small groups to create a list of all the causes you found for transatlantic migration.

After your group has identified all causes, discuss these as a class and compare with the list on the board. Did you do a good job of predicting some of the reasons for transatlantic migration?

Then, review a few categories of causation, along with the language we use to describe them:

• Time: Long term, intermediate term, and short term
• Historical significance:
  • Amount – How many people’s lives were affected by the cause/effect?
  • Depth – Were people living in the time period being studied deeply affected by the cause/effect?
  • Endurance – Were the changes people experienced as a result of this cause/effect long-lasting and/or recurring?

In this activity, you are adding one more category: Type. Categorizing causes by historical type will help you group similar causes together, which is the kind of analysis that historians do when they categorize the economic or political causes of an event or process. Review the different categories for type. There’s also a mnemonic device to help you remember these categories: PIECES.

• Type: Historical type
  • (P) Political – What type of government, organization, or power structure was there? Who was in charge? Did people vote or have a say?
  • (I) Innovation – What did they invent? Were there any new developments or technologies?
  • ($) Economic – What jobs were there? Did they use money? Did they trade?
  • ο(C) Cultural – What/whom did they worship? What/whom did they believe in? Did they have written language? Did they leave any artifacts behind, such as art, customs, sports, dress, language, music, dance, foods, celebrations?
  • (E) Environmental – How did they attempt to control or use the environment? What impact did the land, water, and nature around them have on the way they lived?
  • (S) Social – Were there different roles for men and women? Did they live in family units? Did they interact with other groups? Did they have a social structure (enslaved, priests, kings)?

After you’ve reviewed this category of causal analysis, work in your group to complete the Causation Tool. First, add your causes and effects then categorize your list of causes by time and type (we’ll get to the other categories of causation in later activities).

Finally, write a response (two to four sentences) to the question:

What was the most significant cause AND what was the most significant effect of migration in this era?

Remember to use the language of causation to help frame your responses, and back up your assertions with evidence. Be sure to include categorizations from the tool—time and type—as well as historical significance.

To wrap up, think about whether your most significant cause and effect are connected. The most significant causes and effects can be quite different and even seem unrelated, which is one of the things that makes causation more complicated than it may seem on the surface!

Your teacher may extend this activity by asking you to create a list comparing transatlantic migration during this historical era to migration today.

People moved across the Atlantic Ocean for many reasons, but most migrants didn’t have much of a choice. Some migrants were looking to escape from religious persecution or were trying to find jobs, while others were kidnapped into enslavement and forced into lives of hard labor. Combined, this movement of led to huge changes to environments, populations, and cultures.

This article gives you some context about transatlantic migration patterns and why they happened. It shows how changes in one region caused global changes that affected many other regions, which gives you evidence you can use to answer the Unit 3 Problem: How did transoceanic connections transform global economic systems and societies in different parts of the world? You’ve already learned a lot about the Columbian Exchange’s movement of plants, animals, and germs in previous articles and videos, but this article takes a closer look at the movement of people and its dramatic effects.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. According to the article, what three key events shaped transatlantic migration patterns in this period?
2. What were the main reasons Europeans voluntarily migrated to the Americas in this era?
3. How did the forced labor of African and indigenous people in the Americas affect the lives of working class Europeans?
4. What nineteenth century trend began to change transatlantic migration patterns yet again?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following question:

1. How did the shape of communities change in the Americas due to the circulation of both voluntary and involuntary migrants? Which groups were easily able to shape their new communities, and which groups appear to have had more difficulty? How might these different experiences affect societies in the Americas, still, today?

After Spanish conquistadors sacked the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, they tried to convert the Aztec and other indigenous peoples in the region. Missionaries soon followed the conquistadors. The Spanish used a variety of strategies to speed up conversion, both forcing people to convert and providing incentives to encourage them to do so. Indigenous people both violently resisted and accepted the new religion. But there was a lot of ground in between these two choices. And as more people converted, more elements of indigenous religion and culture blended with Catholicism. The effects of this blending are still felt in Mexican and global Catholicism today.

This article uses the communities frame to reflect on the cultural aspects of the Columbian Exchange. By providing you evidence at the local and regional level, it will prepare you to respond to the unit problem and understand how the global connections forged after 1500 changed communities and reshaped cultures on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What is the difference between Spanish conquistadors and missionaries?
2. What were some reasons the Spanish were so eager to get people to convert?
3. What were some strategies used by the Spanish to try to convert the indigenous population?
4. What were some things that motivated some Aztecs to convert?
5. How is the Lady of Guadalupe an example of religious syncretism, according to the author?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. This article focuses on how religious syncretism shaped communities. What are some ways that networks likely played a role in the conversion of Mesoamerican indigenous communities?
2. This article makes the point that the Columbian Exchange wasn’t just a biological exchange but also a cultural exchange. Can you think of any ways that the biological exchange of plants, animals, and people also created cultural shifts in different parts of the world?

In this activity, you’ll continue to develop your sourcing skills by analyzing two primary source documents, each written from a different perspective, about the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. As you analyze the documents, you’ll focus on the Historical Context, Purpose, and Importance rows of the Sourcing Tool. In doing so, you’ll also learn how using multiple sources from different perspectives can give you a better understanding of a historical event.

Claim testing
Claim testing is an integral part of sourcing. In order to evaluate a source, we must use intuition, logic, authority, and evidence to analyze the document in order to understand the source’s point of view and reason for writing.

Since this activity is your introduction to using the Sourcing Tool for a historical document, your teacher will guide you through the process. In this activity, you’ll read two primary source excerpts, complete the Sourcing Tool focusing on historical context and purpose, and write a response to a prompt. At the end of the activity, you’ll work together in small groups to answer the importance row of the tool.

Before you get started, think about why you should even bother with sourcing. Sourcing helps us understand the past by analyzing the evidence that people or societies left behind. Sometimes, this evidence is limited and as a result, we have to draw conclusions by carefully evaluating sources and artifacts. Other times, there is a lot of evidence or there are sources to help us explain a historical event or process. But even if we have lots of source material, we still have to analyze the sources to understand their different points of view and perspectives. Sometimes people refer to different points of view as author bias. But we should remember that all primary source material has some bias—we all have lenses through which we view the world, and those viewpoints can help us better understand the point someone is trying to convey. In history, this can help us construct a clearer account of the past.

In this case, you’re going to read two primary source documents as a class so you can answer these questions: What were the motivations of the Spanish conquerors? And what were the responses of the Indigenous peoples to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire?

The idea here is to figure out the purpose and perspectives of those writing about the same historical event and how that shapes the sources. Your teacher will either hand out or have you download the Sourcing – Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire worksheet, which includes the Sourcing Tool and excerpts. You’ll review the documents as a class, and then see if you can come up with an answer to the question based on what you’ve read. This may be hard to do—and that’s OK! You’re going to answer the same questions again later, but only after you’ve sourced the document like a historian would. Now, take out the Sourcing Tool and really focus on the Historical Context and Purpose rows. Go through the worksheet with your class, and then revisit the questions: What were the motivations of the Spanish conquerors? And what were the responses of the Indigenous peoples to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire?

Think about how you might have read this text differently, or had a different perspective, after your first reading. Then, discuss the following questions with your class: Would you have a different perspective if you hadn’t gone through this sourcing process? Would you have fully understood this text without knowing the historical context in which it was written? How does knowing about the purpose and audience for the text give you a fuller picture of this text’s significance?

Finally, your teacher will break the class up into small groups of three to four students. Work with your group to answer the questions in the Why? (Importance) row of the tool. Your teacher will collect your worksheets to evaluate your sourcing skills.