Columbian Exchange

• The Columbian Exchange describes transoceanic movement of goods, people, and ideas that reshaped Atlantic societies.
• European expansion drew on stronger states, new technologies, capitalism, and prior Afro-Eurasian exchanges.
• Disease devastated Native American populations, while enslaved Africans were forcibly transported to supply labor.
• The exchange of animals, crops, and farming methods transformed environments, diets, politics, and economies.
• The Columbian Exchange accelerated globalization while producing both wealth and profound human suffering.

The Columbian Exchange linked Afro Eurasia and the Americas through ocean travel in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It moved goods, people, ideas, animals, crops, and disease across hemispheres. Disease killed perhaps as many as 90% of Native Americans in some areas, while millions of Africans were forced into slavery. New crops and animals changed diets, land, trade, and power. This exchange helped drive globalization, bringing wealth and longer lives to some and deep suffering to many others.