Columbian Exchange

Columbian Exchange Considering Crosby’s The Columbian Exchange Directions 1. Respond to the following quotation from the introduction of the book The Columbian Exchange by Alfred Crosby. “The first step to understanding man is to consider him as a biological entity which has existed on this globe, affecting, and in turn affected by, his fellow organisms, for many thousands of years.” Using your knowledge of world history before 1450, identify and explain 3 examples that support Crosby’s assertion. Type response here: 1) Disease: Kills off people therefore making room for more plants and animals thrive. Ex: Black Death. 2) Agriculture: Destroys land, which takes away from the environment 3) Development of cities: Deforestation of trees, which causes pollution in the air. 2. Respond to the following quotation from the introduction of the book The Columbian Exchange by Alfred Crosby. “The most important changes brought on by the Columbian voyages were biological in nature.” Identify and explain 3 specific changes that would support Crosby’s assertion. Type response here: 1) The cultivation of plants (cash crops): created loss of biodiversity in the Americas but also the spread of crops improved many European’s nutritional diets. 2) The domestication of animals: horses, pigs and cattle: had declined the Native population in the Americas because they were often carriers and creators of new diseases. 3)The deadly exchanges of diseases such as measles, smallpox, and influenza: brought huge shortages to workers in the Americas, which caused a wipeout of population. 3. Which biological organisms that travelled from the Americas to Afro-Eurasia had the largest long-term effect? Explain why. Type response here: Staple crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco had a long term effect because they increased to Afro-eurasia population and added more nutrition to their diets. 4. Which biological organisms that travelled from the Afro-Eurasia to the Americas had the largest long-term effect? Explain why. Type response here: Biological organisms such as horses, diseases and sugar had the longest term effect because we still use horses today, we have vaccines for diseases and every single American even diabetics have sugar included in their diets. Biological Exchanges Directions The way it was before biological connectivity: Respond to each of these three quotations in three ways: • Identify whether the quotation is from a primary or secondary source. • Describe how what is said in the document might reflect the audience, the purpose of the document, the historical context, or the author’s point of view. • Describe how the document demonstrates an aspect of the biological context before the Columbian Exchange. 1. From Christopher Columbus’s journal, which he expected to share with his benefactors in Spain: “I saw neither sheep nor goats nor any other beast, but I have been here but a short time, half a day; yet if there were any I couldn’t have failed to see them…. All the trees were as different from ours as day from night, and so the fruits, the herbage, the rocks, and all things.” Type response here: H: Christopher Columbus is the primary source and he is sailing around the Americas. A: Christopher Columbus’s Audiences are his benefactors in Spain. P: It’s exotic and he’s explaining what he’s seeing. P: Christopher Colombus is the leader and it’s explaining was he see as he is sailing. 2. From Joseph de Acosta, a member of the Roman Catholic clergy, writing about his early experience in the Americas. “There are in America a thousand different kinds of birds and beasts of the forest, which have never been known, neither in shape nor name; and whereof there is no mention made, neither among the Latins nor Greeks, nor any other nations of the world. It may be God hath made a new creation of beasts.” Type response here: H: Joseph de Acosta is the primary source and he is touring the Americas. A: His audiences are the Roman Catloic Clergymen. P: He sharing his experience and what he saw at first sight in the Americas. P: This source is from Acosta’s point of view and he is explaining how the things he saw are different or not as he expected to be. 3. From an Amerindian from the Yucatan writing about the time before the arrival of the Europeans. “There was then no sickness; they had no aching bones; they had then no high fever; they had then no smallpox; they had then no burning chest; they had then no abdominal pain; they had then no consumption; they had then no headache. At that time the course of humanity was orderly. The foreigners made it otherwise when they arrived here.” Type response here: H: This is from a primary source because it is explaining that everything Columbus had seen was different from what any European have normally seen. A: The audience is the people of his tribe. P: To tell his people that the European’s threw everything off because everything that Columbus has seen was biologically different from what he has seen. P: The point of view is from Christopher Columbus. He is not happy about the European’s being there. The way it was after biological connectivity Respond to each of these four quotations in three ways: • Identify whether the quotation is from a primary or secondary source. • Describe the type of evidence used to make the argument. • Describe how the document demonstrates an aspect of the biological context after the Columbian Exchange. 1. From the historian Alfred Crosby’s book The Columbian Exchange. “Migration of man and his maladies is the chief cause of epidemics. And when migration takes place, those creatures who have been longest in isolation suffer most, for their genetic material has been least tempered by the variety of world diseases. Among the major divisions of the species homo sapiens, with the possible exception of the Australian aborigine, the American Indian probably had the dangerous privilege of longest isolation from the rest of mankind. Medical historians guess that few of the first rank killers among the diseases are native to the Americas. These killers came to the New World with the explorers and the conquistadors. The fatal diseases of the Old World killed more effectively in the New, and the comparatively benign diseases of the Old World turned killer in the New.” Type response here: ● This quotation is from a secondary source. ● The evidence that he used was from medical theories about diseases and the transmissions. ● Based on the document it demonstrates davasting results because many people were non resistant to vaccines. 2. From Thomas Hariot, an English colonist of Roanoke Island, which was a very early attempt at a colony. “There was no Indian village where hostility had been shown, but that within a few days after our departure from every such town, that people began to die very fast, and many in short space; in some towns about twenty, in some forty, in some sixty and in one six score, which in true was very many in respect to their numbers. The disease also was so strange that they neither knew what it was, nor how to cure it; the like by report of the oldest men in the country never happened before, time out of mind.” Type response here: ● This quotation is from a primary source. ● The evidence that Thomas Hariot were from his observations and from the reports of the oldest men in the colony. ● Based on the document it demonstrates shocking, confusing and davasting results because many people died from the fast wide spreading of diseases but no one knew how to cure it or even how it came about. 3. From the historian Alfred Crosby’s book The Columbian Exchange. “As the number of humans plummeted, the population of imported domesticated animals shot upward. The first contingent of horses, dogs, pigs, cattle, chickens, sheep and goats arrived with Columbus on the second voyage in 1493. The animals, preyed upon by few or no American predators, troubled by few or no American diseases, and left to feed freely upon the rich grasses and roots and wild fruits, reproduced rapidly. Their numbers burgeoned so rapidly, in fact, that doubtlessly they had much to do with the extinction of certain plants, animals, and even the Indians themselves, whose gardens they encroached upon.” Type response here: ● This quotation is from secondary source (a book). ● The evidence used is from Alfed Croby’s point of view and his experiences. ● Based on the document, it demonstrates positive results because biodiversity such as plants (crops) and animals was increasing rapidly due to the plummet of many human populations which made more room for agriculture. 4. From the historian Alfred Crosby’s book The Columbian Exchange. “The history of European horticulture in the Americas really begins with the second voyage of Columbus, when he returned to Espanola with seventeen ships, 1200 men, and seeds and cuttings for the planting of wheat, chickpeas, melons, onions, radishes, salad greens, grape vines, sugar cane, and fruit stones for the founding of orchards.” Type response here: ● The quotation is a secondary source. ● The evidence used is from Columbus’ point of view and his experience while sailing. ● Based on this document, it demonstrates positive results because Columbus was able to bring the spreading of crops into the European Region which in effect improved many Europen’s nutriutional diets. Explain why historians do not consider the Columbian Exchange as a trade system like the Silk Road or the Indian Ocean Trade System. Type response here: Historians don’t consider the Columbian Exchange as a trade system like the Silk Roads or the Indian Ocean because the Euopeans were not influential: they merely advanced the technology and without them being involved in trade before, they did little to no trading with other regions. Also there was very little European involvement compared to the existing trade routes and they did not provide any new or valuable products to the Columbian Exchange. It was during the Silk Roads and Indian Ocean Trade that global interconnection increased and there were more prominence of ideas being diffused and technological innovations being constantly advanced. This was also a way for the regions to get connected to trade routes. Where as before they were isolated during the Columbian Exchange. Using specific examples, explain how the Americas and Eurasia were biologically different before 1492. Type response here: Before 1492, the Americas and Euraisa were biologically different because it wasn't until Christopher Columbus and his crew sailed to the Americas in October 1492, that both regions started interacting with each other. Before 1492, the original descendants of Eurasia did not bring the diseases because they traveled through the cold and they had no domesticated animals. It was after 1492 that Europeans brought diseases to the Americas, such as smallpox and measles, many of these diseases were caused by bringing domesticated animals to the Americas. Explain the long-term consequences on humans and the environment that resulted from the Columbian Exchange. Type response here: The long-term consequences on humans and their environment that resulted from the Columbian Exchange was that it spread along many disease which wiped out many populations and caused millions of deaths to occur in the Americas. However, many new crops and foods were exchanged which restored the population that had been lost. These new foods that were exchanged were rich in vitamins and minerals, they had new flavors, and they became embedded in the lives of those who they traded with. For example,many Europeans had benefited the most from these new crops because it had helped improve their nutritional diets. Also, many residents from the Americas left to settle in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, and many residents from the eastern hemisphere left to settle in the Americas. Overall, the Columbian Exchange resulted in a huge population growth, even though many lives were lost to diseases. Apply Your Understanding Compare demographic and environmental effects of the Columbian Exchange on the Americas with the Columbian Exchange’s demographic and environmental effects on one of the following regions between 1492 and 1750. • Africa • Asia • Europe Thesis: Between 1492 and 1750, Africa and the Americans experienced similarities in the introduction of new crops in their regions, movement of natives and disease. They also had differences in shifts demographic of population, the amount of deaths, ethnicity exchanges and the environment. Africa and the Americas had both faced population declines. The Americas faced rapid population decline due to rapid spread of Western European diseases(influenza, smallpox, etc). Africa faced population decline due to the vast shipment of slaves to the Americas. During the Colombian Exchange era The Americas saw many new people. Thousands of Euopean settlers from various nations traveled to the Americas. However, Africa didn’t see European Colonization during the Columbian Era (it occurred later). Another difference is that Africa's agricultural methods stayed the same while in the Americas biodiversity was thriving there was an increase a crops and domesticated animals due to plantations. On the plantations, several slaves and indentured servants would harvest and plant commercial cash crops, mainly sugar cane and tobacco.