What was the Columbian Exchange?

• The three voyages made by Christopher Columbus to the New World in the 1400s.

• The widespread epidemics, along with warfare, famine and slavery killed off an estimated 54.5 million people — approximately 90% of the indigenous population.

• The widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and Eurasia in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Europeans traveled to America to discover new medicines. The task of cataloging the new plants found there led to the emergence of the science of botany.

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Microbes to which native inhabitants had no immunity caused sickness and death everywhere Europeans settled. Along the New England coast between 1616 and 1618, epidemics claimed the lives of 75 percent of the indigenous people.

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Colonizers built fields, fences, and other means of demarcating private property. Indigenous (native) people who moved seasonally to take advantage of natural resources now found areas off-limits, claimed by colonizers.

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Higher caloric foods went around the world giving people in the New and Old World a larger food supply.

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Due to labor shortages, Native Americans were employed through the Spanish system of “encomienda,” which granted a European responsibility for a certain number of natives. Those who received the grant were supposed to protect the natives and provide instruction in the Spanish language and the Catholic faith. Natives were forced to provide tribute in the form labor, gold, or other products.

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Western Europe underwent what was known as the Commercial Revolution. Colonization provided both a new source of raw materials and new markets for European products. This led to an increase in commerce and exchange for Europeans.

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