Entitled after Christopher Columbus, the Columbian Exchange is simply the trade that occurs among the Americans, West Africa and the old world which are often limited to the European colonization. The transference that occurs among these countries includes the widespread transmission of animals, plants, philosophy, concepts, human populations, and technology. It was the coming of Columbus that outlined the globalization of animals, germs, plant and so on.
It was the Europeans who got measles, wheat, and horses to America while in this trade, the Americans brought turkeys, potatoes and tobacco to Europe. The Europeans also brought earthworm aid for the growth of agriculture and transformed America. The earthworm started spreading in the extinct large parts of North America, and whenever this species spread, it changed the landscape, breaking down the fallen foliage and causing nutrient erosion. This enhances plant growth and tends to take away living space from bugs and concurrently, providing a new source of food for many birds.
The Columbian Exchange story begins in Jamestown, in a British colony now the US state of Virginia, in America, captured when a Portuguese slave ship was captured by nearly two dozen black saves on-board. Since it was harvest time, the slaves were capitalized on by the Jamestown which in a way, set the seal on slavery in America. Though what the tobacco farmers didn’t know was that in the process of buying labor of services, they have also acquired the diseases these Africans have in their blood. That was why Plasmodium falciparum, the carrier of malaria, now gained a grip in North America, which is the high price the colonial masters have to pay for their atrocities.
Just as Europe’s agriculture becomes overly dependent on a product from South America, it becomes of great significance to industry, as rubber either in the form of cable insulation, sealing rings, rings for pipes and so on. Nowadays, it is regarded as a significant part of the modern technology that no matter how rapidly rubber exports increased in Brazil, demand keeps growing and prices continue to inflate.
Potatoes
Due to the Columbian Exchange, plants originally from the Americans were delivered at the international level. The cause of this was the fact that they have become an essential part of crops. Previously crops like potatoes were only were cultivated out of the South America borders. This crop eventually became a fundamental element in the nutrition process. At the same time, maize and cassava were introduced by the Portuguese in the 1600s, replacing the sorghum and millet as African most essential food crops. However, colonizers in Spain introduced new kind of staple harvests in the Asiatic territory.
Rice
Rice is another plant that becomes generally cultivated during the Columbian Exchange. The cause of this was the increase in the request which led to an increase in knowledge on how to plant and grow it
Tomatoes
Tomatoes didn’t get accepted easily, in fact, it took almost three centuries after tomato introduction, the potato is the only plant that took as long as the tomato to be accepted. Moreover, in the olden days, tomatoes are mainly grown in elite town and were mainly grown as ornaments in Italy.
Livestock
The Columbian exchange of animals has gone through one route, from Europe to the new world with its region having many more domesticated animals. Native people rapidly embraced the idea to have animals like sheep, goats, donkeys, dogs, chicken, bees and so on for food, transport, and many other uses. This is a component of the first trades from Europe to America which transformed the lives of countless Native Americans. But notwithstanding, the effects of the introduction of the European livestock on its people were not always positive.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that what plays a role in China’s fate is three crops which are potatoes, corn, and rice, what makes these unusually high head and hardy non-indigenous plants were able to grow even in soil that would not have supported rice cultivation. The Americans were able to grow with these advantages.
Class of culture
Class of culture can also have transferred European values to indigenous culture, for example, the role of women and children in the family system, the concepts of the nuclear family. This type of cultural exchange came during the 1500s in North America. For the Europeans, they were seeking economic opportunities, so for the success of the mission, land, and resources were necessary and vital.
Tobacco
As a direct result of the Columbian Exchange, Tobacco happens to be one of the luxury plants spread as a result of this. This makes the demand for tobacco grew rapidly in the course of the cultural exchanges and continuously increased contacts among peoples.
Conclusion
Even though the enslaved Africans have a negative effect right from the start, they later have positive effects on the Americans by representing skilled labor and also giving way to a new population which represents a hybrid of the two cultures in comparison.
