World History / Unit 6: Renaissance, Reformation and the Age of Exploration
6.7 The Columbian Exchange and the Atlantic Slave Trade
Notes
Contact between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres transformed the world.
- The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of plants, animals, people and diseases between the hemispheres.
| From the Americas | From Afro-Eurasia |
|---|---|
| Maize, potatoes, tomatoes, cacao, tobacco | Wheat, sugar cane, coffee, rice |
| Turkeys | Horses, cattle, pigs, chickens |
| Smallpox, measles |
- American crops like the potato and maize helped populations grow in Europe, Africa and Asia.
- Mercantilism: nations believed wealth was limited and measured in gold and silver, so they wanted colonies to supply raw materials and buy finished goods.
- To work sugar and other plantations, Europeans enslaved Africans. About 12.5 million Africans were forced onto ships from the 1500s to the 1800s.
- The Middle Passage was the brutal voyage across the Atlantic; many died from disease and abuse.
- Triangular trade: manufactured goods to Africa, enslaved people to the Americas, and sugar, tobacco and cotton to Europe.
- Effects in Africa: loss of young people, increased warfare and lasting damage to societies.
Practice
Which best describes an effect of the Columbian Exchange?
American food crops improved diets across Afro-Eurasia.
Under mercantilism, colonies existed mainly to:
Mercantilists wanted a favorable balance of trade.
The Middle Passage was:
It was the second leg of the triangular trade.
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