The Columbian Exchange
The Columbian exchange moved commodities, people, and diseases across the Atlantic.
The Old World and the New World swap people, spices, gold, and diseases in the Columbian Exchange!
This video explores the Columbian Exchange, which involved the interchanging of plants, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the Americas following Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean in 1492. What would a national exchange look like today? Hopefully we would avoid smallpox now—although the Native Americans of the 1490s weren’t that lucky.
John Green teaches you about the changes wrought by contact between the Old World and the New. John does this by exploring the totally awesome history book The Columbian Exchange by Alfred Crosby, Jr. After Columbus "discovered" the Americas, European conquerors, traders, and settlers brought all manner of changes to the formerly isolated continents. Disease and invasive plant and animal species remade the New World, usually in negative ways. While native people, plants, and animals were being displaced in the Americas, the rest of the world was benefitting from American imports, especially foods like maize, tomatoes, potatoes, pineapple, blueberries, sweet potatoes, and manioc. Was the Columbian Exchange a net positive? It's debatable. So debate. This resource contains footage of an individual taking "the Cinnamon Challenge" a previously viral internet food challenge that has been deemed unsafe by medical professionals. Please discourage students from mimicking this practice.