Essay On The Columbian Exchange

When one thinks of the America that exists today, many people do not think about how the New World became America. When Columbus first discovered the Americas the only thing in the New World was native life. So, how did all these plants, animals, disease, and technology make their way to the transfer from the Old World to the New World, and from the New World to the Old World? The answer to this question would be the Columbian Exchange. Referring to the exchange of diseases, ideas, food crops, and populations between the New World and the Old World following the voyage to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492 (Nunn, and Qian). This exchange was very important to the development of America, and would help lead America into becoming a world power later in history. The Columbian Exchange brought domestic animals, crops, diseases, and technology to the New World and to the Old World.

There had been many things brought over by Columbus from the Old World. One of these things being domestic animals. Domestic animals were a very …show more content…
Without the Columbian Exchange I believe America would not be the way one sees it today. In fact neither would places like Europe, Asia, and other countries all around the world. Both the New and Old world benefited from the Columbian Exchange in the long run. The Columbian Exchange is astounding, to me it seems so crazy that cultures were meshing together and as a human population, we were becoming one unified race. Alfred W. Crosby describes the Columbian exchange as, "The seams of Pangaea were closing, drawn together by the sailmaker's needle. Chickens met kiwis, cattle met kangaroos, Irish met potatoes, Comanches met horses, Incas met smallpox—all for the first time." America was not simply formed from dust. Overall, the Columbian exchange set the stage for the America that we all know and love