"In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." So begins a popular children's poem, which many generations have recited in schools while studying the voyages of the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506). But we now know that Europeans—including the Vikings—had reached Europe previously. So why are Columbus' voyages considered so important?
Christopher Columbus' arrival in North America created large-scale connections between Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas that still exist today. It also began a chain of events that dramatically changed the environment, economic systems, and culture across the world. This transfer of goods, people, microbes^1
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start superscript, 1, end superscript, and ideas is often referred to as the Columbian Exchange. This exchange created new global networks and radically shaped communities in the Americas.
The Columbian Exchange connected almost all of the world through new networks of trade and exchange. The inter- continental transfer of plants, animals, knowledge, and technology changed the world, as communities interacted with completely new species, tools, and ideas. The Columbian Exchange marked the beginning of a period of rapid cultural change.
Explanation:
As new markets and products came into the world economy, new patterns of production, distribution, consumption, and trade also emerged. For example, the rise of plantation farming and cash crops pretty much re-invented the economy. These patterns changed the social and economic organization of the Americas. This included the rise of the Atlantic slave trade and other labor systems.
The Columbian Exchange also had some unintentional but devastating results due to the transfer of diseases. Horrific epidemics, some far worse than the Black Death in both their severity and lasting effects, were enabled by exchange. In the Americas, in particular, millions died. These epidemics resulted in massive demographic (population) shifts. This in turn affected the environment and economic systems. The transfer of plants and animals also affected the environment by introducing new species that competed with and sometimes displaced native plants.
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